The Power of Multi-Sensory Print Marketing

If your marketing collateral doesn’t punch your audience right in the gut, you are wasting your client’s money.

During my presentation at the FSEA Digital Embellishment Conference in Nashville, I shared a direct mail piece so intense that I hesitated to even show it. We were showcasing a highly sensitive awareness project for domestic violence, and the client refused to settle for a standard, easily ignored flyer.

Instead, they sent a sound mailer containing an actual, live 911 call from a 6-year-old girl reporting a domestic violence incident in her home. Hearing her cry and scream for a full minute was incredibly tough for our team to program. It was even tougher for the end-user to receive.

But why did it work so incredibly well? Because modern print is no longer just visual. When you force an audience to confront a reality through unexpected mediums—like sudden, jarring audio from a physical mailer—you strip away their apathy.

The Four-Step Formula for Unforgettable Campaigns

If you aren’t engaging the senses—through touch, sound, or sight—you are just sending expensive paper directly into the recycling bin.

Here is the exact formula we use at bigDAWGS to guarantee every campaign we produce is completely unforgettable:

• Embellishments (texture, sound, light) create an EXPERIENCE.

• Experiences create EMOTIONS.

• Emotions create an IMPACT.

• Impact cements the MEMORY.

By moving beyond standard ink on paper and integrating strategic sensory embellishments, you transition your collateral from a passing glance into a permanent memory. Stop sending mailers, and start engineering experiences.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT (AI-GENERATED):

[00:00:00] Shortly after, we had another awareness, uh, project. And it was actually domestic violence. Eh, tougher. Now I actually had a slide but we had to take it out because we were concerned that might be too sensitive. But I will just explain the framing of it. So what the client did in this case was they sent us an actual live 911 call.

[00:00:25] It was of a six-year-old girl calling into the 911 operator reporting a domestic violence incident. She’s crying, she’s screaming. Ugh, it went on for about a minute. It’s tough to hear. When we were programming it at bigDAWGgs yeah, that was a tough thing just to hear constantly over and over. But you know what?

[00:00:47] Uh, to help me with that, Eric, can I just come down for a second? So Eric Vestals everybody. Right? Tactiful. Now we have a show on the tactiSPHERE if you guys, uh, haven’t s- seen … We’re in the tactiSPHERE. Sign up for the tactiSPHERE. Watch my show every Wednesdays, 1:00 PM plug, plug. Yeah. . Uh, but often these guys are in it, and Eric was in it, uh, last week.

[00:01:11] And I actually played this. If you guys are interested, you can actually watch the replay of it. I encourage you because it’s very powerful. But Eric, let me ask you this f- your opinion. A few things. One, how impactful was it? And two, will you remember it? Well, it, it was super impactful, and the reason he’s not gonna play it is ’cause I had to turn my camera off.

[00:01:34] Because I got very emotional. It’s, it, it moved me emotionally to hear the actual voice of the girl. And, and, and that’s, I think, what Eddie’s talking about is … And when … What Trish talks about impacting people through their senses. And normally we do that through the eyes. A lot of times with digital embellishment we do it through the touch.

[00:01:52] And this time it was done through the ears. And it does have an impe- an effect, and th- I ended up donating to the organization. Um, and I guess I’ll talk. Yeah. Yeah.All right, everybody, w- uh, big round of applause for Eric Vestals. Thank you for that, buddy. Appreciate it. Yeah, I mean,tac-… I mean, embellishments including texture, sound, and I’m going to show you a few others, they create experiences.

[00:02:23] It creates an experience. Experiences create emotion. Emotions creates impact, and impact affects memory. Ah. Yo, we don’t need bark, ‘Cause we got mad bite. So sit back, relax, and watch as sales take flight. ‘Cause in this day and age success depends On keeping up with the latest trends