Swim Films
Scenario
Award winning BBC and Discovery Channel film director and producer Moira Mann approached Minuteman Press with a dilemma. Swim Films Ltd had created a documentary ‘Fresh Fishing – The Carp’, it was scheduled for broadcast; the DVD had been replicated, branded, packaged and was ready for despatch. The question was how to communicate the DVD’s availability to distributors and to attract their attention? The market for fishing DVDs is extensive.
Swim Films had purchased a bespoke database of fishing tackle shops in the UK, having identified them as the most appropriate route to market.
Approach
Swim Film engaged in several conference calls with Minuteman Press during which the existing scenario was detailed, issues identified, objectives agreed and proposals created; a classic gap analysis.
Minuteman proposed a series of actions to create a mail piece that could be posted to tackle shops that would immediately communicate the film’s unique selling points (USPs); guidelines regarding direct mail follow up and point of sale materials that could be supplied within budget. To date the USPs had not been focussed on, rather the length and retail price of the film, the rational but not the emotional.
The mail piece was designed in consultation with Swim Films. The content was created to maximise response. Minuteman Press utilised the authors’ extensive experience of direct mail campaigns and Chartered Institute of Marketing expertise. Cutting edge psychology and NLP techniques were employed in message, layout and presentation.
Minuteman Press designed and produced full colour A3 and A4 posters on 150gsm gloss that could be folded and mailed in a C5 envelope, together with a one-colour order form and a two-colour mail piece. All stationery was produced on 100gsm Diamond White Conqueror Laid paper.
A call centre was appointed, which Minuteman Press liaised with negotiating price on behalf of the client. Minuteman created training material, telephone canvas scripts and guidelines for the appointed centre.
The mail piece was manufactured using Offset and Digital presses, trimmed, folded, collated, mail merged, inserted and sent out. The mailing was despatched to 1,250 recipients.
Result
The direct mail piece left on schedule to arrive on the allotted day identified as maximising readership from Direct Marketing Association data. Each envelope featured an actual stamp and a convincing hand written font address.
“The shop managers really liked the posters commenting that point of sale material is never available for DVDs, the size of posters was perfect for the space available to display” commented Moira Mann. “The mail piece was well received and understood; many of the shop managers requested additional posters. They really grasped the ground breaking science that had been so difficult to convey” Moira concluded.
