WE MUST CONFESS we don’t much like informational newsletters and magazines designed to help a company’s customers better enjoy a product or service. As George Orwell noted, all propaganda lies even when it tells the truth.
It’s not that we haven’t encountered good work in this area. Mondavi Vineyards has two lovely publications that go out periodically to its database. And some in-flight publications are overall better editorial products than the general interest and business magazines they ape.
Nevertheless, we were surprised and delighted by Press: 1, a series of newsletters Response Marketing Group of Glen Allen, VA produced for Pacific Bell, the West Coast-based Baby Bell.
The quarterly newsletter for voice mail users is short and punchy, and has special editions targeted to such database segments as new customers.
The function of Press: 1 is to help small businesses keep in touch with their clients and promote the better use of PacBell’s phone services and enhancements. The method is to continually inform business customers about how the voice mail product works. The aim is to increase use and decrease turnover. The result might be described as a periodic refresher course on one aspect of the system or another.
A typical issue is four to six pages long with three or four related articles. The spring edition offered an explanation of pager notification (which allows the customer to be paged whenever he or she either has a new message or a message marked “urgent”). A second article on creating extension mailboxes was also instructional. The third piece was a short profile of a satisfied customer who is considering adding voice mailboxes.
The summer issue is similar. In addition to the profile, there are lessons on sending messages from one voice mailbox to another and how to reply to messages quickly. There is also a special offer for those who want to expand their current system configuration.
The new customer edition uses a similar format. The tutorials are more basic-changing passwords, for example, or setting up alternate greetings-and instead of a short profile, there is a welcoming essay that includes a toll-free number and Web site address (www.pacbell.com/voicemail) for more information.
Issues are printed in four-color on card stock folded into a 5.5-inch-by-8-inch self-mailer. Although photography is used, most of the artwork is drawn in a style meant to display an “amateur” or “casual” look.
Tightly Written Copy is simple, very Strunk and White. Instructions are clearly laid out as a series of brief bullet points.
That simplicity makes the creative impressive. One or two features are covered in three to four pages and there’s no padding to make it seem like too much of a sales pitch.
And then there’s the timing. There’s nothing here you wouldn’t find in the instruction manual. But when you first get a system and you’re trying to get everything set up, a few features are bound to fall by the wayside. The mailings help customers live up to PacBell’s voice mail system.
The product is also handsomely produced, even though the paper stock and design were selected for being cost-effective. Altogether, Press: 1 is an attractive piece.
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