We are currently developing our website http://www.whitneywoods.com/ as a showcase for our full range of pop-up and interactive mailers. The re-vamped site will go live by the end of this week but here’s a reminder of the vast array of information that is already available.

 By visiting our pop-up mailers website, you will be able to view our complete range of promotional marketing products. We feature all kinds of dimensional mail products here. Many have high impact, others feature more subtle paper engineering mechanisms but all of them are great fun and offer massive plus points for your dimensional mail campaign.

 For instance, there are 23 high-impact automatic rubber band activated pop-up products all with complete product specifications and videos to show the pop-up action very clearly. These direct mail products are sure to grab the attention of your target audience. They all come with their own mailing packs, which are also custom printed to add to your promotional opportunity.

 Google is full of examples that show terrific results for dimensional marketing over “flat” mail in business-to-business direct marketing. Our pop up mailers site has the biggest online selection of paper and card dimensional marketing products in the world.

 Whilst our “Pop up Mailers” website features every product in our range, it might suit the purposes of your own dimensional marketing campaign to be able to search for the correct shape of pop up product. For instance, the success of your campaign may depend on the promotional product being cube-shaped. In instances like this, you will find our “New Promotional Ideas” site very helpful. We group all products into the type of shape or the style of movement on offer. Shaped products typically include mailers with triangular faces or panels that are square, rectangular or hexagonal. The whole product might have a specific shape such as a house-shape or a box-shape. On the other hand, you might want to fins a product with a turning movement or perhaps something that jumps. All of these feature on “New Promotional Ideas”.

 Our pop up and interactive dimensional mailers are very popular as company greetings to celebrate a national holiday or anniversary. To find the most popular products for this particular use, we recommend that you visit our “Christmas Marketing” site. The most popular products only are featured, showing suggested uses such as for corporate Christmas cards, calendars, decorations and desktop gifts.

In most standard print jobs all of the folding operations are done mechanically but in promotional print the creative minds of designers often throw up logistical problems meaning that certain products must be folded and assembled by hand. It could be something fairly commonplace such as a fortune teller or a starburst fold or it could be a custom designed piece that needs special care and attention. We have been doing hand-folding since 1992 and all of the products in our range of automatic pop-ups and interactive mailers are hand folded and assembled by hand.

 Hand-folding does not mean Hand-creasing

 It is not unusual for a job spec to be put forward where the product needs hand-folding but if it is produced on paper – say 80gsm to 100gsm - we should point out that when paper is die-cut and creased; the crease is usually of very little use when trying to fold. In our experience, art board doesn’t crease properly at any weight under 250gsm. Uncoated stock creases better at lower weights and a 225gm will crease perfectly well for hand folding. For paper weights we strongly recommend that you consider using micro perforations rather than creases though in some instances, particularly if the final folded product is bulky, this might not be suitable. We urge you to make proper mock-ups to test the product before going too far down the line with production and we are always happy to discuss a project with you in order to try to avoid pitfalls.

 If a product has not been creased or perforated and it is left for the finisher to crease by hand, the finished result will look as if it has been done by hand. The process takes ages, costs a lot and after all that, results are often disappointing.

 Hand Folding and Inserting everyday objects such as Folders with Business Cards

 Of course, not every job is as complicated as a picture dissolver or an extender card and we often handle everyday print jobs such as the assembly of tab lock folders and inserting business cards into diagonal slits. A lot of simple mailers are designed for a simple hand fold with an interlocking fastener as are some document wallets. Many of our promotional bottle collars have an interlocking device that can only be done by hand such as our collar and tie, bottle balls, and bottle banner products. We are happy to look at all jobs of this type.

Two new items have been added to our range of late - both of which fall into the category of hotel supplies or hotel signs.

Our Laundry Wheel is a neat innovation which helps to keep your guest rooms tidy whilst issuing clear instructions to your chambermaids. No longer will you need to inform your guests to throw towels on the floor if they need washing. The questions and answers are right here on the laundry wheel and it can be placed on the bedroom door or the bathroom door as is your wish. We also do a version based on a tent card design which can be placed on the dressing tble or vanity unit in the guest room. Both products offer an improvement to the “towel reuse” signs that do not seem to have found a “home” in most hotels being left on pillows, dressing tables, on the TV, on window ledges, coffee tables or just left on the bed.

The laundry wheel also has plenty of space for your “green issues” message and for other important information for your guests.

Another item of hotel signage that we have just introduced is the ever-familiar door-hanger. We can offer this standard style of door hanger custom printed with your hotel name and logo and with words to match your requirement or we can supply small quantities on our online store. The product can be shaped, printed on one side or two or it can be supplied as a 4-page product which would give you an all-in-one product to cover a variety of instructions such as “Do not Enter”, “Cleaning in Progress”, “Free for Cleaning”.

We are starting to build a decent assortment of door hanging signs for hotel guest rooms. The first item in the range was a standard “Do Not Disturb Sign” printed with the same message on both sides. We have recently added similar signs such as “Do not Enter”, “Unoccupied Free for Cleaning” and “Cleaning in Progress” all of which are in a standard door hanging style.

We also do a door hanger for laundry requirements which provides a tidy alternative to the instruction to “throw your towels on the floor if you want them washing”.

Hotels have become more aware of “green” issues and the amount of energy consumed in doing unnecessary laundry is one area that has been addressed. Whilst the instruction to hang up your towels if you intend to re-use them the following day is fair enough, the instruction to throw towels on the floor if they are to be washed leaves the room looking somewhat untidy. A neater way of getting the message across is to use laundry preference wheels.

These multiple choice selectors are very easy to use and are neat and tidy. The laundry requirement wheels are available as a door hanger or as a tent card to sit on the dressing table in the gust room.

We intend to add a variety of incidental products to this list of guest room supplies very soon. Products such as mini showcards showing information such as breakfast times, smoking not allowed and TV channels for example whilst hotel business cards are also a possibility.

We have a terrific opportunity to add an exciting line of marketing products to your portfolio. We are one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of promotional marketing pop-ups and interactive mailers that are used predominantly in direct marketing campaigns. Our famous bumper pack of samples is a source of creative inspiration to ad agencies and marketing managers all over the country.

 We are known by advertising agencies, marketing agencies, graphic design agencies, direct marketing consultants and events management companies throughout the UK but until now, our own marketing efforts have been confined to agencies such as these.  We have not targeted the promotional items and incentives market and yet if our success within the advertising and marketing sector is any guide then there is certainly plenty of scope for new business with suppliers of promotional goods.

 Agencies come to us for ideas for innovative products which they, in turn, sell on to their B2B direct marketing clients. The same surely applies to businesses that approach the promotional products suppliers. The average value of each order is in the region of £2500 and so there is great potential for the right agent to earn some very serious commission. To see the products online, please go to www.popupmailers.co.uk .

 In times like these, people in the industry come and go. Phoenix companies spring up overnight only to fail again with alarming regularity. It may be comforting for you to know that we have been in business since 1992 and over 75% of our workforce has been with us for over 10 years. We believe that we have a good balance of sound business practices and healthy, proactive marketing policies that have allowed us to grow and prosper whilst others have fallen by the wayside. If you feel like you could help to build on that solid base then please get in touch by phone or email - details as per our contacts page.