Now, if you follow my ramblings, most of you would know that I absolutely love letterboxes because they are a great doorway to the people who live behind them and, if you are targeting people in an area, they are a great way to get to first base i.e. into the hands of the recipient. But, of course, you have to make sure that the recipient actually looks at what you’ve put in their letterbox… that it follows the AIDA formula. That it gets their Attention, sufficiently for them to read it or look at it and stimulate their Interest so that it creates Desire and hopefully make them take Action.

So that’s the objective no doubt of this very impressive looking package from Twinings Tea that plopped into my letterbox the other day. Coz I’m a tea drinker it certainly got my attention (on the other hand it wouldn’t have done anything for my wife who has never drunk tea in her life!). And coz it got me interested I opened it and found the great selection of tea bags inside… and I’m consuming them with great gusto. After all that magic word… free… works for me.

But I wonder whether Twinings could have spent their money better. After all dropping that package, which would have cost lots to produce, into every letterbox without knowing more about the people whose letter box it is doesn’t make a heap of sense. Do they drink tea, would they drink tea, do they buy tea, are they remotely interested in tea and is there a better way to promote tea would have been some of the questions I would have asked.

It seems to me that many packages would have been wasted. Much money spent without result.

Why wouldn’t they have given their tea away outside, or inside, the local supermarket where people who may purchase tea are going… kinda getting them at the source, eh?? Why not have someone in Twinings gear, looking smart, handing them to shoppers going into the supermarket, or better still, shoppers walking up the tea and coffee aisle of the supermarket?  Someone who could ask nicely whether they drank tea and, if so, would they like to try this free pack of Twinings little beauties? Or, if they don’t drink tea, would they like to try some (in the hope that they might become tea drinkers and Twinings buyers).

I reckon that such a promotion would have given Twinings more bang for their buck. What do you reckon?

Just in case you’re wondering, I like to letterbox drop information about products and services that most people need or want either now or sometime in the future.