Re: Mini CD WARNING !!!!

by "Karin Ransdell" <kransdell(at)squishedmosquito.com>

 Date:  Sat, 24 Feb 2001 17:49:07 -0600
 To:  <hwg-graphics(at)hwg.org>,
"Kym Jones" <kjones(at)adam.com.au>
 References:  com
  todo: View Thread, Original
Comments to the entire mini CD thing... sorry so long, but we're into this
big time, so we've accumulated a lot of info and insight along the way.
Someone might find it useful.

----- Original Message -----
From: Kym Jones <kjones(at)adam.com.au>
To: <hwg-graphics(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2001 10:34 PM
Subject: RE: Mini CD WARNING !!!!


>
> <snip>
> At 08:56 AM 23/02/2001 -0600, Michael Heliker wrote:
> >You are absolutely right. But the CD business cards are "cool," "new,"
and
> >since not many people have seen them, "eye catching." Just like the super

<snip>

Kym wrote:

> exactly :)
>
> I know of someone down here who wanted to market them as already made biz
> cards and he couldn't even get a bite from business folks...they thought
it
> was a silly idea...pretty typical...*sigh*...but I would sure hand them
out
> as a business card, along with a regular one of course.

Part is novelty, part is practicality and which seems to depend almost 100%
on industry.  My first experience with these cards was about 2 and a half
years ago at a Linux conference.  One of the vendors handed out a small,
pocket sized CD loaded with Linux tools, rescue applications, and just
generally useful stuff.  Needless to say, it was the hit of the weekend.  No
multimedia (Linux, after all), no glitz, no re-sell, no hype, just a small
CD full of value.

At that time, suppliers and/or producers for the CDs was limited and the
cost was pretty dear.  Only the big boys could afford the $5-10 cost per CD
produced (in BULK, btw).  ouch... The laws of economics, however, kicked in
and now you can make them yourself and almost name your price.  You can buy
them in bulk at anywhere from $.50 to $3.00 each (and you can get them
smaller than 30MB), as well as labels and sleeves (you need both).  Some
software vendor sells kits of 10 for about $39.96 (forget the name, sorry).
So theoretically, anyone with a CD burner can get into the game.

But.... is it worth it?  Is the content worthy of the $3.00 or so price tag?
Will the target audience even look at it?  Does the content match the
business?  Even so, here's an example of a good idea gone astray.  Last
December, at another conference for System Administrators, a rather
well-known hi tech consultancy handed out these flashy, hi-end production
CDs as recruitment tools, explaining what they did and the benefits of
working with them.  Gawd only knows what these things cost to produce,
culminating in a clickable link to their website.  This link was also
imprinted on the CD itself.  Guess what.  404.  Huh??  Hmmm... a nice
addition to my AOL CD "coaster" collection.

Someone mentioned real estate.  That's an excellent industry for the cards,
provided you're promoting the company or a particular agent, not individual
listings.  Data on biz card CDs gets dated fast.  Remember also that not
everyone who gets handed the CD will rush to the nearest CD drive to see
what's on the disk.

For Internet development houses, entertainment industry types, any and
everybody in a high tech field, this can be a worthwhile medium, but as
someone else said, once everybody else in your industry starts handing these
things out, where's the novelty and what's the point?  Unless, of course,
you're message outlasts the medium.  We've found that CDs that contain
something useful (like applications or tools) go over much better and have a
higher return than those that just talk about how fabulous we are.

And as far as including a warning about where *not* to stick the CDs <eg>,
"For PC CDROM drives only" seems to be sufficient, but you can't protect
people from their own stupidity.  We simply like to believe that the people
we give them to understand that we're computer oriented and stick it in
their computer.  Duh.

Again, sorry so long, but these are a "big thing" in our circle ;) and the
argument is wide.

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