Recently, we wrapped up the 11th annual execution in what has been a home run campaign for our client, the law firm of Freking Myers & Reul (formerly Freking & Betz). It’s the firm’s Happy New Year card, sent just before the Cincinnati Reds’ Opening Day each year.

The concept is simple – an annual greeting card – but why this concept works so particularly well for our client is rooted in three key fundamentals:

Know yourself

When we begin work for a client, we start with a proprietary strategic assessment. We especially want to get a handle on what unique qualities the client offers – not just as a business, but as the people behind the business. In this case, the firm has a deep-rooted, if not fanatical, devotion to the Reds. (When you select a phone number because it’s the year of a Big Red Machine World Series trophy, that’s devotion!) What’s more, this fact was fairly well known around the city, and the firm’s members didn’t mind having a little fun with it.

Know your audience

Certainly, you want to seize opportunities to connect with your target audience. Better yet, you want to do it in a memorable, unique fashion. Consider the annual monthlong landslide of holiday cards. Do you think your clients and prospects need another one? Do you think they’ll remember yours? In this case, our client’s reputation as Reds fans presented the opportunity to establish Opening Day as their own official holiday.

Know what to say, and how to say it

Your communications plan is (or should be) comprised of multiple elements, each with its own objective and tone. For an annual Opening Day Happy New Year card, which is offbeat by design, you want to extend a message that reflects your joy in the blooming of the new season. And you want to adopt a tone that says you’re sharing the fun with your friends.

The result is a tongue-in-cheek series of greetings that draw on baseball’s – and this baseball town’s – colorful vocabulary of images and terms.

What’s your home run idea? We’d love to help you find out.