“Would you believe over half of my 20-something staff had never even tasted a REAL coconut??! Great mailer, and thanks for broadening my staff’s “palatable” horizons.”
Such were the Facebook postings we were receiving as our coconut mailing gained steam. With the buzz building, it was time to launch the second phase of our “Use Your Coconut” campaign, about two weeks after the coconuts were mailed.
Our strategy was to continue to explore attention-grabbing direct mail formats, so we chose to mail an oversized, “lumpy and bumpy” envelope that contained a personalized, vellum insert sheet, a 4-page brochure, and a tent card “freemium.” The envelope itself was intriguing: made of brown translucent paper, it stood out in the mail pile. Furthermore, the contents were designed so that a large “Use Your Coconut” logo showed through the front of the envelope like a colored watermark beneath the address. A colorful butterfly first-class stamp added to the tropical vibe.
Each recipient opened the envelope to see a personalized vellum insert sheet with either a “thank you” message and reference to their response to our survey, or a “there’s still time” message and “second chance” offer to enter to win a secondary prize—a $50 gift certificate to a local tropical-themed restaurant—if the recipient logged on to his or her personalized URL. Under the insert was a 4-page brochure—another customer education piece—with the Top 4 Trends in Direct Mail, personalized to each recipient. A third enclosure—a tent card “freemium” containing either a recipe for a pina colada, coconut cream pie, or coconut shrimp; an instruction card for creating a coconut shell planter; or an instruction card for playing Coconut Bowling—rounded out the package, and was matched to each recipient’s answer to a survey question on how he or she would like to use his or her coconut.
Our multi-channel, multi-touch campaign had really taken off! As the result of the first and second phases of the campaign, we achieved a 46% response rate, more than doubling our goal of 20%!
To keep things interesting, we continually posted coconut photos, updates, and musings on our Facebook page while our customers chimed in, and tweeted about our campaign. We also posted fresh rotating website banners every 4-5 days proclaiming various direct marketing factoids.
To cap the second phase of the campaign, respondents received a “Save the Date” email, inviting them to pencil in on their calendars a special lunchtime marketing event hosted by AlphaGraphics. The culmination of the campaign, this executive marketing workshop promised to be a truly dynamic, interactive demonstration of the power of integrated direct mail using a multi-channel approach.
by Anne Flanagan
Marketing Strategist and Creative Designer,
AlphaGraphics in the Cultural District
agSpeaks 