How Fulfilment Services Can Help Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign A Success.

Direct Mail Marketing -The Keys

Direct Mail Marketing furnishes you with an approach to lead a test of the business sector in which you wish to operate. You'll know fairly rapidly whether the sector you're testing bears fruit or not.

However, executing a viable Direct Mail Marketing Campaign, is more about properly researching and planning the campaign. One must take into consideration that Direct Mail Marketing can actually be used in every phase of the sales funnel. Irrespective of whether you are concentrating on lead generation, promoting a new product or service, customer relationship management or engaging in database development, Direct Mail Marketing can be beneficial. Direct Mail can be used to send anything from creatively designed promotional packets, cards, letters, brochures and catalogues. The goal is to engage your customers.

This post will not educate readers on how to target and implement a successful Direct Mail Marketing Campaign, but it will demonstrate how a fulfilment service can be your knight in shining armour.

What Can a Fulfilment House Provide in Terms of Assisting a Direct Mail Marketing Campaign?

 

Data Management:

Data is the MOST important Key to the success of any Direct Mail Marketing Campaign. The contacts to whom you wish to mail promotional material are your most important asset. With no list, you have no chance of delivering your material. However once you have that list, then you will need to cleanse it from any human typographical errors to ensure you don't waste valuable time and money sending material to incorrect emails or physical addresses.

How JEM will Help
We employ our own bespoke software. Our data processing team uses this to perform undertakings, such as data cleansing, information purifying, de-duplication and postcode verification. These tasks serve to diminish cost and waste, allowing you to stay up to date with the latest results, making your standard mail proficient while offering the best conceivable rate of return.

Postage & Packaging Materials:

Postage and packaging materials play a central part in all Direct Mail Marketing Campaigns. The cost to post and pack your catalogues, CDs, DVDs, brochures and any other items can be costly and impede on the number of mailings you will be able to dispatch.

How JEM will Help
When it comes to a successful Direct Mail Campaign the cost of postage and packaging, as stated before, will either make or break the success of your campaign. No matter if it is just for a mailing within British Isles or if you intend to go Global, that's where our expertise coupled with our resources will help cut your expenses. We are able to work with you to eliminate mailing expenses and find the maximum return on your mail campaign. The nature of JEM's Fulfilment business allows us to source packaging materials and postage at better rates than you and your business could obtain. Don't let the cost of postage and packaging become a buffer to the success of your Direct Mail achievements.

Fulfilment:

Fulfilment the task of sending the mailings to the identified customers. This process includes storage, inventory management, picking and packing and concludes with posting the materials required for a Direct Mail Shot. Our fulfilment services will cut down process and dispatch times while maintaining the integrity of your company's ethos and brand. While utilising our services, you can spend your time focusing on other Direct Mail Campaigns or business growth related activities. Our services are aimed to relieve you and your business of time consuming administrative activities while still giving you control over each process.

By Erik Miller

JEM Marketing & Fulfilment Services Ltd.
The Invisible Link- Between your business and its customers
www.j-e-m.com

Tips to organise Your enterprise for Growth

The Most Effective Method to Prepare Your Small Business for Growth from Inventory to Employees

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­When you're propelling a new business venture, the objective is normally centred on developing your client base and making deals. Every now and then making game plans for what is going to happen in the approaching months and years is not of fundamental concern.

Regardless of the fact that you've made a marketable strategy that digs to a degree into tentative arrangements, these are normally simply unpleasant evaluations of what you think may happen not far off. Yet as you begin to get into the segment of your normal business, it easy to disregard what you need to do to keep driving improvement. Yes, there's a ton to consider when taking the jump from being a start up in its early stages to blossoming into an established business.

Now the question that probably comes to mind; what should you focus now on to guarantee conceivable development? Listed below you will find ordinary ponderings that are worth investigating when you have high ambitions to take your business to the next level.

