Online we only have our visual and hearing senses. So, you must make sure that the design and messaging are clearly stated and to the point. In advertising and promoting our brands on websites and social media, the spaces and banner ads can be quite thin or small, so we must get to the point.
When you send something in the mail, you can appeal to many more senses. Touch, Taste and Smell. Let me tell you about one of my favorite and super successful promotional campaigns from about 10 years ago! I designed a series of vintage baseball cards as well as the outer packaging. I bought bubble gum sticks and inserted them within the package and mailed off about 500-1000. Why was it successful? Because I attracted them to the envelopes with their sense of smell. They were searching through their mail for the gum! Of course once they opened it they could touch and enjoy the visuals. As you can see I was appealing to their sense of smell, taste, touch and sight. It brought in so many responses, as well as lots of work!
The ROI on that promotional campaign was unreal, if I had to guess I’d say more than 10-15% new clients and in sales maybe 1000%? So I got back more than 10 x what I invested.
In the examples I would like to show below, I visited Facebook and reviewed a bunch of the new timeline cover shots… some are doing it right, and some not:
Coca Cola does a great job appealing to our emotions, feeling relaxed and happy while enjoying their product.
Hallmark also does a great job making us feel love
This really surprised me when Nike is so amazing at branding, I feel nothing from this image.
Red Lobster isn't appealing to our sense of taste like they do in print advertising or on TV with the butter dripping lobster!
In looking at big brands and what they choose to use in their cover image, it shows that with limited senses available via the web, great imagery with clear intentions will work the best at giving us the emotion they want us to feel. Video is also great because then we have both the visual and hearing senses working at once and this must be why YouTube is #2 as the most searched website.
In thinking again about doing a smart, eco-friendly, printed direct mail campaign, what could you do to appeal to many more senses then you have available on the web, and what would you do differently on the web now to better get the response wanted?
Have you expressed the emotion that clearly defines your brand so others get you?
Do we spend too much time connecting, promoting or advertising on the web and might it be an interesting experiment to pick out 100 or so people we know and send them a new promotion in regular mail and use the other senses?