New ways to market videos and wow clients.
Many years ago I worked in what’s called a mount room. We built presentation materials and physical comps (mockups) of packaging for McDonald’s. At the same time, I was trying to build internal video capabilities at the company. Those worlds collided when we wanted to send a direct mail piece out to potential clients, but we wanted it to be video. We scoured the pre-Amazon internet for DVD players that were flat, meaning the screen was on top. We found a box that was the right size. We built a little cradle for the DVD player so when you opened the box the DVD player lifted up and there was a switch the person would flip and it would start our reel. It was crude when compared to today’s technologies, but it worked and we won an award for it.
Fast forward to 2022. Now all these year’s later I own my own production company and I want to send out something similar. We do email blasts, and they get great open rates (nearly 50%), but we wanted to identify some clients we thought would be great partners and we wanted to wow them. We also wanted to reach out to past clients that had “gone cold” and really do something bring them back into the mix. So I started researching, and researching and researching. And I came across Video Mailers. Direct mail pieces with built in screens that you preload with content. Basically what we’d built way back in the day, but much much more refined.
I got samples from a half dozen places and settled in on The Video Box Co (videoboxsecrets.com). Why them? Well, partially because after signing up for their email list they’ve VERY persistent. Normally I find that annoying and unsubscribe, but for this it just kept reminding me I needed to do it. Then they had the best balance of price, screen size, and screen quality. Some companies sent me high end samples that looked like art books with built in screens. They’re awesome but out of our price range. We got some samples where they sent a good quality screen and a TERRIBLE quality screen. I couldn’t trust those companies with my money because I didn’t really know which version I’d get. The Video Box Co was the best balance of price, and quality.
So I jumped on it and ordered some up. Then I had to design the boxes. In an ideal world you’re using all 20 of your boxes for the same campaign. As a small business who doesn’t really do campaigns I needed them to live a double life, existing and potential clients. So I designed them with that in mind. The outer box talks to potential clients. We’re targeting clients who’s work we like and who would be a good fit to collaborate with and we wanted to let them know that. The inner video box itself will still serve those clients, but when shipped without the outer box will work for existing clients. I chose one of my favorite images from a recent shoot as the lead, leaving copy off of it because we still want the element of surprise. The inner flap is a blank sheet where every recipient will get a hand written letter. And the back showcases the awards we’ve won in the past year as well as our contact info.
For the videos, I’m still fully working that out. But the auto play video, video 01, each person who gets one of these will get a custom video message from me. I’ll talk about what I like about their company, why we should work together, and share some of our work. Video 02 will be about AV Collective itself. How we got started and what we do different.
I sent the files off to printing yesterday and can’t wait to get them back and get them out the door. Once I do, I’ll track each one and circle back with the results. Now to order some cool, colored bubble mailers to send them in.