Adaptability

Due to globalisation and the advancement of technology, it should be no surprise that today’s market place is filled with many ambitious solo entrepreneurs.  There are more visionaries and micro-organisations now than at any other time in history. Anybody with desire, extraordinary item or administration can begin offering on shopping platforms such as Amazon, eBay and or Shopify to name a few. However not every business is suited to grow from a small one or two man operation into a fortune 500. There is more that goes into business development than closing deals. These numbers must be supported by progressions to operations, staff, location and facilities.

Vision

It's paramount to ask yourself: What will your business look like on the prospect that it develops and profits fabricate? Would you be able to juggle more clients and still have time for a life outside of your business? Can you handle the anxiety and commitment if this happens?

It should be said that not every business development path advances with the same goals or objectives in mind. Some have ambitions to become a global multi-million dollar venture, while for others, it could be as basic as increasing deals enough to have the capacity to leave a day job. Distinguishing your interpretation of success is basic for planning for development, and there is no routine answer that is a good fit for everybody.

 Stock

If your business model revolves around selling items, then stock is a key consideration when getting ready for advancement. Undoubtedly, inventory management is a champion amongst the most troublesome parts of creating a business. Would you have the capacity to get a greater amount of what you're offering if there was more prominent interest? In the event that you're making handcrafted items and have already maxed out what you can do, the reaction may be no. On the other hand, in the event that you have a supplier who will cheerfully furnish you with more stock, your business might be well situated for development. This prompts the issue of money.

Financing

Developing a business takes cash. Money needs to be available to purchase stock, contract help, and build advertising endeavours regularly. This is the reason it’s critical to do continuous money stream projections. Evaluate the amount of financing you may require before you begin doling out additional, to help your business' development.

Bank advances are one alternative, yet regularly conventional moneylenders are hesitant to give financing unless there is considerable security, secured business credit, and a nitty gritty strategy for success.

Equipment

What works fine when you have a couple of clients can get to be extraordinarily abate and wasteful when the business starts to develop. Everything from charge card handling gadgets and printers to bundling apparatus and conveyance trucks may need to be assessed before you hit the following venture in your business development. Not having sufficient supplies and or equipment can have a considerable effect on your end result.

Merchants

Perhaps you've been utilising a local courier service, local farm or area printer to make pamphlets and bundling for you. While it’s incredible to help a neighbourhood business, on the off chance that they can't help your development, it may be time to proceed onward to a merchant who handles bigger records. Practically every business in development mode hits the purpose of needing to change merchants. It is well worth your time and exertion to take a seat with them and enquire as to whether they can help your development. In the event that they can, then you may have the capacity to develop together. If not, it’s reasonable to move on.

It is important to select your business suppliers carefully from the get go. At JEM we take a partnership approach when working with our clients. We work with all types of businesses regardless of the sector or size. Additionally, we do not put limits or require monthly order minimums that could place a burden on newer businesses. We were once a small business, nearly 30 years ago. So we understand just hard it can be in the early stages.

If your a product oriented business, handling stock in-house, will appear to be the most cost effective option from the start. You will have more control over the storage, picking, packing and delivery of your products. But, when you begin to think about the time it will take to manage those tasks, cost to hire additional personnel, costs of distributing your products, what first appeared to be a sensible decision can actually effect the growth of your business. At JEM we provide a customisable fulfilment solution that will save you time and provide high customer service levels at the lowest possible unit cost. JEM has been able to save many small and medium sized businesses money and time with their flexible small business fulfilment solutions.

Staff

Having the right individuals set up is a necessity to maintain development. Additionally, these individuals need to be the team that you accept, that will help you run your business when you've grown to the next level. Contract workers who you feel certain might be fruitful in the size organisation you are striving to attain. They'll be your support team, your go-to-go members on staff as you voyage to get that next level of success.

Base Camp

Also known formally as your business headquarters. All businesses start from somewhere, whether it’s in your flat, garage and or university library. However most business can’t be supported in these alternative spaces. When you consider your objectives, imagine where you can get these going and the amount that will cost you on a month to month premise. Having the opportune spot to develop your business could be crucial to providing for you enough space to develop as well as to how your clients see your business.

