I received a 6” x 11” piece of marketing collateral today. I get a lot of marketing collateral, but I've never received anything quite like this. Obviously I took note—just as the marketers who had designed the piece had intended for me to do.
A colleague recently sent me a link to an online booklet called 7 Tips for Crafting an Exceptional Menu, which Lightspeed, a provider of IT services for the food industry, allowed me to download in exchange for my name, email, and phone number.
I mentioned in a recent blog post that a long-standing commercial printing client (a designer) had come to me wanting to produce a brochure with a pocket on the inside back cover for sell sheets. We discussed this over the phone today since she had just met with her client (the end-user).
As strange as this may sound, a postcard is one of the more effective direct marketing tools. It may not be flashy. It may not always be elegantly designed to impress you. But it gets your attention. Particularly with less mail these days. All the surveys I've read say that people like going to the mailbox, and they spend at least a little time looking at every piece of mail, from checks to bills to direct marketing pieces. And unlike a lot of direct mail, a postcard is already open. You don't need to remove it from an envelope. You just have to look at it.
A commercial printing client of mine just received her job, which consisted of twelve short, saddle-stitched print books in a box. The books are 6” x 9” in format with four-color covers, and the slip case box they fit in is a four-color press sheet laminated to corrugated board.