Mary Beth Kriskey, Marketing Director
Mid-America Council, Omaha NE
Do you want to make every piece of mail leaving your office work overtime for you? Consider purchasing custom indicia. For as little as $100, every letter with your postmark can highlight a coming anniversary, a special event—or the Boy Scouts of America or Learning for Life names. Keep costs low by asking a local vendor to donate the artwork.
Does your council have multiple messages to communicate to different audiences, such as parents, volunteers, or the business community? Consider buying one indicia a year. After a few years, aim to introduce a new one each quarter, ensuring your messages reflect current initiatives. Research shows that people respond best to stamped mail; however, if your council handles large volumes of mail daily or during certain periods, like an FOS campaign, it may be more cost-effective to use the postage meter than stamps. And if you're going to use the postage meter, why not customize the message?
If your council uses an in-house postage meter, find out if the machine's manufacturer creates custom indicia. If your council doesn't have a postage machine, ask an outside company that does numerous mailings to add Scout indicia to their company's postage machine.
Start planning an indicia four to six months in advance to determine the artwork and to ensure it meets the postage machine manufacturer's requirements. Companies such as Pitney Bowes may request that the artwork be a certain size, with limited detail.
Do you want more low-cost or no-cost ideas? Go to marketing.scouting.org and click on "Council Sharing." Help yourself to a number of ideas submitted by councils.
The Merits of Marketing (marketing.scouting.org) is a resource for local
councils, developed by the Marketing &
Communications Division of the National Council, Boy Scouts of
America.