Canada Post was experiencing a decline in the use of direct mail. It needed to promote DM as a valuable marketing tactic, to encourage Canadian marketers to use it more frequently in their integrated campaigns and, of course, to increase spend.

Working with the McMillan, Canada Post targeted the advisors who influence marketers – the strategists, account people and creative directors at Canada’s leading advertising and marketing agencies.

The challenges were to motivate advertising agencies across Canada to recommend direct mail as part of their integrated communications strategies they develop for clients, as well as to reposition Canada Post as a solution-finding partner.

So the agency created a three-part campaign. Phase one would demonstrate the potential of direct mail, phase two would open the door to conversation between Canada Post reps and agencies and phase three would help to turn this conversation into increased direct mail volume.

Given that Canada Post was promoting direct mail as a valuable marketing tool, the agency started by creating a direct mail piece. Given the cynicism of the “been there, done that and seen everything” digital-leaning audience – the agency kept it simple, fun and unbranded.

Canada Post sent them a ball, and asked them to play, for themselves, and for charity.

The DM included a ball in a tube as well as a URL (Bounceme.ca).There was no actual ask, but if they decided to visit the website, they would be invited to create a simple video – about balls. Agencies were asked to be as creative as possible and were invited to vote for their top pick. The most voted for video won $1,000 for their charity of choice. There was also a random draw for another $1,000.

This wasn’t about making videos, or giving away money. It was about demonstrating the power of DM in an integrated campaign. Canada Post proved its point when recipients followed the URL to the site. However, it was important that the folks Canada Post was speaking to would have a positive experience and not feel exploited for no reason. So, the agency gave them something engaging to do, which was worthwhile to share and valuable to participate in.

Canada Post sent the direct mail piece to 1,053 people. Within two days (from March 19 to March 21, 2013), 877 went online to see what it was about. That’s an 83% response rate. The average time spent on the site was three minutes and 50 seconds, 22 stories were posted and 359 visitors shared the site. Lastly, more than 1,500 votes were garnered.

The agency followed up the first piece with a test that included both a DM and EM, sent to 650 people. The follow-up communications didn’t pull in many new visitors, but then, with the first response rate so high, there wasn’t much room to raise it. After the follow-up DM was sent, voting spiked 300% over the average.

The next steps for Canada Post are in phases two and three – where the brand is reaching out to this newly energized audience by bringing the DM message to life through seminars, resources and direct partnerships. The content is being housed in “The Hub” where resources help to provide guidance to Canada Post customers.