The retrofit involves replacing our existing lighting fixtures, ballasts and bulbs and will reduce our energy consumption by an estimated 135,000 Kilowatt Hours per year.

The change supports our goals to reduce green house gas emissions and improve efficiencies through-out our operations.

Kirk Marketing is proud to be a BC Hydro Power Smart Partner. To learn more about the Power Smart program, please visit www.BCHydro.com/powersmart .

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Did consumers start asking for more relevance or did marketers in the digital space train them to expect it? Or is relevance like immunity to antibiotics – the more you give, the more consumers need and the more resistant they become? Hard to say.

Either way, the implication for direct mail is profound: offer relevant content or be ignored.

If quality indeed trumps quantity, then Unaddressed Admail might be considered the least up to the challenge. After all, when viewed with a sceptical eye, Unaddressed Admail can easily be seen as a mass medium that advertisers use to blanket markets by geography.

But choosing Unaddressed Admail walks by geography alone is passé. Today postal walks can be carefully selected with a nod to tribal consumers whose buying habits and identities can be predicted and grouped by their socioeconomic cohort. For example, Canada Post’s Geopost Plus service helps customers be more successful in their marketing efforts by only mailing those customers that have a high potential to act and want their marketed products. A new enhancement to this is the geospatial analysis where postal walks and addresses can be targeted based on lifestyle clusters.

And earlier this year, Canada Post rolled out its hybrid service, Acquisition Admail, which allows customers to mail to individual addresses within a postal walk. The benefit of the hybrid service is two-fold: one, the piece appears more personalized as it is addressed to a household; two, mailing lists can be purged against existing customer databases so that only potential new customers are targeted, not the entire walk. A recent Canada Post case study explains how Calgary’s Pizza Hotline ran an Acquisition Admail test campaign to a list of potential customers generated by Canada Post. According to the study, sales in the first week jumped by 16 percent. The success of the campaign supports not just the new service but also Canada Post’s approach, which is to work in partnership with customers, leveraging their access to marketing research to help those customers use direct mail more effectively.

Similarly, Environics Analytics (EA) taps the propriety research done through PRIZMC2 to help their clients identify not just lifestyles and behaviours but also the social values, motivations, and mindsets driving those behaviours. One EA client, The Mississauga Library System in suburban Toronto, wanted to know what improvements their 18 branches could undertake to better serve the community. Particularly, they wanted to know which residents weren’t being well served by its branch network and how these non-users could be better accommodated. As EA’s website reveals, “EA analysts PRIZM-coded the postal codes of about 300,000 cardholders from the library system’s database of members. Using the PRIZM profiles, they created door handle promotional pieces, mailers and other outreach efforts intended to remind infrequent users of library offerings. Today the Mississauga Library System is rolling out programming and marketing efforts that speak to the needs of its diverse residents” (environicsanalytics.ca).

But perhaps the most logical response to the growing digital space lies in having mail pieces that direct customers online to micro-sites and response URLs. Once online, visitors responding to a mail piece can be tracked as they would be for an online campaign. Driving customers to a website also adds a valuable dimension to a direct mail piece as it engages customers across both mediums.

And closing the circle is important. As Marshall McLughan said, “the medium is the message”. Relevant content and integrated campaigns do not just serve to deliver the message; they are themselves a signal that marketers respect the consumer’s desire for relevance and convenience.

“Content is King”, goes the saying. But the phrase is misleading. Today content engages individuals, not kingdoms. Mail boxes across the land are listening.

Note: This article was first published in the April 2010 issue of Direct Marketing.

Sophie Chambers, VP of Sales and Marketing at Kirk Marketing, has joined the board of directors for the White Rock South Surrey Community Foundation.

The foundation assists with funding for local organizations in the White Rock & South Surrey community. It was established in 1998 by an enthusiastic group of community members who “came together with one aim: to help individuals and groups make an ongoing difference in their community. They discovered that the best way to accomplish this was to provide funding to existing groups in the Semiahmoo Peninsula”.

Visit www.wrsscf.org for more information about the foundation and its members.

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Orcamania is the Canucks’ annual event staff golf tournament and is organized “by the staff for the staff” to raise funds for Canuck Place. This year it will be held June 26th @ Country Meadows with approximately 150 participants.

About Canuck Place:

Canuck Place offers specialized care for BC children living with life-threatening conditions. Care provided at Canuck Place is child-focused and family centered. The Hospice provides 24 hour / 7 days a week care by nurses and physicians in addition to family care, end-of-life, pain and symptom management, school music and play therapy, recreation opportunities and counseling services.

For more information or to donate to Canuck Place please visit www.canuckplace.org

Dean has worked in the printing industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles and has developed a reputation for being an outstanding Account Director. Dean brings a wealth of knowledge and experience and he is excited to embark on a new career path with Kirk Marketing.

Hala has experienced a very successful career in sales and has worked in a variety of sales roles during the past 8 years. She has a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design from Emily Carr and we are excited to have her unique graphic and sales ability.

Reports To:                     VP Sales and Marketing

Job Summary

• Manage client workflow (input orders, job scheduling, etc)
• Provide dedicated support to a strategic account manager including quotes, reports, job processing, proofing, and other duties
• Maintain up to date knowledge of Kirk’s services (data, laser, and production), Can Post, and industry trends.
• Basic knowledge of USPS and printing
• Exceptional customer service to both internal and external clients
• Build relationships with customers
• Constructive solutions & problem solving
• Attend industry events
• Key internal interactions:  strategic account manager, production manager, data department, print manager
• Key external interactions: customers & suppliers
• Can do attitude
• Sense of Humour

Salary commensurate with experience.

