Visual Marketing: 99 Proven Ways for Small Businesses to Market with Images and Design

53. Too Big to Ignore and Too Personal to Discard: Using “Lumpy Mail” to Get Your Foot in the Door of the C Suite

How do you attract the attention of chief executive officers (CEOs) at the top Fortune 1000 companies? Traditional methods like cold calling and letter writing rarely work, and even with electronic outreach via e-mails and social networking—if you can get into the right networks—it is increasingly difficult to penetrate. Ken Edmundson of Sandler Training selected five prospects and hand delivered a large poster board (18 × 36 inches) with a personalized cartoon and a prototype business book cover that featured the CEO as the author. All five prospects agreed to meet with him.

Why It Works

Stu Heinecke is a cartoonist and founder of CartoonLink, Inc. a marketing company that uses cartoons to reach prospects. Heinecke calls this “contact campaigning” and says the key is creating targeted customized drawings and punch lines that feature the CEO in a personal way. These are not just generic cartoons. The large size and the personal messaging make them hard to ignore—and it's hard to throw away a cartoon when you are featured in it. Heinecke experimented with a number of formats, including framed prints with an accompanying letter—which worked quite well but required additional packaging and special handling. The preferred format is a large poster board about the size of ...