Not only do they seem to be the wave of the future, but also they make better fans on a hot day. Promotional postcards of varying shapes and sizes, with multiple photos and four-color art, or simple, straightforward messages with minimal graphics and text are popping up in mailboxes everywhere.
Time was when performance companies and individuals sent out colorful flyers on letter-sized paper, whether stuck together with a staple or tape, or shoved into a #10 mailing envelope. Now, even classy flyers sporting snazzy computer graphics, jazzed up with clearly scanned images of the performers, are becoming paleo-lithographic dinosaurs.
Is the medium the message? Are postcards more effective than flyers when it comes to promoting performances? Back Stage polled a few industry insiders for their preferences.
Paul Russell who casts film ("The Siege"), TV (formerly cast "The Cosby Show"), and stage (Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Va., among several other venues), says, "postcards are simple and easy. I prefer them, except when actors stick them in an envelope and send them out as first-class mail."
A reason for this "sneaky" behavior might be that the U.S. Postal Service can deliver first-class mail from (e.g.) one Manhattan address to another, usually on the next business day. But postcards need to be hand-sorted because they don't fit in the mechanized sorters, so they can take longer. Sticking a postcard in an envelope can save on delivery time, although its initial visual impact becomes nullified.
Clearly, it's in the actor's interest to make sure that the message gets to the casting director, agent, or critic with enough lead time for the industry pro to post the date in his calendar. No matter how innovative, sophisticated, or striking your postcard is, if it doesn't get to its destination in time, it's a complete waste of money.
When Back Stage paid a visit to a local post office, we were assured by a representative there that the delivery time is the same for postcards as for flyers, as long as first-class postage (20 cents for the 4" x 6" cards and 33 cents for the 6" x 8" cards), is affixed. Flyers can be folded into a #10 business-size envelope, or can be mailed folded in three (without an envelope), as long as the address can be read clearly. Actually, one Off-Off-Broadway artistic director suggests that flyers be mailed in an envelope to protect them, as well as ensure that the post office delivers them in a timely fashion. Not only that, if you're an actor who wants to remind the recipient what you look like (assuming you've met him or her), you'll need that envelope so you can enclose your photo-postcard with contact phone number, already stapled to the flyer.
Is Less or More...More?
Alexis Greene, chief drama critic for InTheater, who receives invitations to myriad productions, doesn't get many flyers. "I get either press releases from agents or postcards. What I seem to gather is that the cards, which usually come a little bit after the press release, duplicate the press release, except it doesn't give me the press agent's name and phone number and I usually dispense with the postcard."
Agent Jack Menashe, who owns his own agency, favors flyers over postcards because he finds them easier to read, and an actor can enclose a photo and resume with it, so he has some frame of reference as well as a reason to see the show. "Just getting a postcard with your name highlighted on it tells me nothing. I don't know who you are. Send me your credits." He shares the opinion of an editor we spoke to, that postcards just get lost on the desk in a busy office.
Eric Lee, a customer service representative at 1-800-POSTCARDS, which claims to be one of the nation's largest and cheapest promotional postcard services, told Back Stage that the "durability and popularity of postcards gives designers for theatre companies more of a chance to be creative than flyer artwork does.
Contrary to popular belief, appearance isn't everything in this business; price is often a factor, especially when an individual or small nonprofit company is footing the bill. Flyers printed on colored paper can run anywhere from two to eight cents a copy, if photocopied in quantity at a place like Staples or Kinkos. The photo-offset process-where an image is taken of the original, creating a "plate" from which multiple copies are made-can run as low as a penny a page (sometimes even less, depending on quantity) for black ink on white or colored stock. Obviously, more ink colors, or a higher grade of paper or cardstock, raises your price.
1-800-POSTCARDS (the first seven letters of the last word are the phone number), has four different postcard template sizes, and will also customize a size for a client. Companies should have a large mailing list or a lot of friends in order to take full advantage of their services, as the minimum order is 5,000 postcards. Prices for the 4" x 6" cards run about $350 for 5,000 units, if the artwork is delivered camera-ready. The larger 6" x 8" cards, also a popular size, will run $750 for the minimum order. Any image and scanning services, typesetting, color correction, cropping, and of course the tax and shipping (which alone runs about $50-$70 for 5,000 cards, depending on whether the client wants them overnight), are all add-ons. There is a seven-day turnaround from the time the order is placed, to delivery.
Almost any local photo-offset printer will print postcards as well as flyers, and many are willing to work with a customer on quantity and price. One such company is the mom-and-pop-style shop The Printing Place, on Second Avenue in East Harlem. Owner David Kaplan is used to working with nonprofit groups. Kaplan says, "Every single job I figure out fresh," noting the number of variables that rendered previous attempts at a fixed price list ineffective. "There's also the "mishpokhe' [Yiddish for "family"] price.' Everybody gets a good price, but some people...like repeat customers and old friends, get better ones!" He takes his work very seriously, feeling personally wounded when programs he printed for a dance recital were left on the seats after the performance. "More work went into that ^$*&*(#% program than went into the performance!" he exclaims. Kaplan has not noticed a major shift from flyers to postcard orders, at least as far as his own business is concerned.
Theatre journalists we spoke with concur with agents and casting directors that if a postcard advertising a show comes from a friend or acquaintance, they will shelve or save it as a reminder. If the postcard is unsolicited, from a total stranger, and unaccompanied by any background information, such as a note of introduction or press release, it might as well be junk mail. "I don't know who you are and why you're bothering me," says one theatre journalist who slam-dunks such missives.
Common sense should prevail when actors and theatre companies mail out postcards or flyers. Are you sending your mailing to someone you've met, or to a stranger? Do you want a review...or a job out of it? Whatever the case, one of the fundamental theatre rules applies: Know your audience.