Apart from just having a place to do all your administrative business activities you may need additional facilities for storage and a pick and pack area for order processing. Instead of going down the costly route of leasing or buying more space, equipment, another more economical option is outsourcing. JEM provides affordable storage and pick and pack solutions that have been proven to aide in business growth and development for previous clients of theirs. JEM keeps charges simple and charges a flat fee for storage and warehousing with no hidden fees, such as ‘in and out,’ ‘racking’ or ‘unloading’ fees. These services can provide support and that additional leverage to get your business running successfully.
 

Promotional & Marketing

Promotional Marketing is a common tool in driving more business. Do you have contenders who have more piece of the pie than you? Discover where they publicise and how they deal with their web showcasing exertions. They may be worth copying, or you may pick up some significant knowledge into what you can improve on.

 

Retreat Strategy

Each business visionary ought to consider what they imagine for the last part of their business. Maybe you might want to pass it on to your youngsters. Or maybe you accept top hopes of it getting bought by a competitor. Strategising on how you wish to retire from your business venture is actually an important factor in your business development plan and affects a lot of the decisions that you will make on your journey.

Ready to take the plunge and Grow?

Thinking of the many possibilities and potential outcomes of where your business can go and the amount it can develop, is both exciting and energising. Truthfully, this fervour is often precisely what moves people to join the ranks of the many entrepreneurs in any case. With boundless conceivable outcomes, business is without a doubt an astounding background that can convey an enormous feeling of pride and fulfilment.

by Erik Miller
JEM Marketing & Fulfilment Services Ltd.
The Invisible Link- Between Your Business and its Customers
www.j-e-m.com

What is Fulfilment?

Additionally, What is the Fulfilment Process?

By Definition: Fulfilment is the process of receiving, packaging and shipping order for goods (Entrepreneur.com) 

Fulfilment services are business processes often outsourced to fulfilment companies also known as fulfilment houses. These businesses are third party services that take care of fulfilling client orders on the business owner's behalf.

What's involved in the fulfilment process?

• Data Processing & Order Processing
• Storage & Warehousing
• Inventory Management
• Pick and Pack
• Customer Services
• Banking
• Ecommerce
• and more...

 The fulfilment house works close with their clients to ensure each task that is outsourced is followed according to the clients brand and or company ethos.

The fulfilment process begins by receiving the products from the clients supplier, storing the clients inventory, receiving the orders from the clients sales pipeline, picking and packaging the orders as they come through and sending them off via post. Fulfilment can additionally include payment processing, customer service handling and returns handling.

Note: Fulfilment services can be used outside of ecommerce in other areas such as response handling, promotional fulfilment and even market research.

Who can use Fulfilment Solutions?

• Ecommerce
• Retail
• Market Research
• Promotional Marketing
• Direct Mail
• and more...

When it comes to fulfilment, because every company is different, the fulfilment process varies between each company. Companies have two options when it comes to handling fulfilment.

1st Option: In-House Fulfilment
It's quite common for businesses to handle their own fulfilment, but as time progresses and the sales grow, in-house fulfilment can eat away valuable time that could be spent on growth related activities as well as cost you financially. Keep in mind as your business and sales volumes grow so will your need for additional storage space and staff.

Growth Related Activities: These activities could be anything from product research and development, marketing and or promotional campaigns.

2nd Option: Outsource to Fulfilment House
A fulfilment house can free up your time by allowing them to take on your daily business processes. Businesses who switch to using a fulfilment house enjoy the seasonal flexibility, lower shipping costs and convert fixed costs to variable costs.

              Seasonal Flexibility:
                  When the holiday seasonal rush is right around the corner businesses no longer need to stress and worry about taking on temporary staff to support the influx of demand. This also means that those businesses do not need to worry about training new staff and or purchase new equipment to keep up with the rush and when the rush dies down their are no excess employees or idle equipment.