To apply for this position, please forward your resume and cover letter to info@kirkmarketing.com

Our theme for the show was “Who did you Reach today”? We asked people to fill out a blank postcard with any message/picture they wanted and address it to a person that they wanted to connect with. We had stickers (the martini glass stickers were the first to go, not surprisingly!), and colorful markers for them to really personalize their postcards for the chosen recipient. Let me tell you, some of those postcards were masterpieces! We then got them to sign our display with the name of the recipient of their postcard. At the end of the day, we were going to mail out each and every postcard that was filled out.

We were overwhelmed with how much these UBC employees really appreciated us giving them the opportunity to get in contact with their chosen recipients. This is when we knew that our theme was a success, as that is what Kirk Marketing is all about: helping our clients Reach their customers with the right message.

• Are you searching for an organization that will encourage your passion for production/operations and utilize your strong leadership skills?
• Are you driven to lead a fast paced, dynamic team to create extraordinary results?

Job Description

Reporting to the President, the VP of Operations will be responsible for the day-to-day activities for the manufacturing and production operations of the company, production supervisors, team leaders and their staff. All operations functions include the data department, mailing department, materials handling, and the printing department. Working in a professional, positive environment, you will provide personalized support to your team to meet or exceed quality and delivery expectations.

Responsibilities

• Plan, develop and implement strategy for operational management and development to meet agreed organizational performance plans within agreed budgets and timescales.
• Establish and maintain appropriate systems for measuring necessary aspects of operational management and development.
• Monitor, measure, and report on operational issues, opportunities and development plans and achievements within agreed formats and timescales.
• Manage and develop direct reporting staff.
• Manage and control departmental expenditure within agreed budgets. Submit budgets for assigned activities in accordance with the budget procedure.
• Liaise with other departmental senior managers to understand all necessary aspects and needs of operational development, and to ensure they are fully informed of operational objectives, purposes and achievements.
• Maintain awareness and knowledge of contemporary operational development theory and methods and provide suitable interpretation to directors, managers and staff within the organization.
• Contribute to the executive management team, company budgeting, and strategic planning process.
• Ensure activities meet with and integrate with organizational requirements for quality management, health and safety, employee satisfaction, legal stipulations, environmental policies and general duty of care.
• Recruit, train, and motivate personnel in order to balance staffing strength with profitability and growth
• Through dynamic leadership, drive the culture of the department consistent with the company’s goals

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidates will posses the following traits and skills:

• Strong leadership skills – encourages and empowers others, leads by example
• Strong analytical, numerical, and reasoning abilities
• Participative management style, advocates team concept
• Strong business savvy
• Driven for Results, strives to continually improve
• Strong strategic thinker and planner
• Highly adaptable
• Sense of Humour

Requirements

• University Degree in Operational Management, Engineering, Business Administration or other appropriate discipline combined with equivalent experience.
• Minimum of 7 years in a leadership role within a custom manufacturing/operations environment
• Excellent project management skills
• Entrepreneurial roll-up-the-sleeves and get-it-done attitude
• Exceptional communications skills
• Confident, easy going leadership style

Compensation

Competitive compensation/benefit package available.

Waiting for pick-up – Kirk’s 8 yard garbage bin and 2 x 4 yard recycling bins.

Last week that question was answered for me literally when I met with Steve, our rep. from Urban Impact Recycling.   We were reviewing our existing recycling program to see what Kirk could do to divert more waste. Within a few minutes Steve was sifting through our garbage bin, opening bags, and pulling out ‘stuff’ so we could see if it could be recycled.

Here are a couple things Steve quickly observed about what we are already doing:

-         Our paper recycling for high grade is excellent.  We are separating this material well (especially in our press room).

-         We have separate bins for cardboard and plastic.  Which means most of our soft plastics, including shrink wrap, is already being recycled.

-         Most work stations have paper recycling bins beside them and, when it comes to clean paper, they are being used consistently and effectively.

Good news – Steve confirmed we already have an easy and efficient system for recycling a large component of our waste which, no surprise, is mostly paper.

Did we  find room for improvement?

Yes – as Steve exhumed the contents of our 8 yard garbage bin he discovered paper cups, plastic bags, and tins from our lunch rooms that could all be diverted into a recycling stream.   Paper towels, he explained as he prodded a banana peel, can be included with our mixed paper and Starbucks cups and lids can also be recycled as long as we rinse them out (this puts my search for an electric hand dryer on hold temporarily at least as that would have required an electrical engineer to install).  Steve also explained that plastic strapping can go with our soft plastics as long as they are bagged.

The good stuff – clean paper collected in a cage on our shop floor.

Based on what we found in this walk through Urban is going to help us expand our program.  The initial goal is to go from having our 8 yard bin picked-up weekly to having it picked-up just once a month.  Long term, we will continue to work with Urban to help Kirk with further reductions (yes, towards zero). One of the simplest changes we can make is simply adding bins for plastics by the machines and reducing the number of garbage bins on the shop floor and in our offices.  It makes sense – make recycling a convenient option for people and they’ll make the right choice.

Location, location, location – bottles & can collection bags in our lunch rooms makes recycling convenient. The money we get from these returns goes towards social events held through-out the year.

If the program works and we can achieve our preliminary goal of moving to monthly pick-ups we will have cut our waste by more than half!

Ok, it’s not Zero waste…yet.  But who wants to be the new black anyway?  For now I’d settle for the new green.

What is your company doing to be The New Green?  Leave a comment on what strategies your business employs to reduce, re-use, or recycle.