We are currently working on the new Mail by Hand website for our Mailing House division and yet, even without the much-needed facelift, visitor figures are already showing massive increases. This is a direct result of the new links to our mailing division that have been built into our new-look Whitney Woods website. We hope to follow this with the addition of similar links to Mail by Hand from our Pop-up mailers website.

The reason for making the links so prominent is not only to try to encourage new business but it is also because we are always trying to make things both easier and better for our customers.

Our mailing services are of particular relevance to customers who buy automatic pop-up products which are powered by rubber bands. Being a natural product, rubber starts to lose its elasticity when stored at full stretch and when our pop-ups are in their mailing envelopes they are at full stretch, primed ready to jump out to create the impact that is required to make a successful mailing piece. If the pop-ups are stored flat for over a week, the impact is nothing like as good as it is when they are brand new. If we handle the mailing side of your promotion as well as the print, production and assembly, your pop-ups go straight from assembly into the postal system to arrive on your customer’s desk in the next morning’s mail.  This delivers the best possible pop-up effect with your promotion arriving in the best possible condition.

Let’s take a look at another scenario where we deliver the finished goods to your premises by courier. Your warehouse staff receive the goods from the courier and let you know that the consignment has arrived. You might unpack the boxes to make sure everything is OK (and, of course, everything will be OK). You then re-close the packaging and ship them out again to your own local mailing house. They will the open all the boxes and affix mailing labels before putting them through the mail system.

Not only do you incur two lots of carriage costs, you have caused the goods to be subjected to an extra four instances of unnecessary handling and the pop-ups have been stored at full stretch for a couple of days longer than was necessary. This is not only far less desirable but also much more expensive than if you had entrusted the mailing to us. Using our mailing house services quite simply makes things easier, better and cheaper!

I was trying to explain to one of our trainees just how difficult it is to publicise a product on the internet when that product doesn’t really have a name. There are products on the market with quite specific trade names but without a well-known generic name it’s not easy! I wrote about a similar problem quite recently concerning wheel charts.

However, in this instance, the example I used was based on the Interloop Mailer. This is a brilliant marketing product which starts life in a square format. However, as soon as you handle it you are automatically invited to open two flaps on the front. On doing so, the Interloop changes from a square to a cross shape with two more flaps that are just begging to be opened. Open those and you are led to another cross, then a third before being taken back to the square where it starts over again. All the time you are turning it inside out to reveal a new format and new graphics and text. Brilliant! So what is it?

When I first saw one of these many years ago I was told that it is called a tumble card. So when giving the GSD Interloop Mailer a generic name on our website I called it a tumble card. However, put “tumble card” into Google and press search and the Interloop Mailer seems to be the only one. So “Tumble card” cannot be the world-wide generic term. I have searched the sites of other manufacturers to find a generic term but all I find are trade names. I guess that the only way to find one is to describe the product in the most succinct way possible. For example; the card is used for advertising, marketing and promotional use and it turns and folds so search for something like turning and folding advertising card or folding and turning promotional product. The searches will lead you to the GSD Interloop Mailer so we are happy that you can find us but not having a generic name does create a headache on the SEO front as do many of our unusual interactive mailers such as the product that we call a Push’n'Pull or the Starburst.

Since early April it seems that we have had nothing but interruptions to our regular business week. Starting with the Easter weekend, followed by two Bank Holiday weekends in May and now we’ve got the World Cup! On each of these occassions our job bookings took a hit and website viewing figures slumped. We are apparently still teetering on the edge of recession, we are allegedly in danger of the dreaded “double dip” and yet the UK seeems desperate to take time off with businesses actually closing early yesterday to watch the World Cup opening day on TV. When does the UK actually stay open for business?

We are fast approaching the holiday season and just when it’s coming to a close we will have the August Bank Holiday. This will be followed by 3 - 4 months of proper trading before it starts all over again with the very bizarre Christmas and New Year period. In this particular spell there are 3 official Bank Holidays and yet many businesses close for at least two weeks. What for? Who in their right mind wants to take time off when the days are short, wet, cold and dark? And how many nights in a row can you get off your face drunk?

