unfold uk

pennies from hell

Ah, the US Postal Service.  Such a well-organized, friendly bunch they are... until they decide to raise their rates for the second time in two years.  This is a general pain in the ass for both consumers and for those of us in the business of written correspondence. 

 

On the whole, I'm a fan of the post office because they are usually reliable and relatively cheap.  Their website is easy to use, and anything that saves me a trip to the post office is a good thing indeed.  But why do they have to make the mundane task of sending a piece of mail so annoying?  It's not the two cents I'm moaning about, it's just the process of getting new stamps or doubling up on your old stamps - and wasting money - that irks me.

   

The charge for sending square cards is going up as well.  There's always been a surcharge for items, like square envelopes, that have to be hand-cancelled.  This has long been a dirty little secret among retailers who want to sell their stock since many consumers aren't aware of the additional cost until the card they've sent has been returned due to insufficient postage.  Designers like working with a square shape because it's symmetrical, smaller and different.  Consumers like it for many of the same reasons, and now it'll cost 58¢ to send.  No wonder the shape is so popular in the UK; you don't have to plaster the outside of the envelope with a ton of different stamps since the cost of sending is no different from any other letter.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter, and the real [albeit shallow] reason I'm aggravated. Raising the rates forces me to slap another 2¢ stamp on the envelope, and I hate the way it looks!   

think outside the envelope

Sometimes you hear something that you hadn't thought of before, isn't that hard to do and really makes sense.  A recent conversation with Monica Anderson uncovered a gem like this that I think is worth passing on.

Monica has built Remanents, her stationery and greeting card company, on small ideas that can pay off in big ways.  She launched the company six years ago without a massive marketing budget and has sold to major retailers including Anthropologie, Saks, Neimans and Nordstroms as well as hundreds of stationery and lifestyle stores in the US and abroad.  I'm constantly bothering her for advice and I'm sure one of these days she'll stop taking my calls. 

Monica has worked hard to develop relationships with editors, and it's resulted in press coverage for her and for her products.  Ok, that's an obvious one - everybody knows that editorial mentions can really boost sales and brand awareness.  But she's looked at the other side of a magazine's masthead and built relationships with the marketing and promotions departments too.  They are a goldmine of opportunity and can be easily overlooked in our efforts to get editors' attention.

I used to work in marketing at a national magazine, and I know that for every advertising event, every subscriber drive and almost everything else they do, magazines need products to give away.  These guys run out of sources pretty quickly and are constantly looking for new, fun and unique designs to include in their latest promotions.  Did someone say stationery?  Why yes, I think they did...

Monica has worked closely with InStyle magazine's promotion department for several years. This year, the magazine included Remanents products in special gift bags given to all celebrities staying at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons Hotel around Oscar time. Don't be surprised if that love letter you get from Leo is written on a Remanents card.  While this was obviously a high-profile event, it's worth considering the smaller ones that will come your way.   

Monica points out that you really have to know what to expect when you participate in an event in order to get the most out of it.  Her advice:

• use inventory as a PR tool.  It shouldn't cost you a lot to provide product.  If the request is for 1,000 of your best-sellers, maybe it's not the best opportunity for you right now... Think about your stock; you probably have some slow-movers that you could offer that wouldn't mean sacrificing sales. Put that inventory to good use and consider it a PR expense. 


• don't expect to see a big bump in sales, and don't be disappointed if you don't see any at all.  Consider this as a great way to build your brand and get your name out there in front of your desired market.  It's likely to lead to additional opportunities to promote your brand with the same magazine/newspaper/website or new ones who come knocking.


• solve problems and be reliable. Promotion and marketing pros always need great giveaways, so if you help them do their job they'll keep coming back to you because they can rely on you.  Monica has worked with her InStyle contact for years, which is how the Oscar opportunity came about.  It didn't just happen overnight.


• stay in touch as people move jobs.  Just like editors, marketing and promotions pros can and do move to new jobs at other magazines, newspapers, online.  Chances are, they'll need product there too. 

It's so easy to get overwhelmed by the things you should do to build your brand and find customers.  I feel it firsthand as I build Soleberry. Sometimes I think sure, that sounds good, let's just put it on the list along with everything else!  But since you're most likely sending press kits to editors anyway, send a few to the Promotions and Marketing departments and see what happens.  Maybe nothing, maybe something, but you never know. 

Let me know if you've had any experiences, good or bad, with product donations you've made or opportunities you've had like this.  They might be worth sharing too.

sympathize

Nothing turns otherwise smart, capable people into clueless idiots like the task of buying and writing a sympathy card.  I have to send one to a very close friend who tragically lost her husband, and it's daunting to think of something appropriate to say in the face of her overwhelming sorrow. 

