Project Postcard: The Posting

[PeterBrett]

The general election approaches rapidly, and we need publicity materials. I seek your help in creating some.

An orchestra I play in has recently switched from using leaflets to promote their concerts to using A6 postcards. These have turned out to be an epic success:

* They look smart (full-colour printing both sides, decent quality card)
* They're a convenient shape and size to easily carry around.
* They're inexpensive.
* They can easily be used as an impromptu poster with the addition of a pin.
* They're small and sturdy enough to be sent through the post (they would, for instance, be ideal for a free constituency mailshot).


I'm therefore proposing to get some made, since there is some considerable lead-time involved in manufacturing them. I'm going to front the cost of getting them made, and I'll be selling them on to PPUK members at cost.

How you can help

You can help by getting these cards off me, and doing something with them. Give them to your friends. Give them to your enemies. Put them up in the supermarket. Put them up outside the town hall. Stick a few in your local library. Persuade a internet cafe to let you put some by the computers. Convince a cream-teas cafe to let you leave some on the tables.

The expected cost will be £1.30 per hundred, plus the postage and packaging required to get them out to you. So I can judge how many to get made, please post here or e-mail me (peter@peter-b.co.uk) by 8th February letting me know how many you want (multiples of 100 only please). I personally will be expecting to get through 500 of them. Once I've placed the order, I'll demand money and postal addresses.

Questions/suggestions? Fire away!

See also this thread about designing the postcard: there's a free t-shirt to be won!

Requests so far
peterbrett: 500
johnb: 1000
rancidpunk: 500
andy_r: 500
pete: 500
glambert: 1000
zappa88: 200
epriezka: 5000
nebulon82: 100
neurve: 1000
coofercat: 500
xadet: 500
minyall: 1000

[JohnB]

The expected cost will be £1.30 per hundred, plus the postage and packaging required to get them out to you. So I can judge how many to get made, please post here or e-mail me (peter@peter-b.co.uk) by 8th February letting me know how many you want (multiples of 100 only please). I personally will be expecting to get through 500 of them. Once I've placed the order, I'll demand money and postal addresses.

Questions/suggestions? Fire away!

You can put me down for 1000, will be in touch to confirm details and hope we get a nice design sorted. May increase my order, depending.

[rancidpunk]

500 for me.

[Andy_R]

It's great to see this sort of thing happening! I'll take 500, and when we have decided what's going on the cards, I'll do the design work, if we don't have anyone else taking up that task. For election mailings, the post office in different regions can set odd requirements (such as requiring the printer to deliver the mailings in bundles of 100, or using a certain minimum weight of paper, so I think it's best to use these as an awareness builder now, and do the candidate mailings in a different batches, the message needs to be 'vote for your Pirate Party candiate' in areas where we are standing and 'join the pirate party' in ares where we are not. I've been sounding out printers on an A4 folded to A5 format for constituency mailings, as that gives us a lot more room to get our message across.

[Pete]

I assume the reverse will carry information about the party? However will it carry enough information to sway voters.

Personally I find that I tend to read election lit. in the lavatory, I can't see a postcard filling that role. Perhaps this is not best for mailshots, but for handing out in the streets ect it sounds like an excellent plan. I'll take 500

[glambert]

I'll have 1000 myself please.

[PeterBrett]

I assume the reverse will carry information about the party? However will it carry enough information to sway voters.

I envisage it as having a really memorable slogan and image on one side ("Sharing is Caring" is one possibility, of course) and some sound-bite-sized phrases on the other side about our manifesto and our reasons for it, the idea being to have enough juicy bits to draw the intended victim into checking out our website to Find Out More.

Of course, let's see what designs people come up with.

Oh, and thanks guys -- we now have enough interest to make this definitely feasible. Thanks for your support!

[scuzzmonkey]

not 100% sure how much free time i'll have once I get back to work - as soon as I find out I'll give you a solid amount - but I'm assuming around the 2000 mark - just give me a few days to confirm, I'll know by monday

[zappa88]

Being not exactly in the money at the mo, I'll take just 200 for now.

[epriezka]

Put me down for 5000.

[PeterBrett]

Put me down for 5000.

Wow, that's a lot of cards! What are you planning to do with them?

[epriezka]

Put me down for 5000.

Wow, that's a lot of cards! What are you planning to do with them?

Give out smaller bundles to other pirates so they can give them away. The effect is the same as me giving them out personally but it's quicker if I engage others to help. If I bankroll the operation we can get on with printing the postcards and it might be possible to reduce the unit cost by making a bigger order.

There's plenty of members dying for something to do. I'm offering to finance sending a bundle of postcards to every member who recently volunteered to help in response to my 'secretly controlling the pirate party' post, but who didn't know how to help. Giving them postcards to hand out in public places gives them something to do, gets them feeling part of something bigger and gives the party some forward momentum.

