Welcome to the fourth and final week of the zero2illo Promotional Mailer Challenge.

Following on from last week, it’s now time to crack on with creating the final artwork for your mailer (unless you’re using one of your existing Illustration).

Your final artwork file

Whether you work traditionally or digitally there are certain things you’ll need to take into consideration when creating the final file to send to the printers (unless you’re printing it on your own printer).

Here’s a checklist to make sure you have everything covered:

• Is your illustration suitable for the target market of the contacts you’re send it to?
• Have you included the following contact details?:
• Your name
• Your email address
• Your website url
• Your phone number
• Is the text on your mailer legible (both in size and font style)?
• Do you have a licence to use the font you’ve chosen?
• Is your artwork file set up in the correct colour mode (check if the printer you’re sending it to require the artwork in CMYK or RGB)?
• Is your artwork file high resolution (ideally 300dpi)
• Is your artwork file set up at the right dimensions (check with the printer you’re sending it to)?
• Have you included bleed on your artwork file (industry standard is 3mm)?
• If creating a pdf of your artwork to send to the printer, have you embedded the fonts?

Once you’ve checked off all of the above, the only thing left to do is send the file to the printers and wait for that exciting package of mailers to arrive

When to send your mailers out

We wouldn’t advise sending your first mailer out this side of the holiday season (unless it’s a specific holiday themed one) as it could easily get overlooked with the volume of extra mail Art Directors and Publishers are likely to get at this time of year.

We’d recommend waiting until the 2nd week of January to give things time to settle down and people chance to get back to their regular working lives again.

Remember that sending out promo mailers isn’t a one time deal. You may be lucky enough to get interest from your first contact but don’t get disheartened if you don’t – stick to your schedule of sending out mailers, make sure your contact list is always kept up to date and consider following your mailers up with a phone call.

Important: Although this challenge has focused mainly on creating a printed promo mailer, don’t let budget constraints hold you back from marketing and promoting your work, consider creating and send out an email version to your contact list.

That’s a wrap

Thank you for following along with the challenge – we hope you’ve found it useful this time round and something that you can refer to each time you create a new promo mailer.

If you’ve taken part in the challenge we’d love to showcase your finished mailers on zero2illo – simply email me a jpeg of the front and back of your mailer and we’ll put them on the blog.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to send out a special thank you to our sponsor for the challenge Agency Access.

1st December, 2011

Welcome to Week 3 of the zero2illo Promotional Mailer Challenge.

If you’ve been following along, so far you will have:

• Solidified the direction you want you career to go in 2012
• Started building (or adding to) your targeted contacts list
• Worked out a realistic schedule of promotional activity for 2012
• Planned how you’ll measure the success of your promotional activities
• Checked your portfolio is ship-shape, appropriate for your target market and planned any new pieces you’ll need to complete over the festive holidays before your mailers are sent out

Now, after all that planning and strategising, it’s time to get to the fun stuff…Illustrating.

Format

Ok, so there is still a little bit of planning to do, but it’s fun planning – before we start doodling thumbnails, we need to work out what format our mailers will take.

Are you going for a standard postcard (most cost effective), a more elaborate format like a concertina to show more images (more expensive), or maybe a mixture of the two and send a package of your work to your contacts (most expensive)?

Although the most expensive option, sending a well thought out targeted package of your work to a small number of your dream clients my be the best way to go, as it not only shows how serious you are about working for that client, it also shows that you have done your research.

Whatever format your mailer will take, make sure you include space for the following:

• Your name (and logo if you have one)
• Your address
• Your telephone number
• Your email address
• Your website url

It’s also worth checking with your postal service (eg. Royal Mail if you’re in the UK) if there are any specific postage requirements. For example, the weight of card on which your mailer is printed, if a specific amount of clear space is required where the stamp and address should go etc

Thumbnails

Finally it’s time to put pencil to paper (or stylus to tablet) and start sketching out what you’ll be illustrating.

Think about your target market and consider what will demonstrate to them that you understand their requirements. For example, if you’re sending promotional material to a children’s book publisher, demonstrate that you can handle storytelling, multiple characters etc

This is your chance to nail down exactly what you’ll be illustrating so you don’t waste time in the final artwork stage – work out compositions, gather reference and create colour studies if necessary.

If you’re struggling and would like some feedback on your thumbnails, why not post your sketches on the zero2illo Facebook page as I’ll be encouraging feedback and friendly, helpful critique from the zero2illo community on there for the remainder of the challenge.

