Going bigger with postcards and direct mail

I received a call from a client the other day who was thinking about doing a small postcard drop to his neighbourhood. He was thinking of dropping 1500 cards. OK, I said. Designing and printing that many full colour cards will cost you around $1000. With a 1% response rate, he might get 15 responses as a cost of $66 per response. Small quantities makes for expensive responses.

Instead of doing that, I told him he should consider printing 50,000 cards, costing him $3500 to design and print. The same response rate will give him 500 responses - or a cost of $7 per response. These aren't sales yet, but if I were him,  I'd feel much better about converting sales from 500 responses than 15.

And one more thing - if he had a good client list and printed the postcards digitally, we could design it so each card was printed with the address (no extra address labelling costs), and include the client's name on the front ("A Special Offer for Owen"), almost guaranteeing a better response rate.

Happy Friday!

We are having a delicious Friday here at KLD!

Nicole and I went across the street to Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut to buy some Valentine's Day treats (we have a weak spot for the sweets!) and then stopped in next door to Buena Vista Coffee Co. for some tasty turkey sandwiches (their gelato is also amazing!)

Usually sandwiches from Buena Vista come wrapped in butcher paper, but today they used new takeaway boxes from Bio-based Tater Ware™. I was so interested in this new biodegradable packaging that I looked it up to learn more about the it and to see how it was made. Plastic made from plants, brilliant! I love being environmentally friendly where I can : )

This afternoon we finished this all off with an AMAZING 'Duke' chocolate cake from Duchess Bake Shop (have I mentioned how lucky we are to work in such a yummy neighbourhood like 124 Street?) It was Kyle's birthday last week and we all enjoyed his belated birthday cake immensely!

Design Budget Tips

Want to maximize your budget and minimize extra design costs?

I’ve compiled a short list of ideas which, in my experience, could help.

Do as much brainstorming and research as possible before getting started.
Find samples of work you do like and work you don’t like – put some thought into why this might be. This will also give you something to talk about with your designer.

Gather all resources that may be useful.
Such as logos (old/new) and old design work.

Find photos you think might work.
A lot of time can be spent searching stock photo sites for the perfect photo. It’s helpful and saves time to supply photos to your designer. Remember they will need to he high resolution if you’re going to use them to print.

Thoroughly proof your copy and send it all at once.
Extra revisions are a sure way to go over budget. One way to reduce revisions is to send thoroughly proofed copy that’s styled and ready to be placed. Revisions can sometimes account for 50%+ of a project's overall cost!

Be specific about changes.
Saying "This is wrong, please fix." is a confusing request. Rather be specific and say "Change the first sentence in the third paragraph to say October instead of November." It helps to over communicate.

Send edits through email as a list, or on a marked up pdf.
Receiving edits over the phone is a designer's least favourite way to receive changes. It's hard to double check and can make us nervous. It's best for everyone to have the changes in writing so that nothing is missed. If you like, you can always call so we can walk through the changes together.

Photo: My desk this morning.