Introducing DM Production Expert, Mariah Hunt
Joining us as a special guest blogger this week is Mariah Hunt, who is a Senior Production Manager at Digitas, working on the FedEx, AT&T and Virgin Life Care accounts.
Prior to joining Digitas, Mariah had her own direct marketing consulting business with clients such as Monster.com, Crabtree & Evelyn, and Intersystems. She has won many DM awards, and has participated in many DM forums, speaking engagements and postal forums.
With over 18 years of DM experience, Mariah has helped many clients realize their ROI while making sure all cost efficiencies are realized in the data processing, print and lettershop areas.
Programs she has worked on include loyalty, acquisition and retention, financial and retail.
Mariah earned a B.S. in Marketing at Skidmore College in New York.
Mariah will be appearing at NEDMA ‘06, It’s a Brave New World, the New England Direct Marketing Association’s Conference and Exposition, during the “Lunch with the Experts” session. Her topic will be Direct Mail Production Management.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mariah Hunt…
First, let me start out by saying I am not a blogger — my attention span lasts no more than 10 minutes and scrolling to read the blogs (page after page after page) is a good way to find my computer at the bottom of a 22-story building on the sidewalk in pieces.
That said, I am excited to be doing a lunch session on DM production. It has become a lost art to produce something tangible in this new age “digital” world — do it on budget and within the speedy timeframe that everyone wants. I find less and less people knowing the true art of colorwork, typography, creating and printing a piece you can hold in your hand, and marvel at. And, even worse, there are not many new faces coming into the profession these days, either. DM offline production is not the “glamorous” end. We are the red- headed stepchildren who churn and burn to get pieces of mail out. Most “younger kids” want to do online, not offline, work.
Me? I still find things to be excited about doing offline work — even after 20 something years.
With all that being true, I am still amazed at the amount of mail that has been circulating these days. Dimensional mail, pop ups, diecut packages, packages with credit card-type things attached to them — it is a new mail that most people are seeing in their boxes these days, along with some of the “old world” packages still unbeaten from every test thrown at them.
If you were at the last monthly meeting with Steve Penn (who was great, by the way), you would have learned that it took 28 years for the old tried and true white mail #10 package from the Wall Street Journal to be beaten out by something else.
I hope that people come to the lunch session with lots of questions, issues, problems, and stories to share. I am excited to talk about the thing that has kept me gainfully employed for the past 20 something years.
And if there really is nothing to talk about, we can talk about my feelings on blogs….
Add comment June 6th, 2006