              Lower Shipping Costs:
                   Since shipping is a key service that most all fulfilment houses dabble in, their mail volumes grant them the ability to get lower mailing rates that your business might not be able to negotiate.

               Convert Fixed Costs to Variable Costs:
                   Storage facilities regardless if they are purchased or leased come attached with fixed costs. Some fixed costs could be rent, heating / air conditioning, plumbing and security services to name a few.

Basic Fulfilment Solutions include

 

Warehousing

The fulfilment house should be able to store your goods safely and secure in their storage facilities.
When you store your products with a fulfilment house they will generally monitor your stock levels and communicate when the need arises for stock replenishment.

Order Processing

How your orders get passed onto your fulfilment provider. This can be done either by API integration, Direct Download and or CSV just to name a few possibilities. Once the order has been received by the fulfilment house, the fulfilment team will process the order by first selecting the ordered products from your stored stock and package the products then sending them out to the identified customer on the order.

Returns & Exchanges

In the event an order is processed and the customer is not satisfied its common that most fulfilment houses to handle customer returns. The fulfilment house can process returns, examine returned items and determine if they can be resold and of course replace the faulty and or damaged product or refund the order.

By Erik Miller

JEM Marketing & Fulfilment Services Ltd.
The Invisible Link- Between your business and its customers
www.j-e-m.com

Wondering How to Sell Products Internationally?

Growing your business on an international level is essential in order to maintain your businesses competitiveness. However, expanding your products to the international market can lead to potential challenges that can include:

1.   Increase postage fees due to international postage fees
2.   Increase lead times due to international courier services
3.   Customer service can become challenging:
1. International consumers can become irritated with the time it takes to receive their products
2. Products could get damaged, lost or stolen when being shipped internationally.
3. Products could potentially get stuck in hold, waiting to pass customs inspections.
4. Product returns can get expensive and tricky due to the time it wold take to send the product back and get replaced.
5. Every country has different social norms, which can make communicating efficiently challenging.
6. Government paper work can eat your time and become rather confusing.

 Shipping & Returns Policies

Shipping products internationally can be expensive and somewhat of a challenge. It is important to clearly state on your website your shipping process and return policies. Most international consumers will refuse to buy from a seller if these processes and policies are not clearly defined.

The shipping process should include the method of transport and time it will take for the product to arrive. Keep in mind, the longer it takes for your product to arrive to those international buyers the chances of them purchasing from you begins to deteriorate. It is also important to list potential variables in the event their parcel does not come in the time your shipping policy states.

The returns policies needs to clearly instruct your businesses process of accepting returned goods.

1. Will your business provide return postage free of charge?
1. If Yes, how will you provide this?
2. Will you enclose a return label in the event they need to return the item, or will you reimburse the customer?
2. What options do you provide on your returns?
1. Do you provide a full refund, or replacement of product sold?
3. How long could the process of returning a product take?

Sizing & Customs

UK and American sizing is completely different. One country prefers metric while the other prefers imperial. To prevent any miscommunication the prospective sellers need to ensure that sizing conversions and product information is presented clearly for all nationalities to perceive correctly. Remember, the success of any business comes from customer satisfaction.

Customs can be tricky and should be handled with care. Any paperwork that is filled out incorrectly can cost your business both financial loses but also damage its reputation. Think about that potential international customer who has been waiting over three weeks for their product and your business is unable to track and locate it. International sellers should also be mindful of the customs charges imposed on items coming into the EU. 

Summary  

The main objective here is to ensure expectations are clearly laid out from the beginning. Providing clear understandable shipping, returns and customs procedures. Adding, additional info on sizing, weight, etc.. shows your business goes the extra mile, by accommodating different country norms. Having a policy in place covering these bases will aid in providing great customer service, improve your businesses reputation and guarantee returning happy customers! 

By Erik Miller

JEM Marketing & Fulfilment Services Ltd.
The Invisible Link- Between your business and its customers
www.j-e-m.com