Some people prefer a greeted card that expresses the sentiment for them, so all they have to do is sign their name.  Others prefer a blank card that lets them say what comes to mind.  The most common design I see is quiet and subdued, with or without religious overtones.  I've seen so many cheesy sympathy cards and not enough truly beautiful ones, and I'd like to give my friend something beautiful that might lift her spirits even for a second.

I tend to prefer a handmade sympathy card - the right one feels rich, important, and serious without being morose.  Laila Rezai of Looky Loo Press does a great job of this, since she keeps her colors light and her letterpress design subtle and classy.  These have a greeting on the outside but remain blank inside.

Cartesian Graphics does a nice job as well - fabric swatches in a neutral tone add weight and texture to an ivory card.

As for what to say, I always follow my friend's advice.  She lost her brother, and the cards that meant the most to her were written by people who shared a personal story about him, and expressed how much her brother meant to them. When I don't know the deceased very well, I try to write something I've heard about the person or the impression they made on me the few times I met them:

I'm so sorry for your loss. Frank was kind and charming and clearly well-liked by so many people. My deepest sympathies to you and your family.

It's never a fun card to write but it's definitely worth doing. People get too hung up on what is or isn't appropriate, what will make the recipient feel better and what's the proper etiquette to follow.  My friend stressed how important those cards were to her, and how it made her feel better to know that so many people cared.

slide into first

Since writing a love letter to your baby is - after all - about writing a letter, you'd think there would be more of them on the market.  Maybe there are and I just don't know it, because I'm not a mother myself.  But lots of mothers I know who've seen Jennifer Parker's Baby Love Letters tell me they've never seen anything like them before.

   

Jennifer, the designer behind Canopy Cards, creates a different letterpressed card for each milestone of the baby's first year, from sleeping through the night to sitting up to walking.  There are 10 'firsts' in all.  The detail that really seals the deal, in my opinion, is the packaging. I'm a sucker for a clever, creative package, and there is a surprising lack of examples in the market.  But I digress. Jennifer presents the cards in a matchbox-style sliding drawer inside a sleeve, which doubles as easy storage until said child is old enough to read just how much his parents love him [or her - no sexism here].

I like Jennifer's style because it's simple and clean.  She letterpresses one line of colored text on an all-white card, and doesn't overdo the sticky-sweet sentimentality that a lot of baby cards ooze.  The product does take some explaining, though - is it a gift? is it stationery?  what part of the store does it go in?  Obviously, not all retailers pull the deer-in-the-headlights look, but I'd like to see some related products to sell with it, to give it some context.  Canopy has just come out with some onesies so that might be just the thing. 

spring fair - wild kingdom

Animals, like babies, sell.  Putting an animal image on anything is like printing money, which is why I saw so damn many of them at the UK's Spring Fair trade show last month.  I'm a huge animal lover, but I don't love the syrupy sweet, super-precious way that most designers treat the subject. The Brits have a great word for it: twee.  As in, that picture of the stuffed animal sitting on the puppy is just a bit twee, don't you think? 

There are some designers who avoid the twee category with edgier or funnier collections.  Some examples:

         

         

one to watch: New on the greeting card scene, Animaru won't be small for long.  Noel Hinton and his team have created the coolest animals yet, and their website is one of the best I've seen.  In case you can't tell, I love these cards - they are funny, edgy and cute [but definitely not twee].  I predict we'll see these faces looking back at us from mugs, mousepads, prints, you name it.  They've even created the perfect product for us fans:  the Animaru Box, which contains 312 cards and 50 sheets of wrapping paper.  I don't know if that's arrogance or genius, but it sure works for me.

spring fair - stick it

stick it on there

If it isn't nailed down, stick it on a greeting card.  Embellishments galore adorn a large number of the greeting card designs I saw at the Spring Fair trade show last month.  Everything from felt and flowers to 3-D cutouts, beads and glitter were piled on cards and I don't know how some of them get through the mail.  There are some cases where the effect works, as it does with this cute but not cutesy felt monkey and these really elegant pewter-stamped charms on textured paper. 

Sometimes, however, designers take the more-is-more-is-way-too-much approach:

There are also US artists who take embellishment too far, but the sheer number of styles and types that I saw in Birmingham is alarming.

one to watch:  Petra Boase is a designer who knows how to decorate a card in a clever, not cluttered, way. She's a prolific author and beloved by mothers everywhere - she's written a series of activity and craft books for kids, such as Fun with Face Painting and Supermum's Book for Best-Ever Kid's Parties.  She is also a very cool woman.  I met her at the Fair and she showed me her greeting card designs which typically include badges, ribbons, sequins and felt - and not all at once, thankfully. This card above is a flocked, textured yet subtle design. I don't think it's easy to make dimensional cards, journals or albums that are still clean and attractive, but Petra manages to do it quite well.