Your free gift is in the mail.

One of our clients is Buday's – a home electronics company that designs and installs fabulous home theaters and multi-room audio, along with lighting and shade controls. They take a very individual, personal approach to every project and are pretty much the complete polar opposite of, say, Best Buy. When they install a home theater or a new audio system, you can actually use the damn thing. Heck, even my in-laws can figure out how to use my system.

Recently, they wanted to send a smart direct mail piece to a very select number – 25 – of prospective clients. We wanted to mail something that people would not only have a hard time throwing out, but actually feel good about receiving. So 25 people will be receiving a DVD that's family-friendly but not adult-annoying – The Incredibles.

Since it is direct mail, we did want to prompt a response. Ergo, we removed the bonus DVD and replaced it with a call to action. (Sheesh. That sounds like a Folger's commercial.) To receive the bonus DVD, people only have to call Buday's for a low-pressure conversation about home theater. If they don't want to call, they still get a DVD for their collection. And Buday's won't bug them with a bunch of phone calls.

The principle is one that people talk about a lot in the 2.0 Web world – the more you give, the more you get back. Here's hoping the 25 people who get the DVD don't ruin that theory.