Think of it as a pilot. If it works well, we can repeat, repeat, and repeat again and get more and more people handing out postcards. If it works well, then instead of being self-financing it makes sense to use party funds to print more. And if it doesn't work, I blew some money on a failed experiment. It's a drop in the ocean compared to the time I've spent on this party so far, so it's hardly worth me penny-pinching and seeing my investment of time go down the plughole. So let's get on with this pilot, see if it works, and see if we can rapidly grow it into a much bigger mass campaigning activity.

[PeterBrett]

Put me down for 5000.

Wow, that's a lot of cards! What are you planning to do with them?

Give out smaller bundles to other pirates so they can give them away. The effect is the same as me giving them out personally but it's quicker if I engage others to help. If I bankroll the operation we can get on with printing the postcards and it might be possible to reduce the unit cost by making a bigger order.

There's plenty of members dying for something to do. I'm offering to finance sending a bundle of postcards to every member who recently volunteered to help in response to my 'secretly controlling the pirate party' post, but who didn't know how to help. Giving them postcards to hand out in public places gives them something to do, gets them feeling part of something bigger and gives the party some forward momentum.

Think of it as a pilot. If it works well, we can repeat, repeat, and repeat again and get more and more people handing out postcards. If it works well, then instead of being self-financing it makes sense to use party funds to print more. And if it doesn't work, I blew some money on a failed experiment. It's a drop in the ocean compared to the time I've spent on this party so far, so it's hardly worth me penny-pinching and seeing my investment of time go down the plughole. So let's get on with this pilot, see if it works, and see if we can rapidly grow it into a much bigger mass campaigning activity.

Heh. That was actually exactly my plan!

I'm not really sure how to proceed from this point. It would make sense to get your 5000 delivered directly to you from the press... it seems that there are two real options: (a) you take over bankrolling the whole thing or (b) you put in your own separate order using the same artworks. What do you think?

[epriezka]

Heh. That was actually exactly my plan!

That's because you're a genius Well done!

I'm not really sure how to proceed from this point. It would make sense to get your 5000 delivered directly to you from the press... it seems that there are two real options: (a) you take over bankrolling the whole thing or (b) you put in your own separate order using the same artworks. What do you think?

I hadn't decided about how to distribute, which will be tricky for me to manage personally, given I'm working abroad these days. One thought I had was to collect addresses of volunteers and then have smaller bundles mailed directly out to people - which I assume you were originally planning to do anyway. In other words, I was planning to make more work for you. But you don't mind, do you? Did you notice that I called you a genius? According to Edison, genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. So you won't mind doing a lot of backbreaking and thankless work then, will you? That's what you get for coming up with a good idea

In other words, I think it's a great plan but I'm very badly placed to execute it myself, so please don't hand any of the responsibility for execution over to me. If you don't mind doing the legwork, I'll support as best I can.

Another option is that I link this promotional activity to the plans to hold a London meeting and that we also try to focus energies on maximizing turnout to that event. The London meeting would offer a good opportunity to take a large bundle and split it into smaller bundles to be taken by a number of dedicated members. With that in mind, what's your turnaround time from making an order to receiving the cards?

[scuzzmonkey]

peter: reckon you could get on the blower to the print shop and get some sort of special deal done where they just send out the orders separately - if we're ordering ~10k, then that is a sizeable amount of money for them after all, and if they are any good, i'm sure you could get something done - not to mention it saves on you/eric postage costs.

[Nebulon82]

I'll take a hundred and get them on every notice board at at Manchester University.

[neurve]

i'll take a 1000 based on the theory thats £10.30? i'll drop them through people's letter boxes and hand them out

[PeterBrett]

i'll take a 1000 based on the theory thats £10.30? i'll drop them through people's letter boxes and hand them out

Firstly, £1.30 * 1000/100 = £13.00

Secondly, it'll defininitely be more than £13.00 -- it'll be £13.00 + however much it costs me to send you a parcel of 1000 cards. I admit that I need to figure this out -- I'm not sure what the best way to do so is without walking into a Post Office with a stack of postcards. Any suggestions?

[glambert]

i'll take a 1000 based on the theory thats £10.30? i'll drop them through people's letter boxes and hand them out

Firstly, £1.30 * 1000/100 = £13.00

Secondly, it'll defininitely be more than £13.00 -- it'll be £13.00 + however much it costs me to send you a parcel of 1000 cards. I admit that I need to figure this out -- I'm not sure what the best way to do so is without walking into a Post Office with a stack of postcards. Any suggestions?

Perhaps you could use a cheap courier service?

[neurve]

lol fail. okay £13.00 its not a big problem considering i can afford more