TLA cuts out the paper, ends postal mailings

By Wendy Wilson July 23, 2008

July 23 | TLA Video will eliminate monthly promotional mailings to its customers in August, reducing its environmental impact and cutting back on its marketing costs at the same time.

The indie supplier began notifying clients last week of its plans to switch to e-mail delivery of its marketing materials. TLA is currently soliciting responses to an online survey that will provide customers with continued delivery of sale information about upcoming titles in whatever genre—gay and lesbian, horror or international—they are most interested.

And with e-mail, TLA can deliver information it couldn’t on paper: links to images and trailers for key titles.

“The advantage of going green is that, through our electronic mailings, we can offer more information to our clients than if we’d gone the paper route,” company spokesman Lewis Tice said.

Of course, the end of paper mailings also means the end of the costs associated with producing them.

“We spent about $1,500 dollars per film on actual sale sheets themselves, and we do about two releases a month, so that’s $3,000 a month in just sell sheets and paper,” he said, adding that those numbers do not account for associated postage costs.

TLA also is currently developing a video-on-demand element in the hopes that customers will use the Internet to preview films, ending the need for screeners. Tice said the company doesn’t expect to realize this goal for at least another two years.

Going forward, the Philadelphia-based company hopes to give its business a greener home too. TLA plans to move its offices, leaving its home in a building raised in 1918 “for a space that would be more environmentally friendly,” Tice said.

Ideally the new offices will include a kitchen, he added, allowing the company to offer employees access to more natural, locally sourced food items.