Leaflets, Stationery & Cards.
The long-established butcher, maker, and Cumbrian food retailer Cranstons has a highly successful direct mail postcard campaign, printed and coordinated by H&H Reeds for the past 10 years.
The business sends up to 100,000 postcards, twice a year, to homes in postal districts around its six stores. Our team ensures the cards are delivered to the Royal Mail depot, ready for delivery.
Because the postcards are non-personalised mail, it’s important that they’re eye-catching so that the recipients will pick them up and read them.
The postcards include an offer which entitles a customer to a free packet of Cumberland sausage or a vegetarian alternative. The initiative has an excellent take up, and it has also encouraged customers to visit Cranstons stores. The postcards and offer have become talking points with customers, providing valuable PR for the brand. To ensure the postcards have the necessary impact, one side is usually laminated, which gives them an attractive high-gloss finish.
Although the postcards have always been biodegradable, the laminate has made it impossible for customers to recycle the postcards in their domestic, kerbside recycling. Both Cranstons and its loyal customers were concerned about this barrier to recycling and wanted to explore an alternative.
Cranstons asked H&H Reeds for a solution to maintain the postcards’ eye-catching appearance, while ensuring that they could be recycled by customers. As the postcards are an essential part of Cranstons marketing calendar, the firm was keen to preserve their impact.
Our print team was able to recommend an alternative high gloss coating with a high impact finish, while also achieving the same prominent appearance and level of customer engagement as the previous finish.
The new style postcards perform as well as their predecessors, but they can be recycled by customers at home in their kerbside boxes. They also provide customers with an important feel-good factor.
In addition, through its work with us, both the postcards were printed as part of the Woodland Trust Carbon Capture scheme.
The scheme is funded by a levy, paid for by H&H Reeds upon purchasing paper for printing. The money is donated to the Woodland Trust and the Trust then uses the levy to fund the planting of natural, deciduous woodland trees in Britain. The trees absorb carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, and the project improves air quality, restores natural habitats, and reduces flooding.
Cranstons MD Martin Jones said: “Cranstons is constantly looking at how we can operate more sustainably. Initiatives we’ve taken are to install solar panels on our production unit roof, we have a fresh milk vending machine at our Orton Grange Food Hall which uses refillable glass bottles, and we have the Home Grown Here local produce scheme. It’s only right we try to bring that approach to our marketing.
“H&H Reeds are very knowledgeable and helpful and are quick to get back to us. They take the time to ensure we’re using the best artwork and they take a lot of pride in the quality of what they print for us. We feel they’re as proud of the postcards and brochure as we are.”
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