Your Marketing Mystery Box Didn't Work!

I just watched your ridiculously expensive direct mail marketing piece get opened in the elevator and I hate to tell you - it completely bombed. I didn’t get a chance to see your company name because it happened so fast, but I can tell you this – it was a complete and total waste of your money.

I was coming back from a walk and noticed a gentleman walking into my building with what I thought was a white cake box. After my mind cycled through all of the desserts I was craving at the time, I realized he and I were most likely going to end up in the same elevator. I smiled as I thought of how great it was going to smell in that elevator on the way up, especially if there was something good like donuts or fresh croissants in that cake box!

The gentleman and I made our way into the building through separate doors and he reached the elevator first. As he adjusted his grip on the box to free a hand to push the elevator button, I realized the white box was actually shaped like home plate. For you non-baseball-fans, home plate is the five-sided, square with a triangle on the bottom home base from baseball that you stand over when batting.

Just as the elevator door opened, two other gentlemen reached the elevator from the other side of the building and all four of us got inside. One of the newly arrived guys asked the guy with the home plate-shaped box, “Got something good in there?” As the door closed, the guy who asked the question pushed the “2” button and I pushed “7”. Seemed like they were all getting off at “2” so I made the assumption at that point, it wasn’t the random curiosity of a stranger wondering what was in the box, but that these three fellow elevator riders knew each other.

The guy holding the box said, “I don’t know, let’s take a look.” He flipped open the top flap of the box to reveal a home plate-shaped foam pad, obviously there to protect the contents inside, and a nicely printed letter sitting on top. Just as frivolously as he’d flipped open the box, the guy flipped up the letter as he said, “Obligatory letter,” and then reached for the padding.

I chuckled to myself a little here because as many of you know, I earn my living by writing the words that would go on that letter if this had been one of my marketing projects. I thought of all the hours the writer put into the content of that letter and all the hours it took that writer’s bosses to approve and refine that content. If only that writer and his bosses could have seen firsthand that their prospect spent an entire half-second on their letter!

So, the padding was flipped up to reveal a piece of white cardboard inset in the box with some cut-outs that held what looked like a couple notebooks, a couple brochures, and at the very bottom, a baseball with a lot of black words printed on it.

“Looks like another development kit,” the box’s recipient said as his fingers quickly perused the items in the box until they landed on the baseball. “Well, at least my kids can play with the baseball,” he said as he closed the box. We all chuckled.

Just then, the elevator dinged that we were at floor “2”, the doors opened, and the three gentlemen exited the elevator as the guy who asked what was in the box said in a disappointed tone, “Aww, I was hoping it was something good.”

The elevator door closed and I spent the remaining trip up the next 5 stories in the elevator contemplating what I had just seen. I’d say the box, it’s custom design, all the printing, the baseball and the shipping put the per-piece price of that marketing mailer at $20 if they bought thousands of them, and more like $30 or $40 if it was a shorter run. If you’re a marketer, you know the months and months of work that can go into the creation of a piece like that – all of the hours of salaried and hourly work that triple or even quadruple the actual cost of an item like that.

And in the end, what was the result of all that work and money? The prospect’s kids got a free baseball and maybe – just maybe – the prospect will remember that time he got a home plate-shaped box with a baseball in it, though he probably won’t remember exactly which company sent it to him. “Some development company, I think,” he’ll say.