Personalized Direct Mail Done Right

Jeanne Grunert ♦ February 1, 2012 ♦ 1 Comment

Kudos to The Danbury Mint for a knock-it-out of the park personalized direct mail package.  It’s rare enough today to receive a direct mail package, and rarer still to see one this well done.  I bet they get a good response rate on this one.

Here’s a picture of the brochure. The entire kit container a personalized outer envelope.  The teaser line of copy was customized with my city and state on it.

Inside, the letter was personalized “Dear Jeanne.”  There was a postage paid return envelope included.

The offer – a farming themed Christmas ornament – was definitely appropriate, although the timing is weird.  It’s February. I’m not thinking about Christmas. Yet this is the third Christmas collectible offer I’ve received in the past two weeks, so there must be some reason for this. (The other two included a bird ornament of the month set, called a negative option direct mail piece; you have to say “no” to make them stop, hence negative option, and a Bradford Exchange solicitation for a crystal snowman. The snowman direct mail piece wasn’t personalized.)

The brochure was a small fold-out piece, but it was also customized, and folded out to a beautiful sheet-sized display of the rest of the “Christmas in the Heartland” series of ornaments. Because yes, it’s a series.

I am seeing more direct mail offers like this with autoshipment and negative options.  I love such programs and they can be wildly successful for marketers if done correctly. I’d say Danbury Mint is on to a successful campaign.  The sophisticated level of personalization tells me they have a great database team there.

If you get one in the mail, be sure to study it. It’s definitely a “what went right” kind of direct mail package.