IMPORTANT UPDATE
Almost immediately after this blog was posted, Nalgene announced they will be pulling their hard plastic bottles made with bisphenol A (BPA) due to growing consumer concern over whether the chemical poses a health risk. Read the article here.

We've since canceled our recent order in response to the concern, and are now researching BPA-free water bottle options. Stay tuned for more on our quest for the absolute perfect water bottle.
 

THE TASK:
Order spiffy new water bottles with a shiny new Congruent Media logo

THE CHALLENGE:
Whether you're an avid water drinker or an athlete replenishing fluids, you probably know how difficult it can be to find the perfect water bottle. When we ordered our last round, we found a handful of defects that made the normally refreshing act of drinking water, well... not so much fun:

The Gleek Effect
When Dan Dawes, founding Partner at CM, went to take his very first sip from the last order of water bottles, he had the extremely unpleasant experience of being gleeked upon - by his own bottle! We thought you were supposed to drink your water, not wear it!

The Helpless Hand Holder
Version 1.0 of our water bottles included a strap from the cap to the lid that’s intended purpose is two-fold:

1. Make sure the user doesn’t misplace or lose the cap to their water bottle, and
2. Give the user a handy little mechanism for toting the bottle from location to location

The problem? The straps started to break within just a couple of uses - not very reliable, and certainly not handy.

Flavors That Weren't Meant to Be
Drinking water should be a pure, refreshing experience. So why did water from our old bottles taste like it came from the kitchen sink? We read up on terms like "chemical leaching" and "flavor residue" and decided that drinking water just wasn't meant to be like this.

Logo? Uh, No-Go
Rule #1 of promotional item printing: make sure the client's logo looks good and that it's applied correctly. There's really not much more to say about that!

THE SEARCH
With all of these defects in mind, we set out to find the perfect water bottle. Meet our contestants:

	Contestant 1: This water bottle had odd, angled ridges on the side, presumably to help with gripping its massive girth. Those of us with smaller hands were not so ergonomically pleased with this design. Plus the aforementioned "handy strap" was merely a little nub of a loop that only a small tike's finger could fit into.
	Contestant 2: This water bottle was a little too complicated for our taste - the top looked eerily like a hand grenade, and it should have come with an instruction booklet for use.
	Contestant 3: This water bottle was getting closer to "just right" - the ergonomic shape made it easy to grip, it had the all-important handy strap, and it even included a measuring tool on the side for people that like to create mixtures or using training supplements. Still, the handy strap was just a bit on the massive side and looked like it could accidentally get hooked on something that one wouldn't necessarily want to be attached to...

Contestant(s) 4:
Last but not least, we had the good old, tried and true Nalgene bottle. We ordered two samples of this bottle - one smaller 16 ounce bottle with a narrow mouth, and a 32 ouncer with the larger mouth for those of us who really love our water. These samples were the last to come in, but when they did, it was pretty evident that we'd found our winner. This option offered *seemed to offer* a little bit of everything - it was virtually odorless, had the handy strap, featured the measuring tool, and we could even order a neat little splash guard to minimize the gleak effect we experienced with our old water bottles! Though they were a little bit more of an investment, they proved the old cliché that you sometimes you really do get what you pay for - plus, our clients are worth it! Unfortunately, Nalgene just announced they are pulling this line of bottles due to concerns over the chemical BPA, so we're forced to seek out a better, healthier option for our clients - more to come soon!

On May 12, the new 42-cent rate for first class mail will go into effect (up a penny from our current 41 cent rate). Last year the USPS introduced the "Forever Stamp" - a clever little idea that lets you lock in the value of the stamp for a lifetime. Let's say you have an annual mailing scheduled in June - you could invest in your postage now, at the 41 cent rate, and save the 1 cent per stamp when you mail later in June. And ten years from now, when postage has gone up even more, your 41 cent investment will still get your letter mailed - a great idea for direct marketers who can enjoy cost savings by planning ahead.

But what about the rest of us who don't necessarily know when our next mail drop will be, what quantities we'll be mailing too, or if we have room in the budget to purchase mass amounts of postage in advance? Why not consider incorporating web-based marketing into the mix, if you haven't already.

There are a number of advantages to using email as your medium of choice for getting your message out - cost being one of them.  Your message can go out for as little as a penny per person, saving you postage and printing costs...both of which can be quite substantial. In addition to cost savings, you can leverage the immediacy of the web and get your messages out almost instantly. And with the right tools in place, you can view open rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, etc. in virtual time.

But keep in mind; just as we face the problem of being deemed "junk" mail in the world of direct mail, we face the problem of being deemed SPAM in the world of email. The difference is that we're working in a medium that is interactive and allows us to obtain almost instant feedback from potential and current customers. We can find out exactly what it is that interests our prospects and customers, and then send them information and messages related only to their wants and needs. Opt-in and permission based marketing enable you to get the right message to the right audience...so you can take the term "targeted marketing" to the next level.

So the next time you go to print a 4 page newsletter, fold it, insert it into an envelope and apply postage, consider the alternative. It could save you time, money and a whole lotta heartache.

I happened upon this little link today. Not sure who created it, but I think they were pretty successful in getting these very basic, nonetheless useful, points across. It's always good to have a little refresher now and then!

Click here at your own risk* to visit the self-proclaimed "World's Worst Website!"

*Not recommended for those prone to motion sickness