The best marketing happens when an experience is personalized. This way, you can connect with your target audience in a more human way. Instead of spending your marketing budget attempting to reach anyone and everyone, you are honing your efforts toward those who will listen to what you have to offer and appreciate you. You can see this as being incredibly effective for e-commerce websites that offer customized product recommendations. It even works well for email marketing, where you have segmented subject lines and content.
But let’s say that you want to step outside of the digital sphere. You are interested, instead, in investing in direct mail marketing. With this strategy, you are physically engaging with your audience by reaching them at their mailbox. To succeed at this, you need to get creative. Here are seven different ways that your business or non-profit organization can utilize 3D pop up cards, along with some Awesome 3D Cards examples.
#1: Announce Concert Tours to Fans
Are you an up-and-coming musician who needs more innovative promotional items? While independently marketing your music may sound exhausting, it is the key to building your momentum as an artist. Over time, with each release, you are going to carve out your career. But people need to know what you are up to if you hope for them to follow that career. For as much as you promote your songs online, you should also expand into physical marketing. When it comes time for you to go on tour, get creative with your announcements.
An example of this comes from McKenna Michels, an Austin-based singer. She teamed up with Awesome 3D Cards to bring herself to life in an eye-catching way through a 3D pop up card. Her card is something that our company has never before created, taking our team’s kirigami artistry to new heights. Michels can be seen as the pop up image in the center of the card, wielding a sword and in an outfit full of flair. Because she is big in the cosplay scene, comics are incredibly meaningful to her. We displayed the graphics from Michels’s own Survivor comic book and national tour on the inside to showcase lots of color and action in this luxury-size card.
#2: Introduce Yourself to Recruiters
Let companies know that you are interested in getting a job. And don’t just do this by updating your LinkedIn profile to say that you are open to work. Business cards are your best shot at engaging with recruiters. When you have business cards on you at events with networking potential, it is easy to share your contact information. The card should have your name, title, website, email, and phone number, along with any branded elements. Step outside of the box by making it a 3D business card that will make those recruiters say “wow!”
Fresh out of college, Wes Bowden knew he needed to be able to stand out from his peers during his job search, given the difficulty of the market. To do this, he decided to create a 3D pop up card. His piccolo size business card is one that was sure to make him memorable to astronautical engineering companies. The image chosen was a three-color model of a NASA rocket and boosters to emphasize his chosen career path. On the back cover, it reads, “It’s not rocket science, let’s keep in touch!” Given that the goal of a business card is to immediately provide recipients with a sense of personality and branding, this 3D business card achieves that.
#3: Promote Products and Services
Once you create a new product or start up a new service, the other half of the equation is to promote it to the public. Businesses of all kinds can utilize 3D pop up cards to share their latest launches. These cards can either be delivered via direct mail or personally handed out at events. Such events might include a local festival where you have a booth for your business. Through the use of interesting promotions, you are more likely to drive sales and increase revenue. This will also cover the costs of your research and manufacturing. Given how affordable 3D pop up cards are, too, you do not have to worry about breaking the bank.
Techniart is a company that offers e-commerce and pop-up retail solutions. When they partnered with Awesome 3D Cards, it was to introduce their brand new Benefication Lab. They wanted an innovative promotional item that would encourage current clients and prospects alike to further look into the product. The front of the 3D pop up card explicitly states that it will be sharing the Benefication Lab with you. But it is on the inside where you get to see what that entails. Not only is there written information, including the company’s website, email, and phone number, but also 3D images of the product demonstration stage and a truck. Both are very detailed representations.
#4: Celebrate Milestone Moments
As a leader of a business or non-profit organization, you must actively work to motivate your team. By acknowledging the successes of your team, it strengthens the bond you have with them. This results in workers being more engaged and productive. Leadership can boost morale by providing 3D pop up cards that include meaningful images and handwritten messages. These are a tool that works well when a revenue goal is hit or surpassed, an employee has been with you for a certain number of years, or even for birthdays. Determine the milestone moments that mean the most to your team.
