Don’t expect a miracle with your bulk mailings
Published 1/3/06
A bulk mail pamphlet from a local church finds its way to my mailbox from time to time. If you’ve received one, you could have easily overlooked it.
With all due respect, the flyer looks like the work of a mimeograph machine, an exhibit from a time capsule. Black type on white paper, the pamphlet is long on copy, devoid of visuals and, interestingly enough, appears to have been produced on a typewriter. (A typewriter is an office machine that was invented in the early 1800s, saw widespread use by the mid 1800s and was doomed for obsolescence, thanks to the introduction of word processors, by the late 1900s.)
Now there is a place for junk mail, which I’m going to define as a printed piece that lacks a creative strategy to establish reader rapport, contains typos and misplaced apostrophes, and ultimately fails to move me—to action. There is a place for junk mail and that would be the 30-gallon drawstring trash bag.
I will refrain from labeling this mass mailer as junk mail since I’m sure the sender means well. How can I knock an organization that points out in its pamphlet that it’s interested in my “eternal destiny”?
The reason I single this mailer out from the others I receive is because it provides an interesting case study in the way organizations, businesses, retailers or churches target their messages to audiences—or simply send them out on a postal permit and a prayer.
For example, this flyer will inevitably hit me cold since I have never attended this church and am not conducting a church search. In other words, it will have to work hard to connect with recipients who are not part of this particular faith community. And for those who have no interest in congregational life and did not ask for the mailing, well, the sender has a number of communication obstacles to overcome.
The flyer will also hit me cold because I am a member of the church at large, and this printed piece projects an image that I know the church has fought for years—that it’s in a time warp and, therefore, irrelevant.
Also questionable is the flyer’s use of a language which is foreign to most, a communications approach that fails to understand that, like it or not, we live in a post Christian world. Having grown up in the church, I can speak Christian-ese as fluently as anyone. But to those outside the sanctuary, this “God talk” has to come across as King James gibberish. I assume the mailer is depending on that ancient communications strategy: Expect a miracle.
Maybe there’s a lesson here for local organizations and businesses. It’s estimated that the media deliver to our attention 2,500 advertising messages, in one form or another, each day. The mailman alone brings us a stack of catalogs, magazines, direct mail, circulars, coupons and handbills. (Not to mention those shockingly graphic utility bills that have a way of demanding our attention.) Some of these print pieces are created by ad agencies or publishers with big budgets. So the competition for our attention is stiff. What’s disappointing is that some mailers apparently think their mailing list is not worth the time, the money, the talent.
Obviously not all organizations have the budget to produce shiny four color brochures with professional photography and commissioned illustrations. But they can do a reality check and ask themselves some basic questions: Do we know our audience? Are we talking in their terms? What image are our communications projecting? What are we saying between the lines? What year is it? Will someone addressed as a “postal customer” be ready to talk about his or her eternal destiny?
One of the ironies here is that we have just celebrated the season in which the God of the galaxies sent a message to his many earthlings. He didn’t send a doctrinal statement or a belief system or a creed. Because he wanted to meet people where they were—Nazareth, Samaria, Jerusalem—he dispatched a contemporary who would speak their language. It was a wholly imaginative way of bridging the cosmic—and communications—divide.
Okay, am I the first theologian to explore the relationship between the incarnation and bulk mail?
A bulk mail pamphlet from a local church finds its way to my mailbox from time to time. If you’ve received one, you could have easily overlooked it.
With all due respect, the flyer looks like the work of a mimeograph machine, an exhibit from a time capsule. Black type on white paper, the pamphlet is long on copy, devoid of visuals and, interestingly enough, appears to have been produced on a typewriter. (A typewriter is an office machine that was invented in the early 1800s, saw widespread use by the mid 1800s and was doomed for obsolescence, thanks to the introduction of word processors, by the late 1900s.)
Now there is a place for junk mail, which I’m going to define as a printed piece that lacks a creative strategy to establish reader rapport, contains typos and misplaced apostrophes, and ultimately fails to move me—to action. There is a place for junk mail and that would be the 30-gallon drawstring trash bag.
I will refrain from labeling this mass mailer as junk mail since I’m sure the sender means well. How can I knock an organization that points out in its pamphlet that it’s interested in my “eternal destiny”?
The reason I single this mailer out from the others I receive is because it provides an interesting case study in the way organizations, businesses, retailers or churches target their messages to audiences—or simply send them out on a postal permit and a prayer.
For example, this flyer will inevitably hit me cold since I have never attended this church and am not conducting a church search. In other words, it will have to work hard to connect with recipients who are not part of this particular faith community. And for those who have no interest in congregational life and did not ask for the mailing, well, the sender has a number of communication obstacles to overcome.
The flyer will also hit me cold because I am a member of the church at large, and this printed piece projects an image that I know the church has fought for years—that it’s in a time warp and, therefore, irrelevant.
Also questionable is the flyer’s use of a language which is foreign to most, a communications approach that fails to understand that, like it or not, we live in a post Christian world. Having grown up in the church, I can speak Christian-ese as fluently as anyone. But to those outside the sanctuary, this “God talk” has to come across as King James gibberish. I assume the mailer is depending on that ancient communications strategy: Expect a miracle.
Maybe there’s a lesson here for local organizations and businesses. It’s estimated that the media deliver to our attention 2,500 advertising messages, in one form or another, each day. The mailman alone brings us a stack of catalogs, magazines, direct mail, circulars, coupons and handbills. (Not to mention those shockingly graphic utility bills that have a way of demanding our attention.) Some of these print pieces are created by ad agencies or publishers with big budgets. So the competition for our attention is stiff. What’s disappointing is that some mailers apparently think their mailing list is not worth the time, the money, the talent.
Obviously not all organizations have the budget to produce shiny four color brochures with professional photography and commissioned illustrations. But they can do a reality check and ask themselves some basic questions: Do we know our audience? Are we talking in their terms? What image are our communications projecting? What are we saying between the lines? What year is it? Will someone addressed as a “postal customer” be ready to talk about his or her eternal destiny?
One of the ironies here is that we have just celebrated the season in which the God of the galaxies sent a message to his many earthlings. He didn’t send a doctrinal statement or a belief system or a creed. Because he wanted to meet people where they were—Nazareth, Samaria, Jerusalem—he dispatched a contemporary who would speak their language. It was a wholly imaginative way of bridging the cosmic—and communications—divide.
Okay, am I the first theologian to explore the relationship between the incarnation and bulk mail?
posted by Jack W. Williams | 2:33 PM
1 Comments:
Nice!!
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