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"Your article titled, "How to Create an E-mail Marketing Calendar" in the recent issue of ClickZ, is one of the best - and most needed - I've read on the subject of email communications planning. Excellent work!"

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Director, eMarketing Strategy,
ExactTarget, Inc.


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Dimensional Mailers

Custom Shirt Promotion Fits Lead Generation Goals to a "T"

Who can resist getting a shirt box in the mail?
What's in here that's so specially wrapped?
Inside: A tailoring ticket and letter, which generated a 20% response to this ingenious tradeshow promotion


20% Response Rate for Prudential Financial Advisor's Trade Show Invitation

A while ago, I got an out-of-the-blue email from a marketing manager at Prudential Financial who had conducted a search for "dimensional mailers" on Google and found my company's name. Amazingly, my website comes up #4 in the search results (I guess my amateur-level SEO strategy is actually working!)

Lauren Leo, Prudential's marketing manager, told me of an innovative tradeshow promotion dreamed up by one of their financial advisors to attract prospective corporate pension plan decision-makers to the advisor's booth at the Southwest Benefits Conference.

The financial advisor at Wall Street Access had a relative who was a custom tailor. Together, they cooked up the idea of sending an invitation to 200 of the advisor's top prospects to visit his booth for a fitting of a custom-tailored shirt. After the conference, if the prospect agreed to a follow-up appointment to discuss their pension plan needs, they would receive a custom-made shirt along with a custom-tailored proposal.

Lauren wanted to create a dimensional mailer to create maximum attention to the invitation, but their budget was limited.

Right over the phone, I suggested:

Lauren took that idea to her production people - and voila! A successful promotion was born. They added some nice touches such as a seal imprinted with the advisor's company name to keep the tissue paper in place.

Here are the results according to Lauren:

"I learned from the broker at Wall Street Access the campaign generated a 20% response rate! Almost everyone brought their tailor's ticket to the booth and those that forgot it commented that they forgot to bring it but did receive it. Many of the folks that came to the booth said this was one of the most original campaigns they have ever seen."

If you want your next trade show promotion to be a real showstopper, contact Karen to come up with a compelling high-impact approach.

Karen's ClickZ Columns on B2B Email Marketing