Checkout this nice little envelope I got in the mail sent to my apartment: Here it is:
Awww…..it almost looks like a personal letter from a friend!
It looked handwritten. GOOD!
It was mailed with a real stamp not a bulk mailhead. GOOD!
It was mailed from an individuals name. GOOD!
It was addressed to “Current Resident”. BAD :-(
Since they didn’t know my name, the sender could’ve addressed it to something less obvious like “King of the castle” or “Our favorite Austinite”....something with a casual tone of voice.
Regardless, I gave this mail a shot and opened it. What I found massively disappointed me.
And the reason was lack of congruence.
You see, they made the outside all “personal” so I’d think this is a personal letter from one of my friends and open it.
But on the inside it’s like the corporate world threw up all over it.
Check it out:
WHOA! What happened??
On the outside it was a friendly letter. GOOD!
On the inside it was junk mail trynna sell me. BAD :-(
This difference causes my brain to explode in a bad way. Had they sent me a simple letter-style message with the benefits, I probably would’ve actually read this piece of mail.
Maybe if on the inside of the envelope they did something like this:
……in my experience that would’ve got FAR better results because it was more congruent with what people originally thought it was (a simple letter, not a piece of spam mail).
Admittedly the letter would still be tossed out at a decent rate, but the conversion rate for the company would be faaarrrr higher.
Perhaps you should make sure your own marketing is congruent??Sincerely,
Neville Medhora – Kopywriter
P.S. PROOF PEOPLE HATE THIS:
Out of curiosity I googled the name and city from this envelop:
“Chris Thomas El Segundo”
……and found this post on Facebook which made me literally say “YESS!!” out loud because it proves that people hate this incongruence in marketing:
YUP! Seems this in-congruence really pissed a bunch of people off!
Do you ever get any mail like this?
What is your reaction to it?
Even if you hated it…..did it actually WORK?
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