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.
