Monday do over!

I know the thought of re-doing Monday is as bad as well...a Monday, but you will have to humor me, since I was out of the office yesterday at a doctor's appointment.

So since today is Monday (for me), it is time for DMI's Insights. A chance to discuss a relevant article in our industry.

Today's article is from Deliver Magazine's July 2010 issue titled "Alpha Mail." It sparked the interest of DMI, because it had to do with not just direct mail but targeted direct mail. The article focuses on Chris Newman, a "young advertising maverick" who was able to use web based concepts and apply them to dimensional mailings specifically for Sprint/Nextel.

My personal favorite was his peanut butter and jelly mailer. It was a box that contained a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly with the tag line "Not since PB&J has integration been so seamless." This was a business to business mailer to attract people to integrate their personal phones with their business lines. The thinking behind this campaign was to find a "concept of two things that are completely separate but really work well together as a whole." It's one thing to have a creative idea, but did it work? In this case, it did superbly! They had "exceeded the goal by more than 300 percent."

The reason I love this direct mail piece is because it is a simple idea that fit the client's theme and intent perfectly. Dimensional mail pieces can be fun (who doesn't like to open presents?), but you still have to be targeted and smart with the concept. Otherwise, you can invest in a campaign that does not produce responses.

DMI, along with Chris, strongly believe in developing a direct mail piece with the target audience in mind. This is at the heart of our direct marketing approach, where we start by modeling in order to gain insights on the customer's attributes and behaviors.

In our experience, we found that honing in on the target audience is the key component to any direct mail campaign. That's why we encourage our clients to mail less in order to increase their response rates and also reduce waste.

You can read the article here:
Alpha Mail - Chris Newman

What do you think about Chris Newman and his dimensional mailings? What kinds of dimensional mailings have you sent out? What were your results?

Feel free to contact us to discuss the dimensional pieces we have done and what our results and findings were.

Send along your answers and thoughts in the comments section below!

--L