Last night, Rob handed me a postcard from a direct mail company. The postcard is a direct mail piece from a direct mail company selling their services. And, unfortunately for them, it failed for me. The devil is in the details, and they need a typo exorcism. They could also use a design angel.
I’m not going to mention the name of the company or include an image of the piece, so here is just the text:
On the front of the postcard (including the quotation marks):
“The cornerstone of [company]’s business philosophy is a firmly held conviction that, resourcefulness and responsiveness to clients needs is paramount to our mutual success.
We invite you to partner with us on your next direct marketing project. Let us show you the [company] advantage of, striving to exceed you expectations, and how it can work for you!”
On the back:
Services Offered by [company]
Inkjetting
Inserting
Dataprocessing
Design Services
Variable Digital Imaging
Digital Printing
Complete Fulfillment Operation
Warehousing
Large Format Sheetfed Printing
Data Management
Postal NDC Distribution
Did you spot the errors?:
- Are the quotation marks really necessary?
- A comma between “that” and “resourcefulness”
- A missing apostrophe in “clients’ needs”
- A comma between “advantage of” and “striving”
- The all-to-common dropped “r” in “your” in the highlighted statement, “striving to exceed you expectations”
- “Dataprocessing” should be “data processing”
And, what you can’t see, is the interesting color choices of red, white, and dark gray on black. Let’s just say the dark gray lettering (including the company’s URL) were a bit difficult to read for these tired, old eyes.
Is this nit-picking? I really don’t think it is. This is a direct mail company trying to solicit business through a postcard. By definition, it absolutely reflects their abilities and is an indicator of whether or not they are the right company for the card recipient.
They may be an awesome company with great people and (otherwise) tremendous skill. But their details gave the devil a foot-shooting gun.
Photo: The Devil is in the Detail by Tim Green aka atoach, on Flickr CC