A few days ago, B Direct's Senior Art Director received not one but two personalized datebooks. The packages were similar. An oversized window envelope:
A personalized long-format letter that included an order form:
A prepaid business reply envelope:
And ... the piece de resistance freemium gift item, a genuine personalized datebook:
The package above was sent by a company called Myron. It's certainly competent and observes a lot of direct mail best practices, even including some printed FAQs on the back of the letter (a nice way, perhaps, to avoid some incoming telephone calls):
At B Direct, we are not in the market for personalized datebooks, but there's no reason we wouldn't order them from Myron if we were.
On the other hand, the package that arrived the same day from Myron's competitor Amsterdam contained a fatal flaw. It too had a window OE, a letter with reply slip, a BRE. But, the datebook was personalized incorrectly:
The agency is imprinted as:
B DIRECT MARKETING
COMMNCTIONS
Clearly, Amsterdam purchased the agency's name from some list that uses a fairly awkward abbreviation for the word "Communications." Ouch.
What is the most precious word in any language? A person's name. What is an almost equally valuable word to a business owner? The company's name. These are important details to get right.
If you're going to do creative VDP (variable data print) personalization, please make sure you have the recipient's name spelled correctly.
If you're going to invest in customized incentive items, be sure that the company's name is correct — and complete — in your list.
The b's at B Direct give Myron a thumbs-up ... and Amsterdam a thumbs-down.
