Stuck-Up Marketers A RECENT MORNING’S mail brought a rather chilling surprise: a pre-pinned voodoo doll.
“Horrors!” we thought. “Did our last database marketing column go over the edge? Or is our long-suffering managing editor finally sending an unmistakable message?”
It turned out that the voodoo doll, festooned with non-partisan political symbols, was part of a direct mail campaign from GalleryWatch.com, a legislative tracking service.
Austin, TX-based GalleryWatch, which has offices in Washington and Santa Fe, NM, monitors the progress of legislation through Congress for subscribers. The service starts at $4,200 per year. The updates may be transmitted to a subscriber’s e-mail account, pager or personal digital assistant.
Why a voodoo doll? As copy on the box it arrived in explains: “GalleryWatch has everything you need to track legislation…now here’s something to help influence it.”
The piece, conceived by Baltimore-based Eisner Communications, had to go through several modifications. Arnie Thomas, GalleryWatch’s vice president of support sales marketing, was used during the piece’s development as the company’s voice of reason “because I have gray hair.”
When the first design was presented to GalleryWatch, Thomas noticed that the icon for the judicial branch – scales dangling – was near the doll’s crotch. They were moved to its right leg, and a much smaller emblem for “independents” moved to the approximate location, right around its belly button.
The accuracy of the voodoo facts included with the doll is dubious, but the response generated by the mailing is beyond reproach. Marketing director Rusty Roddy estimates that the 1,000 pieces (about half the campaign) mailed since May 31 have resulted in 75 solid leads for the company’s sales force.
While most of the mailings were to cold-call recipients, Roddy estimates that 15% to 20% went to individuals who had requested information on the service but didn’t subscribe to it. Recipients included government affairs monitors in associations, law firms, lobbyists and reporters.
Even among those who did not schedule appointments, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, with two exceptions: According to Roddy, one recipient accused the firm of being in league with the devil, and another claimed to have taken the doll and buried it to thwart its evil influence.
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