University of Redlands Sends Summer Fun Box to Excite and Engage Incoming Students

Challenge
With their incoming class set, the Admissions team at University of Redlands looked at how to continue the excitement of the committed students through the summer, and make sure they felt ready to come to campus in the fall. They wanted to send a package to students with useful items that they could bring to campus, while also helping them share the excitement of starting college with their family and friends.

Solution
The Admissions team brainstormed with Magellan to discuss options and ideas around a summer fun box for incoming students. The team chose colorful sunglasses with the Redlands logo on the side, a cream cotton laundry bag and a trendy bamboo motel style keychain. It all came packaged in a full-color University of Redlands box, showing a view of campus with palm trees and sun! They also leaned into the fun aspect, by having the insert card come from George, their Bulldog mascot, who welcomed students to their first year on campus, and reminded them to sign up for new student orientation.

Outcome
The summer fun box was a hit! Jamie Groff, Director of First Year Admissions at University of Redlands, said, “We have treasured our partnership with Magellan and appreciate their creativity in designing the summer fun box. We received great feedback from our campus community and plan to once again launch the summer fun box for the class of 2027.”

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”