Transparency can pay dividends for some mailers. In fact, it can even double normal response rates, which are high to begin with.
Take the case of OneDisc.com, a $3 million-a-year developer of CD-ROMs and digital videodiscs. Some 40% of recipients to its 2,000-piece lead-generation mailing stopped by the company’s booth at a recent trade show to see exactly how the firm’s miniature CD looked in an envelope.
For the mailing, the St. Paul, MN firm wrapped the discs in OnePaqs, also known as EnvyPaks, enclosures developed within the past year by Univenture.com of Marysville, OH. EnvyPaks are mailing packages with clear plastic fronts and a paper backing that enables recipients to look inside and see the discs themselves and all surrounding graphics.
What’s more, recipients can see if anybody tampered with the packs or added something they shouldn’t have—a growing concern in the age of anthrax scares, says David Coho, Univenture’s director of sales and marketing.
EnvyPaks meet U.S. Postal Service automation criteria and can be customized as to how they’re sealed and opened. At deadline, the two companies were working on a new version of the package for full-size CDs, says OneDisc vice president Nick Leeves.
OneDisc drew nearly two-fifths of its prospects to its booth in response to the mailing. More important, the firm’s salespeople collected business cards from about half of them. The new prospects were contacted right away.
“But we did it very gently, not in the manner of [boiler-room] telemarketers,” quips Leeves. He notes that OneDisc also sells products through direct marketing.
OneDisc turns out CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs for telephone companies, investment firms, Internet service providers, universities, banks, manufacturers, retailers, real estate organizations, and city and federal government agencies. OneDisc products usually run around $1.80 apiece and sell in quantities from several thousand to as many as 100,000, says Leeves.
Before EnvyPak became available last year, Onedisc would mail CDs in conventional No. 9 envelopes with just a clear plastic window to show the miniature CD. The current version has clear sides as well.
Even so, response rates to the earlier packages weren’t too shabby (as high as 20%, according to Leeves). EnvyPak’s tamper-proof feature was part of what convinced a large firm, defense systems manufacturer Copernio Corp., to begin using it.
“We did a show in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy in Brazil in which all the documentation went first to the embassy, then on to separate consulates within the country and then to secure aerospace and defense facilities in the country,” says Copernio CEO Peter Berghammer. “With this level of security, EnvyPak was instrumental in helping us get our materials through without inspection or damage.”
There were other payoffs, too.
“We found that we were the only company out of about 50 whose materials passed inspection without opening,” Berghammer adds. “We’re certain that the close to 50 sales leads generated were directly linked to the packaging.”
