Brochures Powering Magazine Mail Pieces

May 27, 2010 by Ethan Boldt

multipage

Many magazine publishers shifted their direct mail efforts to vouchers a long time ago, much to the chagrin of all the creatives — copywriter, designers, direct marketers, circulation consultants — previously involved. But vouchers worked. They cost much less to produce, and while response went down considerably, overall ROI improved for many.

But this is not a discussion about the validity of the voucher. Rather, it's about how many magazine publishers are now infusing their vouchers with new, creative life: the four-color, multi-paneled brochure.

While such brochures are responsible for the so-called "hybridization" of the voucher, they've been relatively uncommon until recently. Now, it's not unusual to see them in nearly a third to half of all voucher efforts for magazines.

In our March batch of mail in the Who's Mailing What! Archive, in fact, I found over a dozen brochures in roughly the 30 magazine vouchers that I peered into. Below are six outstanding examples of using the brochure to truly power the mail piece (and see accompanying images of each magazine's outer envelope and brochure in the mediaplayer to the right).

1. Cook's Country (Archive code #202-699105-1003)
Brochures are often used to showcase the magazine. Here, Cook's Country using it as a "sneak preview" alongside several clever marketing messages, such as a brief testimonial from The Kansas City Star and the line, "Hurry - Supplies are extremely limited!"

2. IMAGE (Archive code #202-700267-1003)
The #10 envelope from IMAGE, a journal produced by the Center for Religious Humanism, is truly hybrid, for while it includes an order card, it also includes a four-page letter, a lift note, and a gorgeous brochure that shows the kind of art that IMAGE depicts in its pages. Inside, the panels are also very text-heavy, telling the prospect exactly what kind of journal it is: "IMAGE, unlike most other journals, takes both art and religion seriously, seeing in each a quest for the truth."

Later, after being told to "HURRY! ACT NOW!", it even mentions that "IMAGE is not a mass circulation magazine, so you won't be receiving a promotion in the mail every other month. This may be your only chance to see for yourself the exciting new developments in art and religion ..." If that's not enough to sway prospects, then the five testimonials from "religious and art leaders" on the back panel may be.

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