Hi everyone, we’re done recording our 3rd video for this blog. It’s 2 minutes long and it talks about a new varnish that is available that gives your direct mail piece a nice, velvety finish.
It’s a great way to take your existing control and add another dimension to it to see if it boosts response.
If you want samples of the varnish, please email Ryan:
ryan (at) ballantine.com.
Click Here to view our June case study that features this self mailer.
The June 2008 issue of our Sample of the Month Newsletter features a case study from our client, Caesars Pocono Resorts.
The story centers around the 3-panel self mailers they use to generate room reservations. These mailers are the single largest driver of revenue for them.
The 3-panel self mailer pictured above measures 8.5″ (width) x 6″ (height) closed and opens up to 25″ (width) x 6″ (height). The paper is a coated stock and the piece is 4 colors on both sides.
Caesars Pocono Resorts mails out 3-panel self mailers to generate reservations for their various all-inclusive Pocono Mountains packages. They mail a total of 6 throughout the year and all are the same size, but vary in artwork and special promotions.
Strategy
Caesars Pocono Resorts sends them out when they know they want to push certain times or events. For example, they definitely push hard for New Year’s and Valentine’s Day, and then start focusing on the Spring, then Summer and then Fall. The mailers have a lot of staying power with their guests…they tend to hold on to them for a while.
Results
After each mailing, Caesars Pocono Resorts analyzes what segments of their mail file are doing well and which ones are not performing well. They look at the reports this year versus last year and, as a result, they try to send the mailers out as close as possible to the previous year.
It’s hard to gauge how well each mailer does versus each other because of additional factors such as the economy, special offers, seasonality, entertainers, etc. That being said, their profit ratio benchmark is 4:1 and their past winter campaign reached this goal with all 3 mailers (general Winter, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day).
Surprises
A lot of people say special offers driver mailers for obvious reasons, but Caesars Pocono Resorts finds that even regular rates generate good call volume…and entertainers are a bigger response factor for them. Also, their mailers have a really long shelf life. The minute the mailers hit mailboxes, they see the number of incoming calls in their call center jump, and reservations continue to trickle in for a long time (they use tracking phone numbers).
In fact, they sometimes get calls from members of their Forever Lovers loyalty program when they don’t get the mailers wondering where they are!
Future
Caesars Pocono Resorts will continue to mail out the self mailers along with a few other booklet type pieces. They are also testing some new things with the self mailers. For example, we just produced a mailing for them — their usual 3-panel mailer — but we applied a new varnish on the paper that gives it a nice velvety finish.
We’re going to be producing a video about this new varnish soon. Please subscribe to our email or RSS feed above if you want to receive updates when we post new content to this blog including videos, case studies, tips, news and more.
###
Reminder: Did you read our new direct mail control report yet? It’s a 10-page PDF with information about what direct mail formats are working for other marketers in 2008. Click here to download.
The June 2008 issue of our Sample of the Month Newsletter features a case study from our client, 
