Sending the same association brochure twice sounds odd to many association staff. After all, won’t the association members and/or outside target audience be bored with seeing the same thing twice, and simply ignore it?
The answer is “no,” they probably won’t ignore it; and “yes,” it is acceptable to send the same brochure twice – with one caveat.
While the association staff lives and breathes the association, most members, and certainly most outside target audiences, do not. That is why you can send the same brochure twice. While some may have a vague recollection of receiving it before, that won’t hurt its effectiveness. In fact, some recognition of your message is a good thing – it means it is starting to sink in.
Moreover, many of your recipients are not well organized. They are busy, stressed, and overwhelmed with ads, brochures, and messages. While they may have liked what you offered in your brochure when they first saw it, they may have placed the brochure in the “read later” stack and have forgotten about it. Sending the same association brochure a second time may jog their memory and spur them to action, especially if a registration or offer deadline is approaching.
One of the great benefits of sending the same brochure twice is, of course, the savings in printing cost versus printing two different marketing pieces. Unless you are already printing an exceedingly high volume of brochures in the first place, the incremental cost of printing more is usually quite low because the fixed costs of the printing set up is already covered through the original quantity. In addition, design costs are zero for the second time you send the brochure. The only item that does not decrease with the second distribution of the brochure is the postage cost, if you are using mail as your distribution vehicle.
The caveat to sending the same brochure twice is that if your copy and design for the original brochure were not effective in gaining the intended response for your association, sending the brochure the second time may also result in poor response. As the saying goes, in this case you be “sending good money after bad.”
One might also note that sending a brochure the second time may not be as effective as sending two different well-written, well-designed pieces. The only way to be certain is to test. You would probably want to test:
– Sending the first brochure one time only, with no second brochure.
– Sending the first brochure twice, with no second brochure.
– Sending the first brochure one time only, followed by a second brochure.
– Sending the first brochure twice, followed by a second brochure.
Compare the costs and results, and you’ll know the answer for your association and its target audiences.
Does your association already send the same brochure more than once? Have you found it to be effective in addition to being cost efficient?
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