Overloaded

I staggered from my car to the front door of my house, clutching my briefcase, overcoat, cellphone, house keys, car keys, go cup, and a bag of groceries. Hmmm, how to free up a hand to unlock the door?

Today I was reviewing a piece of collateral (direct mail postcard) that was just as overloaded. The one postcard tried to sell the whole deal all by itself. Everything you needed to know on one side of a single postcard. It looked (and was about as effective) as I did trying to get into my house.

Hey, the postcard doesn't have to complete the entire journey alone. It just needs to get people to the next step--a vital concept in collateral. Think what you want people to do when they're done with your collateral: go to a website, pick up the phone, know something, feel some way. Then take the next step. In this case, getting people's interest and sending them to a website for the complete details of the offer would have been preferrable to asking the postcard to tell them everything.

As for me, I'm gonna make two trips next time myself.