Like the title says, why aren’t we using direct mail to sell ourselves and our businesses?
We are in a world with a heavy focus on digital media, so surely utilising a piece of smart physical media will stick in your client’s minds?
Direct mail is what it sounds like. It uses mail to be directly sent to your clients that have a call-to-action; they can be as creative or as minimal as you like. Here is something I did for university:
I used this simple envelope as a part of my exhibition and I went for a coffee with 20% of the people that took an envelope. As a result of this call-to-action, they are meetings I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t have a call-to-action on my exhibition. In contrast, I was the only person that thought to have a call-to-action on my exhibition, making sure I stood out from the rest.
These are some of the best creative Direct Mail ideas I have seen
Lacoste Save Our Species
For the first time in Lacoste’s history, they initiated a radical change of one of the most iconic logos in the world: the crocodile.
The Lacoste crocodile makes way for ten threatened animals in a collection of extremely limited-edition polo shirts. A call to action to bring attention to the global state of biodiversity and animal rights.
1775 polos were produced: for each species, the number of polo shirts corresponds to the number of animals known to remain in the wild. As a result of this, all the polo shirts sold out in 24 hours and caused an epic spike in traffic to the International Union of Conservation of Nature
MacCoin
In 2018, McDonald’s most iconic sandwich, the Big Mac, was turning 50. It’s so universal, a global leader in economics uses it to compare currencies. Everywhere in the world, a Big Mac is a Big Mac. So why should the Big Mac just be a currency measure? If it’s good enough to measure the value of 48 global currencies, it’s good enough to BE a global currency.
Together Sweater
Inspired by the generosity at the heart of the collaboration between Target and Toms, Mother New York found a playful way to literally bring people together in the spirit of giving. The Together Sweater is designed to fit multiple people and was sent to friends of Target and Toms to help promote the message of togetherness. Celebrities including Victoria Justice and Meghan Trainor cosied up in their sweaters and shared the joy online, creating a contagious cultural moment around the partnership.
WVRST Sausage Party Invite
To build hype around WVRST’s grand opening, TAXI2 Canada hand-delivered t-shirts packaged as sausages wrapped in butcher paper. This direct mail piece invited food critics, bloggers and other cultural influencers to what TAXI2 Canada dubbed “the sausage party”. The shirts were printed with the same humorous artwork from the WVRST posters of adorable animals being put through a meat grinder.
Chunky Mail
To communicate the chunkiness of Kit Kat Chunky and drive trial. JWT London created a mailer that looked just like the card postmen leave behind when they’re unable to deliver a package. The real card often states that the package couldn’t be delivered because it was ‘too big for your letterbox’. JWT London tongue-in-cheek card claimed that we couldn’t deliver a Kit Kat Chunky because it was ‘too chunky for your letterbox’. Recipients were directed to collect their free Kit Kat Chunky from their local newsagent.
Natural History Museum Eraser
The Natural History Museum needed to produce a cost-effective direct mail piece that would raise awareness of the talks at the Darwin Centre.
The eraser, produced as direct mail, puts the issue of extinction literally in the palm of your hand.
Credit: DA&D, DA&D Save our Species & DA&D MacCoin
