The 9x12 jumbo card

Nine inches by twelve, printed full color on both sides on heavy stock. At this size the card does not fit into the stack of window envelopes and it does not get sorted into the recycling with the rest of the day's post. People look at it on the walk back from the mailbox, and that walk is the moment that counts.

The card carries up to sixteen advertiser slots and follows the exclusive category rule absolutely: one business per trade, per card. Your slot price covers the design of your ad and the full print run. Every cent of postage for the zone is included, as are the postal bundling and paperwork, and your web address and phone number are printed legibly.

This is the format most advertisers choose, and it is the one we would recommend to a business whose average job runs into four figures or whose customers stay for years. The extra cost over the smaller card is modest and the difference in how hard the card is to ignore is not.

Why the size does the work

A 9x12 card cannot be filed with the rest of the day's post. It is too big to slide into the stack of window envelopes or sit flat in the pile on the hall table. Somebody has to deal with it as its own object. That sounds like a small thing and it is most of what you are buying. Direct mail does not fail because people hate advertising; it fails because a letter sized piece gets sorted into the recycling in the four seconds between the mailbox and the kitchen counter. An oversized card interrupts that sort.

It is also printed on stock heavy enough that it does not feel disposable. A flimsy card signals junk before anyone reads a word of it. Ours is printed on heavy cover stock, full color on both sides, and the difference in how long it survives in a house is not subtle.

What your slot actually is

Sixteen advertiser slots, eight to a side, four across and two deep. One advertiser per card can take the two bottom-left slots of the address side together as a double-size slot, twice the space, for $899. A slot is considerably larger than most people picture when they hear the words shared mail. It is enough room for a logo, a headline, an offer, a phone number and a web address without any of it feeling crowded.

The address side gives a band across its middle to the postal indicia and the Local Postal Customer line, because Every Door Direct Mail requires both and they take real space. We mention that because a mock-up that leaves them out is pretending to have room it does not have.

One business per category

Your trade closes on that card the moment you book it. Roofing and roof replacement count as one category, and so do lawn care and landscaping. One. It is enforced in our booking system rather than promised on a call, which means the shortcut is not available to us even at the end of a month when a card is one slot short.

Who this format suits

Trades where a single new customer is worth substantially more than the slot. Roofing, air conditioning replacement, windows, remodeling, and anything else where one job runs into four figures. Equally, recurring services where a customer stays for years rather than one invoice: lawn maintenance, pool care, pest control, cleaning. In both cases the arithmetic stops being close after one conversion.

If your average job is small and the customer does not come back, be honest with yourself about how many responses it would take before you book anything, with us or with anyone. We would rather say that here than explain it after a drop.

What is included

Design of your ad and setting it for press, the full print run, every cent of postage for the zone, the postal bundling and paperwork, and your web address and phone number printed legibly. There is no separate artwork fee and no setup fee. Ask and we will send you the finished artwork as a print ready file to use anywhere else you like.

The promise attached to the date

The card does not mail unless it fills. When you book you are given the date by which it must reach its advertiser count, and if it has not, you choose between a full refund and moving to the next card in that zone at the price you already agreed. Until the card locks, what you paid is money we owe back rather than money we have earned, which is what lets that promise be unconditional instead of a best effort.

What a good ad on this card looks like

You have a rectangle on a card that somebody will look at for a couple of seconds on the walk back from the mailbox. The quickest way to waste that space is to make it do everything at once.

An ad that works makes one offer and gives one reason to act now. It also gives the reader a single way to respond. Ads that fail tend to list nine services and spend a paragraph on how long the company has been trading. Three competing ways to get in touch finish the job, and none of them stands out. A specific figure beats a vague percentage. A deadline beats an open ended offer. Something the reader can keep, such as a checklist or a number worth putting on the fridge, outlives the card itself.

We will tell you honestly if we think yours is trying to do too much, because a slot that produces nothing is worse for us than an awkward conversation. You are the one who has to decide, and it is your ad, but you will not get a proof back with a silent shrug.

How you will know it worked

Your ad carries its own QR code, which opens your website or page. We count the scans and show them to you day by day on your results page, along with how many came from a phone. A scan is a floor, though: plenty of people read the card and simply phone, so it is one measure among several.

Every card also carries a line asking the reader to mention it when they call, which puts the question into the conversation your staff are already having.

The stronger move is yours. Run an offer or a coupon that exists only on this card, such as a specific figure or a code to quote, and every redemption can only have come from the card. That measurement costs nothing, never expires, belongs entirely to you, and still works eighteen months later when somebody finally pulls the card off the fridge. Then watch your own call volume for the three weeks after the drop against the three before it. Between those two numbers you will know what the card did.

Timing and seasonality

Mail rewards patience more than most channels. Households keep a card like this, so one that lands in March can still bring a call in May from someone who did not need you on the day it arrived. Judging a drop on the first week of calls consistently understates it, and it is the single most common reason a business concludes mail does not work after one attempt.

That said, timing within a season is worth thinking about. If your trade has an obvious run-up, being in the mailbox before it starts is worth more than being in it during. Tell us when yours is and we will aim the drop accordingly.

What we need from you

Two things, and neither takes long. A logo as a real file, ideally vector and otherwise as large an image as you have. Logos copied from a website are usually too small to print sharply, and they hold up more artwork than anything else. And the offer you want to run, in a sentence.

That is genuinely all. We lay the ad out and set it for press with correct bleed. Then you get a proof of the whole card with your ad in position. You approve it or you tell us what to change, and nothing goes to print without that approval in writing. If you would rather supply finished artwork yourself, you can, provided it is print ready at the right dimensions; we will tell you honestly whether it will hold up at print size rather than running it and letting you find out in about five thousand mailboxes.

What happens if the card does not fill

You are given a date when you book. If the card has not reached its advertiser count by then, you choose between a full refund and moving your slot to the next card in that zone at the price you already agreed. That choice is yours and not ours, and until the card locks the money you paid is treated as money we owe back rather than revenue, which is what allows the promise to be unconditional.

Who is usually on the card beside you

A card carries a spread of trades rather than sixteen versions of one. Home exterior work such as roofing, painting, windows and pressure washing. Home systems such as heating, plumbing and electrical. Recurring services such as lawn care, pool maintenance, cleaning and pest control. Local food and retail. A few professional services where being nearby still counts for something.

That mix is deliberate and it is part of what you are paying for. A card carrying sixteen genuinely useful local numbers is far more likely to be kept than one advertising a single business, and a card that survives in a kitchen drawer is still working for you months after it landed. It is also the reason the exclusivity rule is absolute rather than a guideline: the moment a card carries two roofers it stops being a useful local directory and turns into a price comparison that neither roofer wanted to be in.

If you would like to see the mix on a card that has already mailed in your area, ask. Once a zone has run once we have physical cards and the route list that went with them, and looking at a real one answers more questions than any description of the format does.