All of these holiday factors make running a business very difficult with so many ups and downs and as you might guess, I find it all very frustrating. In the USA most private sector companies get only the “Big 6″ national holidays and if the holiday falls on a Saturday then many banks actually forfeit the holiday. Annual leave is something that often is earned by length of service rather than automatic entitlement and the whole economy seems to be geared to work rather than play. What’s more, the people seem to like it. The country was built by people who were ambitious, forward thinking or who just simply wanted the chance to work hard and to earn a living. For the most part, the work ethic has stuck.

Our own business is very much allied to the advertising, marketing and promotions industries and that means that we are subjected to seasonal peaks and troughs. The likelihood of client companies spending thousands on a pop-up mail shot when their own prospects are on holiday is slim. The notion that a company might want an interactive mailer to land on a customer’s desk on the week either side of Easter is equally unlikely. The chances of someone planning a B2B promotion that will arrive the week before Christmas or at any time from then until the second week of the New Year are quite remote.

We might have 52 weeks in a year but realistically there are no more than 40 which are regarded as good for targetting B2B promotions for general business. On the other hand, of course, we have a totally disproportionate amount of enquiries for Christmas marketing projects which will run prior to mid December so that compensates a little.

However, thinking about all thgis has made me depressed so I think I might take a short break for a couple of days!

I have recently been giving you some insight as to which products are proving to be most popular according to our visitor stats. There are obvious reasons why some unusual choices might be high in the charts. Take pop-up cards for example. We know that we have a large internet following of card-making and card-crafts emthusiasts and whilst this element of our readership brings in many visitors, it doen’t attract as many business users. As we  are essentially a B2B website we realise that the chart position of pop-up cards will not be emulated by its position on our sales chart - information that I will not be sharing with you!

However, visitor figures are a good indicator of how well our SEO efforts are working and also on how certain sectors in the marketing industry are performing and I’m pleased to say that visitor figures are up by 12.8%. That might not sound like a lot but it is the first significant rise in that sector for over 12 months so I hope that it is a sign that things are improving for our colleagues in events and exhibition management businesses.

Obviously, it is better for us when the whole of the marketing industry is buoyant but the events market creates quite a significant contribution to our annual turnover. Many of our products are popular as event inviations such as the pop-up cube and pop-up pyramids. We also get many requests for bespoke pop-ups in relation to exhibitions such as the pop-up house. Other products are popular as handouts or giveaways at exhibitions particularly our pocket-sized products which have a good record for “keepability” rather than being discarded without ever being read as are many leaflets and pamphlets. Products such as our mini starburst and foldilocks are good examples.

So, let’s hope that this is a sign that better times are on there way for the events and exhibitions market which was hit harder than many marketing sectors in the recession.

What’s in a name, eh? A spade’s a spade, isn’t it? So how come there are so many different names in the cardboard engineering trades that all describe the same thing?

Here’s an example. We have a selection of products that we call dissolvers. The paper engineering “trick” is performed by two interwoven pieces that create a changing picture effect. How about this for a selection of names; woven dissolve, dissolver, picture dissolve, changing picture mailer, slatted mailers and slatted dissolvers. All of these are used by different pop-up manufacturers.

Even a simple folding technique such as that used in our Foldilocks card is known as a concertina fold, an accordian fold, a Z fold and a zig-zag fold whilst our Flicker Card is also called a waterfall card, a flick card, a flip-flap and a gallery card.

But the most ridiculous example of all is that provided by a really simple product. Everyone has seen them but what are they called? What is it? Well, the description is easy - two printed discs made on lightweight card and fastened at the centre with an eyelet or something similar. The top disc will usually have a couple of windows cut out to reveal the print on the disc underneath. The purpose is to provide an easy and entertaining way to pass on information. So what are they called?

Here are some examples of generic names currently in use by manufacturers: wheel charts, information discs, spinners, volvelles, disc calculators, ready reckoners, circle charts, colour wheels, comparison charts, product specifiers… US manufacturer, Datalizer.com lists about 40 different names on its website whilst a book on the product called “Reinventing the wheel” by Jessica Helfand lists over 100 different trade names!

Our print industry customers have it right when they call to ask if we can eyelet 10,000 of those circular whatsits!