The 6x11 card

Six inches by eleven, full color on both sides, mailed across about 2,500 homes, against the jumbo card's about 5,000. It still goes out at oversized rates and still stands out clearly from letter mail, but it covers a smaller run of carrier routes and costs less to print and post, and that is what the lower slot price reflects.

Everything else follows the same rules. Sixteen advertiser slots, the same as the jumbo, one business per category, the same design and proofing process and the same refund promise if the card does not fill by its date.

We usually suggest this format to a business trying direct mail for the first time, or to a trade where the average job is smaller and the arithmetic on a jumbo slot is tighter. Proving the channel works for you on a smaller card is a more sensible first step than committing to the largest format and hoping.

A smaller run, at a lower price

The 6x11 covers about half the households the jumbo card does. Its homes come from the same zone and the same kind of carrier routes. You are buying a smaller run, and the price reflects that honestly rather than dressing a smaller mailing up as the same thing at a discount.

It still mails at oversized rates and it still stands out clearly from letter mail. It is not a flyer and it is not a postcard in the holiday sense; at eleven inches long it is well outside the envelope stack. What it does not do is dominate a hall table the way a 9x12 does.

Identical in every way that governs the deal

Sixteen advertiser slots, eight to a side. Your ad is smaller than on the jumbo and the card reaches half as many homes, which is exactly why a slot costs less. One business per category, closed on that card the moment you book. The same design and proofing process, where we lay out your ad, set it for press and send you a proof of the whole card with your ad in position beside the other advertisers. Your web address and phone number, printed at a size a reader can act on. The same refund date and the same rule that the card does not mail unless it fills.

When we would suggest this one

Two situations, mainly. The first is a business trying direct mail for the first time. Proving the channel works for you at a lower cost is a more sensible first step than committing to the largest format and hoping, and if it works you can move up on the next drop with real numbers behind the decision.

The second is a trade where the average job is smaller and the arithmetic on a jumbo slot is genuinely tight. If it takes several customers rather than one to cover the slot, the lower price meaningfully changes how many responses you need before the card has paid for itself.

What you give up

We would rather be straight about this than sell the smaller card as a free lunch. A 9x12 commands more attention on arrival, full stop. The extra inches are most of why the format works at all, and a smaller card gets a little less of that interruption. Your ad is also physically smaller, which means an offer that was already trying to say too much will suffer more here than it would on the jumbo.

If you have one clear offer and a recognizable logo, the difference is modest. If you were planning to list nine services, the smaller card will punish that harder.

What is included

Everything the jumbo includes. Design and press setup are included, and so is the full print run. All postage for the zone is covered, as are the bundling and postal paperwork, with your web address and phone printed legibly. There is no artwork fee or setup fee, and the finished file is yours on request.

The same promise

The card mails full or it does not mail. You are given the date by which it must fill before you pay, and if it has not filled by then you take a full refund or move to the next card in that zone at the price you already agreed. That choice is yours and not ours.

What a good ad on this card looks like

Everything that is true of an ad on the jumbo card is more true here, because you have less room to recover from a mistake. One offer, one reason to act, one way to respond. A specific figure rather than a vague percentage. A deadline rather than an open ended offer.

The failure mode to avoid is treating a smaller slot as a reason to shrink the type and keep all the copy. That produces an ad nobody reads at any size. Less space calls for fewer words rather than smaller ones. We will say so when we send the proof back.

How you will know it worked

On the 6x11 the QR code sits in the same top-right corner of your ad as on the jumbo card, sized so a phone reads it easily. Scans open your website or page and are counted for you; the results page lists them by day. Most people who act on a smaller card still pick up the phone, so treat the scan count as the least it did.

A printed line on every card also asks readers to mention it when they ring, so the question comes up in a conversation your staff are having anyway.

The stronger move is yours. Make the offer one that exists only on this card (a named package or a code to quote works well), and then every redemption can only have come from the card. None of this costs anything or expires. It is yours, and it still works when somebody pulls the card off the fridge a year and a half later. After the drop, compare three weeks of your own call volume with the three weeks before it. Those two figures together tell you what the card did.

Moving up later

Plenty of advertisers start here and move to the jumbo card on a later drop. That is a perfectly sensible path and it is the one we would suggest to anybody who has not tested mail before: prove the channel on the cheaper card, then scale the format once you have redemptions rather than a hunch.

Your category is held for you between drops in the same zone whichever format you are on, so moving up does not mean risking your slot. And booking several drops in the same zone in advance is quoted lower per card, which is worth asking about once you know the channel works for you.

Timing and seasonality

Mail keeps working after it lands. A card that arrives in March is still on a fridge in May, so judging a drop on the first week of phone calls understates what it did. If your trade has an obvious seasonal run-up, being in the mailbox before it starts is worth considerably more than being in it during, and we will aim the drop accordingly if you tell us when yours is.

What we need from you

Send your logo as a real file. Vector is ideal, but the largest image you have will do. Then tell us in one sentence the offer you want to run. A logo taken from your own website is usually too small to print cleanly, and it is the most common reason artwork stalls.

From there we lay out the ad, set it for press with correct bleed and send you a proof of the whole card with your ad in position beside the other advertisers. Nothing prints without your written approval. You are welcome to supply finished artwork if it is genuinely print ready at the right dimensions, and we will say plainly whether it holds up at print size rather than running it and letting you discover the problem after the drop.

What happens if the card does not fill

You get a date when you book. If the card has not reached its advertiser count by then, you take a full refund or move your slot to the next card in that zone at the price you already agreed. Your choice, not ours. Until the card locks, what you paid is money we owe back rather than money we have earned, and it is not spent on anything until the card is real.

A note on expectations

One drop is a fair test of the mechanics and a poor test of the channel. It tells you whether the card was produced properly and whether the offer was clear. Most of all, it tells you whether anybody acted on it. It does not tell you much about what mail can do for your business, because the second and third time a household sees your name is doing more work than the first. If the first card is quiet, the useful question is whether to change the offer, change the zone or stop, and the redemptions are what let you answer it.

Who is usually on a card beside you

A card carries a spread of trades rather than two dozen versions of one. Home exterior work such as roofing, painting and pressure washing. Heating, plumbing, electrical and the other home systems. Recurring services such as lawn care, pool maintenance and pest control. Local retail and food. A few professional services where being nearby still matters.

That mix is deliberate and it is part of what you are buying. A card carrying two dozen genuinely useful local numbers is far more likely to be kept than one advertising a single business, and a card kept in a kitchen drawer is still working for you months after it arrived. It is also why the exclusivity rule is absolute. Once a card carries two roofers it stops being a useful local directory and turns into a price comparison nobody on it wanted.