Around Christmas it’s not uncommon for companies to send consumers small product samples in the mail. And if you’ve ever owned a small business you’ve probably gotten sample company pens from promo companies. Done more creatively dimensional direct mail is a good way to get the attention of a prospect who has otherwise been ignoring your other marketing.
A few examples of successful dimensional direct mail:
- About ten years ago Nuance sent a box to prospects that on the left had a cassette tape player with a recording of the company’s current automated voice attendant and on the right had an iPod with a recording of what it would sound like with Nuance. The combination of the personalized before/after recordings, with technologies that emotionally reinforced the idea of “old tech” vs “new tech”, successfully opened a lot of doors to sales people.
- Staples sent desktop gumball machines to prospects which cut through the clutter and produced many appointments, too.
- A direct marketing firm sent actual mailboxes with personalized messages inside to prospects. How many people aren’t going to open a mailbox that they receive?
These kinds of direct marketing programs need to be done in close cooperation with sales people. Creatively they need to be on brand and reinforce your messages with clear calls to action and campaign goals.
Some of these mailers can cost a few hundred dollars each to send out, so you’d only send them to prospective large accounts that are worth the investment. But good ideas can sometimes be inexpensive, too: the same firm that sent out the mailboxes sent out cocktail napkins with hand-written notes before a conference inviting people to stop by for a “drink” at their booth. (It was a bottle of water.) This also worked well.
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