Not a week goes by that I don’t have an envelope from a photographer come across my desk that is so bloated and so confusing it’s no wonder their order averages are suffering. The problems on the envelopes are all across the board, but range from poor packaging creation (low margins), poor layout and design, etc.… The one from last week which prompted this post was on a No. 10 envelope, imprinted on one side with the information for the parents to fill out. Please STOP doing this! You are killing your sales.
Rant over. Now let me give you 5 tips for creating an effective youth sports envelope.
1. Limit Your Choices
You’ve probably heard it before, a confuse mine always says NO! If so, then why do you have so many items on your youth sports envelope? I see order forms come across my desk every week with 50 to 60 items on envelope. Just because you can add all of these items, doesn’t mean you should.
I suggest that every time you to go to communicate with the customer, ask yourself whether you’re overwhelming them or not. If you think it might be confusing customers, it probably is. I’ve been doing this for 25 years ( I started when I was 2) and I look at some of these order forms and can’t figure them out myself. I can only imagine the parents frustration.
At the end of every season take the time to see which packages and items are selling the best and which ones are your low performers. Simply get rid of the low performers and replace them with new exciting products.
Want to take a deeper dive into the topic of too many choices, see Sheena Iyengar Ted Talk on “How to make choosing easier”
2. Tell Them Exactly What To Buy
People need to be taken by the hand and shown exactly what to do. On our order forms we use these ‘call-to-action’ items to the packages we want to sell. While we’re not going to attempt to get into the psychology of why people buy in this post, there is truly a science to order form creation, and when done properly it definitely it works. At the end of the year moving someone from a package C to Package B can have a huge impact on your bottom line.
For example, on this envelope by simply adding the starburst “Most Popular” we saw a significant increase to the purchase of package A’s.
3. Good Design
Good layout and design is absolutely imperative when creating Sports and School envelopes. All good brands have a great style. What great brands come to mind when you think of style? Apple, Nike, Under Armor, Coke, Google, Sony…
It’s your company to grow as big as you want, there’s no doubt you’re going to need a good brand. What does your envelope say about your company?
4. Create Packages
The concept behind creating packages is to combine numerous products from your A la cart selection together offering them at a lower price than you would pay if you purchase them individually.
Creating packages to sell in addition to your Ala Carte products will increase your overall sales, but also has some other very important added benefits.
– Gives you the ability to create packages with maximized profit margins.
– Automatically up sells your customers without having to ask for it.
– Promotes a higher perceived value for your customer.
5. Easy to Read
While design is important to the overall look and feel of the envelope in your company, the layout it is equally as important for the users to easily and quickly find what they are looking for and be able to easily fill out the order form. What is the sizing, spacing and placement of the design elements in your current envelope? Effective layout can make a big difference in whether the customer understands the products being offered or feels overwhelmed.
The envelopes used in this example were created by Photo Solutions Market and can be found on the PSM website. These are definitely worth the time and money, and will have you up and running very quickly.
Question: What ideas do you have to improve your youth sports envelope? Please leave a comment below.
