Debbie Hemi

The world of direct marketing may be getting bombarded by online channels, from email to Facebook and Twitter, but for Kiwi import Debbie Hemi, print still rules. Heading up an enthusiastic and client service-minded team in the fast-growing Melbourne branch of customer communications specialist, iGroup Australia, Hemi came well accoutred for her present role by over 20 years’ experience with two of Australia’s major mail specialists.

Hemi has been through the mail order mill over her career, with a variety of posts. Most recently, she has held several positions at iGroup. Before that, she spent more than 15 years at Security Mailing Services (SEMA). She revels in the decision-making process at iGroup. If the results are anything to go by, she is obviously making the right calls.

“The challenge for us is constantly to find cost-effective solutions to enable our clients to derive the full benefits of their direct marketing dollars,” she says. As part of the operational disciplines to achieve its goals, iGroup develops and adheres to a service-level agreements and established project management methodologies.

Internet technology may be impacting on clients’ marketing decisions, but mailing is keeping pace. Hemi enthuses about opportunities in personalisation and targeting to segmented databases.

“There is a lot more information being included in today’s mail packs than in the past, which of course means more print. As much as there are online scenarios moving into the mix, a majority proportion continues to involve print components, both offset and digital.”

A vital component of successful mailings is the need to determine the most effective way of planning or executing a client’s campaign. With vastly complicated mailing jobs, this is easier said than done. Hemi’s team has focused its problem solving around iGroup’s internal sorting systems. Preparing and sorting before mailing can save a client considerable cost. Hemi is constantly finding the most efficient methods to have data and mailing prepared and sorted for a variety of plans.

Online is here to stay in DM but iGroup is in the ink-on-paper business –and it is booming. The growth is reflected by Mel-bourne branch installing its fourth Fuji Xerox digital press. The site already boasts a raft of Fuji Xerox gear: a cut-sheet Docu-Print 115 EPS toner printer, a Nuvera 120 MX digital system and a more recently, it acquired a Docucolor 5000. Soon, it will install a Xerox DocuPrint 115 EPS MICR.

Hemi is mindful of the fact that today’s direct marketer is addressing a generation breastfed on electronic communication. The internet is here to stay and will only grow, but Hemi sees the continued need to supplement e-communication with print. Hard copy ensures the message is reinforced and the consumer does not drown in a sea of online information.

The mail marketing sector is dominated by a few big ‘Tier 1’ players, particularly Salmat, Computershare and Hemi’s former company, SEMA. What a smaller ‘Tier 2’ company like iGroup can offer is “the most flexible, service and solution focused mailing house in the industry”.

“I see the gap between the tiers becoming greater,” she says. While the market is competitive and the number of channels open to marketers in only increasing, Hemi says clients are upping the DM component of their promotional spend in the quest for instant sales, and she believes iGroup will continue to grow in the next three to five years.

In a world where advertising spend is a rollercoaster ride, Hemi also sees DM becoming an increasingly vital tool in the marketing arsenal.

“Testimony to this is the increasing role that personalised direct marketing is play-ing in the overall retail sector advertising mix. Three to five years ago, DM played a bit part in retail spend while today, with rich consumer spend data mined from loyalty and rewards programs, retail as a vertical has become the holy grail for DM print and mail service providers, offsetting the ups and downs of the previously bankable finance sector DM generators.

“With our expanded print, mail and integrated channel offerings, iGroup is positioned well to serve and leverage this fantastic opportunity,” she adds.

Hemi is also an active participant in industry organisations. She brings her experience to bear with national women’s forum ‘Business Chicks’. She has also been elected to the committee of Marketing Women Vic, a networking organisation aimed at enabling female executives to develop business relationships.

Hemi has no illusions that, one way or another, the printed mail sector will need to work with the electronic world. She says that iGroup’s innovative team includes people with websites skills to help the marketing aims of iGroup clients.

“We frequently now develop trans-actional emailing, faxing or SMS to a mail campaign.” But Hemi believes that no matter how much online becomes part of the DM offering, electronic will always be complementary to ink on paper. 

Debbie Hemi on…

A life lesson

Get off your own agenda and truly listen. As my son was taught at his first week at school: “full body listening”.

Printers as mail houses

“As the industry becomes more and more competitive, we will see the trend continuing of more printers putting in mailing departments or merging with mailing houses. It’s become a survival path.”

The industry’s future

“Neither we or our clients buy the assertion that print is dead or dying. Position print and personalised DM intelligently in an integrated, cross-media campaign mix and you can deliver the best of what established and new technologies provide.”

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