In an attempt to open the U.S. catalog market, Canadian printer Transcontinental mailed a lockbox to catalog executives as part of a campaign that yielded a 74 percent response rate.

Transcontinental, Montreal, aims to position itself as a thought leader in the U.S. catalog industry, and one way it hopes to accomplish this is with an annual survey of catalogers. A dimensional mail campaign was built around the survey both last year and this year in order to produce at least 100 responses, the minimum Transcontinental needed to publish a credible survey.

74% response is pretty good by any measure of direct marketing. Even for dimensional mail it's high. According to the company, they had previously mailed a traditional paper survey in an envelope and historically got a 1% response rate.

While sending a lockbox to prospects won't land you immediate clients, if the messages you put in the lockbox and the offer you make as a part of the mailing campaign are strong, it will:

• Get opened and remembered by your prospects
• Get opened and remembered by your clients, should they be a part of the campaign
• Generate an audience and a robust conversations about whatever you want to talk about

In our upcoming Future of Lead Generation in Professional Services research report, generating introductory meetings with prospects is rated as one of the top most successful lead generation tactics.

Think about the possible lead generation campaigns you could use for your firm just with the lockbox. The permutations of, "Unlock the hidden value in your supply chain...marketing process...human capital...financial structure," are a few ideas for part of the message of the campaign. Target your list well, insert a worthwhile reason for them to want to speak with you (not always so easy for some people to come up with), and you're in the door.

Of course, it's not all just about the lockbox. There are many ways professional services firms can use direct mail and dimensional mail in lead generation to, as they say, cut through the noise and get someone's attention. Why more firms don't employ the tactic, I don't know.

How do you think professional services firm can employ dimensional mail in marketing and lead generation?

Have you seen any examples of how dimensional mail has been employed well by professional services firms or any other kind of company? I see them all the time, but always curious to see more.