The June 2009 issue of our ‘Sample of the Month’ direct mail case study features our client HAWAII Magazine and their test of a double postcard to acquire new subscribers and reacquire lapsed subs.

This case study will also prove to you how effective housefile mailings can be (housefile meaning customers, clients, subscribers, etc.). As a result, this case study is applicable to most companies, not just publishers.

Campaign Details

The 4-color double postcard measures 6″ wide by 4.25″ high (closed) and opens up to 6″ wide by 8.5″ high. The middle is perfed and one half gets returned (standard DPC). The offer is for 1 free issue of HAWAII Magazine and a bonus Luau Guide. They are then automatically billed $15 for 5 more issues with the option to cancel.

This DPC mailing was split into 2 segments:

Segment 1

The first segment was a non-housefile mailing to Hawaii property owners that live on the mainland (90% of their subscribers live on the mainland). The personalized copy that was included on the front of this segment’s DPC included “Come Home To HAWAII Year-Round” and “Be Instantly Transported To Your Home Away From Home”.

Segment 2

The second segment was a housefile mailing of lapsed subscribers from the last 3 years with a geographic select that mimics their highest concentrations of subscribers. The personalized copy that was included on the front of this segment’s DPC included “Escape To HAWAII Year-Round” and “Skip The Long Plane Ride And Be Instantly Transported To Paradise”.

Both segments shared the same offer in addition to the same artwork for the back and inside of the DPC.

DPC Pictures

You can view pictures of the double postcard by CLICKING HERE.

Campaign Results

As you can probably assume, the housefile mailing (lapsed subscribers) performed better…but the non-housefile mailing (Hawaii property owners) also did well partly due to the amount of attention given to the details of the data file by HAWAII Magazine’s Marketing Manager.

—> Response rate for the housefile mailing was 6.35%
—> Response rate for the non-housefile mailing was 2.59%

This reinforced HAWAII Magazine’s need to continue to mine its own database because there is definitely low-hanging fruit to be had.

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If you’re familiar with, or if you regularly mail a standard double postcard, you should find the video below both interesting and helpful.

It talks about a format tweak that will help increase payment with order.

Would you like a price on this double postcard? Please email your project details to Ryan: ryan (at) ballantine.com.

Double-postcards are effective because they’re relatively cheap, simple to print and make it pretty easy for your target audience to reply back to you (meaning, they tear off the one half and mail it back).

We produce a pretty healthy amount of double-postcards for clients and one recent mailing prompted us to write this blog post.

It was your standard double-postcard (folded dimensions of 4 1/4 height by 6 inches width, wafer-sealed closed), but tucked inside was a yellow, folded business return envelope…and the BRE was glue-tacked down so it didn’t fall out.

The client we produced this for is a magazine publisher so obviously they’re trying to increase cash/check orders (called pay up). This technique, however, is applicable to most any company using a double-postcard to sell a product or service.

It also makes the double-postcard a little puffy which further increases the odds of the recipient opening and reading the mail piece because they want to see what’s inside.

It might be a mail piece worth testing for your company.

Lastly, here are some postage stats regarding a double-postcard (current as of 12/4/2007):

It mails out at the first-class postcard rate of roughly 22 cents per piece if the one half is a returnable reply card. Otherwise, it mails out at the standard-class letter rate of roughly 25 cents per piece.

So by designating one half as a reply card, you save roughly 3 cents per piece on postage, and the delivery is both quicker and better (first-class versus standard-class).

In the case of the mail piece above, one half was a reply card that you tear off, but since it had a BRE tucked inside, it had to mail out at the standard-class letter rate.

The mailing was just sent out, so no results just yet…but if the client agrees, we’re going to feature them in an upcoming direct mail case study newsletter.