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Journals Help Jumpstart Sales
By: Audrey Sellers, Associate Editor
Issue: April 2010

A California distributor promotes its business with something everyone can use: journals.

A journal is a mainstay in most everyone’s home or office, and when paired with a pen, it becomes an instant keeper. Nicole DeMattei, MAS, queen bee of Sonoma, California-based distributor Focus 4 (UPIC: FOCUS4), hoped this matchup would propel her business into the minds of her prospects.

“Our initial target audience was prospects we wanted to work with that were either Fortune 500 companies or in our client niche, such as luxury and eco-friendly brands,” DeMattei says. “We wanted to place a useable item in recipients’ hands that was creative, informative and functional. We also wanted the item to be thought-provoking and interesting while showcasing our company.”

DeMattei got to work sourcing products and selected a 7x10-inch top-bound notebook from Journalbooks and a Leed’s Scripto pen. Targeting about 200 prospects, DeMattei crafted a letter of introduction to include with the gifts and mailed them in a two-month timeframe.

“The most outstanding feature was the journal’s graphics and set up,” she says. There wasn’t a designated front or back, and one side highlighted Focus 4’s creative capabilities while the other provided helpful hints about planning a promotion.

The most challenging part, DeMattei says, was gathering the information and overseeing all the details. “We’re a smaller-sized distributorship, so our time and resources are hugely leveraged daily. It took us about six months to get through the layout, design and research, but we feel the end result was profoundly satisfying. It has proven to be one of our best pieces yet,” she says.

Recipients were pleased to accept the journals from Focus 4, and about 20 percent called DeMattei to thank her for the gifts. Plus, when the Focus 4 group made follow-up phone calls, about 65 percent recognized the distributor because of the promotion.

“We’ve written new business for 22 percent of recipients and are in active, personal contact with about 25 percent who now look to us for their needs,” DeMattei says. “This promotion was hugely successful for us because of the value of information the recipients received and the design elements. We’re currently working on a 5,000-piece order that will encompass very much the same information for a key client.”