On Any Given Day

Coincidence or providence, lessons can be learned from any day’s direct-mail haul.

The day's take was a little smaller than average, just seven pieces. Two stood out from the rest for the sole reason they were not white — one a No. 9, closed-face, ivory outer with a gold foil-embossed corner card, and the other a 6-inch-by-9.5-inch special window with four-color printing on glossy stock. Of the five white packages, the mix included a 6-inch-by-9-inch closed face, a 6-inch-by-9.5-inch right window and three double-window No. 10s — one of which turned out to be quite providential.

When offers collide

The ivory No. 9 contained The Heritage Foundation's fancy Certificate of Appreciation with a gold-foil seal and a small sheet of stickers for me to affix my chosen membership level. It's a solid offer that's only downsides are that the certificate is folded in thirds and it's just slightly too big for a standard 8-inch-by-10-inch picture frame. Folding it lessens its perceived value, and the size makes it difficult to hang it, as requested.

Washington National Cathedral's certificate offer delivered flat and is quite attractive — if not as flashy as Heritage's — and it came with the same hope that I would display it proudly in my home. But measuring 8.5-inches-by-5.375 inches, it shares Heritage's problem of being not easily framed. In spite of that, however, it's a classic and well-executed offer.

Offers colliding in the mail is not necessarily a disaster unless, say, similar-looking boxed note cards from several different nonprofits were to all arrive on the same day. In this case, though, the offers are each strong in their own right. The two packages look completely different, and the case for support in each is unique.

A classic smash-up

Two of the white No. 10s had corner-card windows personalized with the name of my city titling a local area drive: in WETA's case, an annual membership drive in my community, and for Wounded Warrior Project, a local area fund drive for injured troops.

Both are familiar controls, and the local area drive is a workhorse offer for many mailers, often in a double-window outer. Chances are they'll hit donors' mailboxes at the same time once in a while like these two did.

But that's OK, because even though the day's mail might be overwhelmingly basic white and pretty boring overall, package by package it was a reminder that more often than not "plain and simple" works in the mail.

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