Ok, let’s get sketching – I look forward to seeing you over at the zero2illo Facebook page.

24th November, 2011

Welcome to Week 2 of the zero2illo Promotional Mailer Challenge. There’s a lot to get done this week so let’s jump right in…

Measuring your success

Designing and illustrating the perfect mailer to help you land those dream clients is a great start but how do you know whether your mailer has been successful – aside from any new jobs you happen to land from it? Part of creating and sending an effective mailer is to know how effective your mail-out has actually been.

Wouldn’t it be great to know that an Art Director has seen your mailer, liked your work and is interested in it even if the didn’t currently have a project suitable for you?

There are a few things you can do, before you even start creating your mailer, to help make this happen…

Start An Online Mailing List

It goes without saying that you should have a website portfolio and that the URL of your site should feature clearly on your mailers, but something that is often missing from Illustrators’ websites is a sign-up box where prospective clients can sign-up to your mailing list to register their interest in your work.

There are a number of services available to create and manage an online mailing list, these include:

• Aweber
• Mailchimp
• MadMimi

The above services all enable you to easily manage your mailing list online – they handle sign-ups, unsubscribes, double opt-in (absolutely vital to protect you & others from unwanted email and ensure your messages are delivered) and more.

The great thing about having an option for prospective clients to sign-up to your mailing list online is that it will give you a very clear indication of who is interested in your work – and enable you to keep in touch with them via this mailing list using blog updates and/or regular newsletter. The cost of sending these is limited to the cost of the mailing list service and it’s an excellent way to follow up with warm leads.

Pre-paid response cards

These can be in the form of a tear-off section of your mailer or an additional reply card to register their interest in your work – either way, the key is to make it as easy as possible for a publisher or art director to send it back.

Consider filling in the name of the contact and the company they work for on the response card to save an Art Director time, and ensure that you have added the correct postage (remember to check the amount of postage required at the post office, especially if you’re sending your mailers overseas)

You could also consider including an optional questionnaire on your response card with tick boxes so the contacts can let you know if they would like to see a more comprehensive mailer pack of your work or if they aren’t interested in your work (the later may be disappointing but will help you keep a clean and concise mailing list).

Follow-up phone call

A simple and more cost-effective (although a little scary if you’re anything like me) way to measure the success of your mailer is to follow up your mailer with a phone call. You may not get to speak directly to the person you sent the mailer to (remember Art Directors are often very busy people) but it shows you’re human and that you’re willing to go that extra mile – this could put you at the forefront of an Art Director’s or Publisher’s mind when a suitable job comes up.

A word of caution: Don’t be a pest – as disappointing as it may be to get the brush off, pestering someone with call after call really isn’t going to reflect well on you.

Capitalising From Your Mailer

Although necessary, most of us Illustrators don’t get particularly excited about building and maintaining mailing lists, adding sign-up boxes to our sites and licking envelopes – we’d much rather be illustrating.

Now we’ve done much of the prep work, it’s almost time for the fun bit…

However, before you jump right in to sketching out ideas and charging ahead with creating final artwork for your mailer, let’s go back to the work you did in week 1 of the challenge. Remember, we got you to *really* think about the type of work you want to be working on in 2012 and the clients you’d like to be working with?

It’s all very well creating a beautiful mailer that reflects this, but does your portfolio back it up? There’s no point in sending out a mailer showcasing an amazing Illustration, one that is relevant to a prospective client, only for them to visit your portfolio site and find that your work looks nothing like the Illustration on your mailer.

You may only get one chance to impress so make sure that everything is shipshape and water tight. This includes:

• Branding your website in the same way you have on the mailer (or vice versa)
• Making sure that the work on the mailer looks like the work in your portfolio (and vice versa) – give the art director or publisher the confidence to know that they can trust that you can deliver work in the style of and to the quality of that which impressed them on your mailer.

Having ensured everything is consistent and integrated, it should give you the confidence that this mailer is going to give you as good a chance as you’ve ever had to impress…and capitalise on the investment of sending out your promotional mailer.

This week’s tasks:

1. Plan how you’ll measure the success of your mailing and implement any necessary actions that will enable you to do this.
2. Go through your portfolio site to make sure the work in it reflects the direction you want your career to go and the clients you want to land in 2012. Plan any additional pieces that you need to work on and work out a schedule for completing them over the Holiday season.

