According to Wikipedia,

Marketing is a societal process that is needed to discern consumers’ wants; focusing on a product/service to those wants, and to mould [sic] the consumers towards the products/services…The marketing teams (Marketers) have the task to create the consumer awareness of the products/services through marketing techniques.

In the last week, two major retailers have sent me mail that made me take notice, and that’s what marketing is all about. As a freelance copywriter, I’m always trying to think of new ideas that will help my clients market their services. I have two new heroes to emulate.

Staples
I signed up for the Staples InkDrop program. When my ink cartridge runs out, I put in a new cartridge and mail Staples the empty one using a prepaid InkDrop envelope or mailing label. They send me a new one and recycle the old one. The service is free, including the shipping.

This is genius. Not only do they have me hooked on buying my ink there, they also hit me in the environmentally sensitive gut by making recycling easy (I’ve had empty cartridges sitting around waiting to be recycled for ages). In addition, the whole kit is SO DANG CUTE! They sent the prepaid envelopes in an adorable folder, ready to be placed in the neat, orderly files of a neat, orderly office manager (I don’t have one of those, of course). The dang little mailers are so cute that I want to use them to send treats to my nephews.

Target
I received a medium-sized mailer from Target stores that really got my attention. The folded mailer was bumpy, so I opened it instead of tossing it into a recycling bin like I do most of my postcards.

Inside was a weird little folded advertisement circular. The difference between this and most coupon books was that this one came with a clipless coupon electronic card. The idea is that you take the card with you to Target to get the discounts.

I know I’d never remember to bring that silly little card with me, nor would I recall what the circular said was on sale. But the point is I looked at the mailing. And noted the sender. And thought a lot more about Target stores than I thought about anyone else who sent me a flyer this week.

At Christmas, Target caught my eye as well. They sent me a catalog of sale items for the holidays. The book was so nice that I couldn’t bring myself to recycle it for almost two weeks. It just didn’t look like the other sales circulars from Best Buy, Wal-Mart and all the others I got. It reminded me of the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book with the crazy expensive gifts like a skyscraper statue made of #2 pencils.