In January 2018, NextPage mailed over 1600 personalized direct mail packages to our valued clients that included three originally designed paper airplanes. For this particular multi-channel campaign, titled “Fly NextPage,” we wanted to show how a high-value direct mail campaign incorporating interactive marketing could increase engagement and awareness.
Our campaign goals were simple:
- Demonstrate a rich multi-channel marketing campaign experience with an interactive mail piece
- Demonstrate variable data printing opportunities
- Show off an engaging envelope fully manufactured at NextPage
- Start conversations on social media
- Provide our sales staff with a package to create conversations
There were many moving parts for the campaign to come together smoothly. The packages had a number of elements to be created. Among the components we identified necessary include:
- Carrier-envelope
- One die-cut airplane (with assembly instructions)
- Multiple folded paper airplanes (with assembly instructions)
- Letter on letterhead
- Production notes for the entire mail package
- Landing page
- Creation slideshow
- Instructional video for how to assemble the airplanes
- Pre-campaign email
- Post-campaign email
- Social media posts
- Campaign overview ebook
Fly NextPage also featured a contest that awarded a $500 gift card to Southwest Airlines for whoever could produce the best flight video. The packages included a letter explaining how to enter the contest and a link to a video that showed tips on how to create a winning entry. We asked recipients to shoot a video of themselves flying the paper airplanes and post it on social media with the hashtag #FlyNextPage. Fun and creativity were encouraged.
The Fly NextPage campaign was structured to meet a variety of goals. Our goal didn’t include a monetary transaction or a trackable conversion through a form. In our world, no one orders a campaign just because we sent them a great offer. Purchasers of our products save examples of great campaigns and when they are faced with a challenge, they go to their files. This campaign was designed to create awareness for the multi-channel opportunities available through NextPage, and to demonstrate some fun and interesting printing capabilities.
According to our stats, we feel this campaign was a great success:
- 295 packages mailed to advertising agency staff
- 1,347 packages mailed to business owners and marketing staff
- 3,015 emails sent with a 21% open rate and a 3.22% click rate
- 5 great video submissions with 34 likes, 8 shares, and 1 retweet
- Our Facebook custom audience ad reached 440 people serving 2,094 impressions and 11 post engagements.
The contest winner was Rusty Kugler from United Soccer Coaches. He submitted a creative video on Twitter that showed his airplane flying through his office at Union Station, out the door, into the elevator, down to the main lobby, and then crashed. We went to this office to formally present him with the gift certificate on video and shared it on our social media. Here’s Rusty’s video:
Overall, the campaign resulted in great conversations with our clients, which is always a win for our sales team. In the future, instead of a video, we will ask people to post a photo and tag the campaign on social media with a specified hashtag. A photo makes it easier on our target audience to engage with the content.
If you would like to read more information about NextPage’s Winter 2018 direct mail campaign, Fly NextPage, click here, or you can download an eBook overview of the campaign, here.