Welcome to Week 1 of the zero2illo Promotional Mailer Challenge. Without further ado, let’s get started…

Planning your mailer

Anyone that participated in the original zero2illo 12 Week Challenge will remember the initial task we set – it was a vital part of that challenge and it’s just as important here too…

One of the foundations of a successful promotional mailer needs to be set in place long before you start creating it. It’s your promotional mailer marketing plan.

If the plan is to send out as many mailers as possible to as many people as possible, then you may have a lucky hit and generate work from it, but you’re more likely to increase your chances (and keep your costs to a minimum or at least get a better return on your investment – of time and money) if you do some planning first…

What do you want to Illustrate?

Sounds simple, but really think about it – what kind of work do you want to be hired to do? What subject matter, in what medium and who for? It’s important that the type of work you want to be hired to do is reflected in the mailer that you send out to potential clients (this also applies to your portfolio website too, but we’ll save that for another challenge).

Who do you want to work for?

An equally important reason to spend the time working out the direction that you’d like your career to go in 2012 is that you don’t want to throw money away printing & posting thousands of promo mailers out using a scatter gun approach hoping something will stick.

You’re far more likely to get yourself on the radar of Art Directors and Publishers by sending out a well crafted, tailored promo mailer/package to a well researched, smaller and highly targeted list of prospective clients you’d really like to work with.

So, put the time in now, do the research and craft a highly targeted contacts list consisting of contacts name, title, email address, postal address and direct telephone number (where possible).

What is your strategy?

Do you have a plan for your promotional activity? How does this mailer fit into it? Is this mailer going to be a one time deal or do you have a structured calendar of promotional activity planned throughout 2012?

Most marketing research determines that people need to be “touched” by your marketing message more than once – in some cases, for some products/services up to 7 times, before they’ll actually take any notice and take action.

While an art director may fall in love with your work having seen just a single mailer, they may not have a suitable project for you to work on then & there. It doesn’t hurt to remind them who you are and what type of work you do on a more regular basis – they may just have a timely project land on their desk for which your work would be a great fit.

So if you’re planning to put together an amazing promo package for just 3-4 of your dream clients, make sure you have a plan to follow up with them.

What if for some reason your package never ended up on the desk of the right person and was overlooked? What if they thought you’d be perfect for them but they didn’t have a suitable project for you at that time and forgot about you (these people are swamped with mailers in their physical and virtual inbox every single day).

This week’s tasks:

1. Take time to really think about the direction you’d like your career to go in 2012 – decide what type of work you want to be creating, in what medium and who for (x magazine, x publisher etc?)
2. Start building your targeted mailing list of contacts – research online, in magazines and make phone calls if you have to, to make sure you have the right person to send your mailer to.
3. Work out a realistic schedule of promotional activity for 2012 (bi-monthly, quarterly, every six months) and stick to it. Work back from the date each new mailer is due to be sent out and note on your calendar steps you need to take to make this deadline (create the artwork, print lead times etc).

Happy planning!

Introducing…the 4 Week Promotional Mailer Challenge!

The Challenge

…Should you dare to accept it Over the course of 4 weeks, we’ll be recommending specific tasks to help you design, create and send out the most effective (we hope!) promotional mailer to promote yourself as an illustrator for hire.

Maybe it’s something you’ve already done in the past or maybe it’s your first time doing it…whatever your experience, this challenge will hopefully open your eyes to a more organised, more strategic and hopefully, a more effective and successful way of doing it.

The Schedule

The challenge will run as follows:

• Start: Thursday, November 17th 2011. This is when we’ll publish Week 1.
• Finish: Thursday, 8th December 2011. This is when we’ll publish Week 4.

We’ll be publishing one post a week on a Thursday – so you have time to work on it over the weekend – which will include the task and the resources to help you complete that task.

What’s Included

We will be walking you through some specific steps which we know – from our own experience and from interviewing other successful illustrators – will help you to create the most effective promotional mailer possible. Some of the areas we’ll be covering include:

• How to plan a promotional mailer campaign
• Building your mailing list.
• Managing your mailing list in the short, medium and long term.
• How to design an effective mailer – including some of the core graphic design principles that will help you create professional-looking materials – ready for print.
• How to write compelling copy on your mailer.
• Tips to ensure your promotional mailer gets seen.

How to Take Part

It is completely free to take part in this 4 week challenge – but please make sure that you’ve “Liked” our Facebook page as we’ll be posting updates and running discussions on there throughout the challenge.