← All work Project 3 of 5 · Direct marketing

A postcard that has to get a stranger to dinner.

Direct marketing pieces · seminar and appointment marketing for financial advisors and tax preparersDirect mail and advertising · four postcards, one magazine adFrom the shelf: the rest of it

The postcard is the product. Each one is the same job in a different costume.

Role
Designer
Made
Four seminar postcards, front and back · one full-page magazine ad
Hard part
One picture and one promise on the front, and all the compliance copy still on the back

The story ↓

The brief

The card is the product.

Plum fills seminars and appointment books for financial advisors and tax preparers. The client never meets the advisor until the dinner, so the postcard has to do all of the persuading on its own, in the three seconds between the letterbox and the bin.

The dinner card. A gift card and a one-to-one review, front and back. The ribs do the persuading; the type stays out of the way.
What I did

Same job, four costumes.

The front is one picture and one promise: a beach and a retirement, a classroom and a college fund, a plate of ribs and a gift card, a flag and a price. The back is where the work is: the offer, the dates, the small print and the mail panel, in the same place on every card so the reader never hunts.

College financial planning night. A classroom on the front; three seminar times and the mail panel on the back, laid out so the room and the date are read before anything else.

Three of the other templates in the series: a tax price, a retirement seminar and a wine-tasting dinner, each the same card in a different costume.

The agency's own magazine ad plays by the rules it sets for its clients.

Plum's own magazine ad. One beach, one promise, the offer in the headline, and the three services in a line underneath.
Why it matters to you

Design with a number attached to it.

A mailer either filled the room or it did not, and you find out in a fortnight. Work that gets measured teaches you to put the offer where the eye lands first and cut everything that is not doing a job, which is what a landing page, a trade ad and a conference handout all need too.

Have something like this? Email me.

Tell me what you're making and when you need it. I reply within a day. What to include

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