What do you include with the orders

Do you send advertising with the orders?

[MikeMike]

I was trying to look at the packages we send to our customers with a customer view, and found that the order my customer receive from us is pretty plain.
The box includes the ordered merchandise and a invoice.
Do you guys add anything else in the box? How does included advertising pay off?

[hannamyluv]

Package inserts can do very well. You can either advertise your own company or sell the space to non-competative but related companies.

For advertising yourself, add a flyer about your site or perhaps a flyer about stock that you need to get rid of. It does work.

If you are looking to sell space, which is frequently done, you would normally charge by either 100 or 1000. So, for example, an advertiser would pay you $X for every 100 packages you put their flyer in.

Try ordering from a catalog company for examples of this. It is a pretty common practice in the direct marketing community.

Most companies that do this also take into account the cost of the flyer to ship. A single piece of paper may not seem like much weight, but the more you add, the more cost it adds to the shipping, especially with those who have the pretty strict bulk rate limits.

[moltar]

depending on your industry, you can include stickers with your domain on them.

[JonR28]

I agree with stickers. Stickers do the trick well!

I can't think of why you shouldn't include them. All-weather full color UV Coated 2X4inch stickers run around $125 per thousand. People love to stick stickers. PM if you want to know a good place for stickers.

[corbing]

We include an airline size package of peanuts with each order. Customers seem to like it. I just wish we could print our name/logo on the package, but the company we get them from wants a minimum order of 1,000,000 units for personalized packages.

We also include 1-3 advertisements for products related to the items they order. We have about 10-20 different 4"x6" full color flyers at any given time and they get inserted by the warehouse guys based on specific criteria.

[Wlauzon]

We include an airline size package of peanuts with each order..

Hehe. that is a good idea. We might start doing that.

Where do you get them from?

We usually toss in some sales brochures of other related items. We used to include a catalog with most orders, but since 95% of our catalog is on the web now - and printing costs are expensive, we stopped a couple years ago.

[moltar]

We include an airline size package of peanuts with each order..

You got to be careful, some people are very alergic to peanuts and can even die from it.

[incrediBILL]

Take a clue from most delivery pizza places - they stick a time limited discount coupon on every box to try to get you to order more pizza within the next 30/60 days. You tend to save those coupons and call them back, even if the coupon is expired, and ask if you can still get the discount :)

[corbing]

Hehe. that is a good idea. We might start doing that.

Where do you get them from?

Search Google for King Nuts. I think we pay about $.05 per pack. We get both stadium style and honey roasted.

You got to be careful, some people are very allergic to peanuts and can even die from it.

Yes, we thought about that. But these are pretty tough little bags and after talking with a doctor (yes, we researched it that much) even a puncture in the bag will not present a problem to people who are allergic. The peanuts need to be inhaled or ingested to cause a problem. Our warehouse guys are instructed to do everything possible to make sure they do not get harmed when opening the box even with a knife.

btw, if anyone is interested in the "postcard" thing we do, we get 5000 4/1 postcards printed for under $200 so we can do a lot of A/B testing and different themes without much cost. Search G for "custom postcards" for our source. Great returns on this.

Disclaimer: not affiliated with ether company above...just a happy customer.

[Essex_boy]

I was loking at postcards too, having done handbill flyers I thought these would work well.

Whats sort of return did you get?

[hannamyluv]

I just wish we could print our name/logo on the package

Why don't you get stickers printed and slap them on the bag? ;)

[pshea]

I'm sure no one will believe me, but I include a handwritten thank you on a florist-shop card in each order. I started doing it in the beginning of my online life because I was so grateful for a single customer . . . now, it's a lot. But I keep these cards on my desk and just sign cards that say "Thanks for ..." The customer response is outrageously positive, they freak when they see a handwritten note. For the one-in-a-hundred customer who calls or writes to thank me back, it's a rush for me.

[my74]

We also include a handwritten "Thank You" note with each order. It really does make a difference. We designed coordinating wrapping,invoices,tags, and stationery with our company logo on high quality card stock. The customer response has been wonderful. Our customers always email us with great feedback. Since we started adding a more personal touch to customer service our repeat business has been fantastic.

[martyt]

We hand-write a "thank you" on every invoice and include two business cards with our URL prominently displayed. We hope the customer will keep one card and give the other to a friend, and that seems to be the general trend - we get lots of orders that cluster around the same geographical area.

We printed our own business cards for a long time, using blank micro-perforated card stock and a simple layout in MS Word. I've since done a slightly nicer layout in Adobe Illustrator and had a huge batch of cards printed from some company on the internet. In the long run, it's cheaper than feeding our ink-ravenous printer...

I've considered getting a supply of refrigerator magnets or pens or something with our logo and URL, but it just seems too expensive to give to every customer. Maybe I haven't found the right source yet.