The mission of OHIO811 is to promote public safety, and they have been doing so for over 50 years. Its team wanted a fun way to highlight that five-decade milestone. They opted for the image of fireworks—a burst of gold and white, complete with stars. Fireworks are a common way to celebrate and are made even more fascinating when turned into a 3D pop up card. This piece invites recipients to attend the three-day OHIO811 birthday party. The intention behind it was to increase attendance for the event in a way that sending an email would not have been able to. This is the kind of save-the-date notice to stick to the brains of company stakeholders.
#5: Sell 3D Cards in a Gift Shop
Museums are wonderful spaces to share historical information with the public. You can find them across the world, with several being incredibly iconic symbols of a particular state or country. Oftentimes, museums have gift shops because they are an important source of revenue. They are unable to rely solely on public funding. Gift shops are beneficial from the perspective of the visitor, as well, in that they offer education. You can purchase items that specifically revolve around the museum you are in attendance at. This could be a one-of-a-kind 3D pop up card that features the building.
The Neill-Cochran House Museum is a historical home located near the University of Texas at Austin. Its team worked tirelessly with Awesome 3D Cards to come up with a hyper-realistic model of the building. They wanted the Neill-Cochran House to be accurately reflected within the 3D pop up card, given that it is an architectural landmark with an image that must be preserved. You will find this in the attention to detail of the many windows and the two flags positioned at the front. These cards would be provided to donors as thank you’s, as well as offered for purchase by visitors in the museum’s gift shop.
#6: Commemorate the Holiday Season
Holiday marketing allows you to reach customers during a crucial shopping time. You want to encourage people to buy from you when they are searching for gifts for their family, friends, and colleagues. Businesses should consider 3D holiday cards as a way to get ahead of their competitors. If you have been building up your mailing list throughout the year, you will have access to addresses to distribute these cards. Send them out two weeks in advance to ensure they are received in time. For businesses that hope to create an entirely customized holiday card, also give yourself enough time to have it designed and manufactured.
One of the best times to reach your stakeholders with 3D pop up cards is the holidays. You are sure to delight, impress, and surprise them as soon as they see the card in their mailbox. This is exactly what The Pete Store did. Its team wanted to make the holiday season memorable, so they decided to share the notable image of their truck. Any of their company stakeholders would be able to recognize it. The front of The Pete Store’s 3D Christmas card shows their truck pulling Santa’s sleigh, which is a fun way to tie the two together. But their truck is the center of attention when the card is opened, a bright red color that reflects the exterior.
#7: Share Gratitude with Supporters
Remember when we discussed the importance of maintaining the morale of your employees? The same goes for the rest of your supporters. Appreciation goes a long way in terms of how people perceive your business or non-profit organization. It could drastically impact the number of people who want to get involved with you. Customers and donors alike should be given more than just a “thank you” in the form of an email. That could fall flat, given how much they have done for you. Instead, sharing your gratitude in the form of a 3D pop up card will bring a smile to their faces.
It is crucial to the success of colleges to thank donors. They are the individuals who make campuses a great place to be. Awesome 3D Cards loves working with universities and academies to show appreciation by replicating notable buildings. In this mezzo-size 3D pop up card, one of the latest campus dorms is displayed, very realistically. This model goes beyond just the dorm building with the illustration of the grounds surrounding it. You can even see the fine detail of cars in some of the parking spaces. The card ultimately makes the donor-recipient feel as though they are right there at the new dorm. So, the message that reads “thank you for being part of this historical moment” makes that feeling ring true.
When Harlow Russell started Awesome 3D Cards, it was with the mission to make customers and employees feel truly valued. He recognized the significance of this after enduring his own negative experience with a business. From that point on, he knew there had to be a better way for companies to go about fostering positive emotional connections. Since 2019, Awesome 3D Cards has stayed committed to providing 3D pop up cards that are delightful, impressive, and surprising. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you!