Recently I was talking to one of our customers about a new double sided folded postcard magnet that we are now offering for full service mailings and Every Door Direct Mailing – EDDM.
Our client was really excited about the product and wanted to use it as his next high impact direct mail piece. However, he expressed some concern about his demographic being in a high income area and that most residents would have stainless steel refrigerators in their kitchens. His concern was that magnets would not stick to stainless steel refrigerators.
I had to admit this was the first time anyone had voiced their concern about an issue with any of our magnet products. I told the customer that I would do a little homework and get back to him.
Why Certain Refrigerators Won’t Hold A Magnet
The reason your refrigerator doesn’t hold a magnet, according to Peter Eng, a physicist at the University of Chicago, is that different stainless steels contain different proportions of nickel (added to help keep steel from cracking and to allow the addition of more carbon, for strength). More than two percent nickel interferes with what Eng calls iron atoms’ “magnetic moments.” It seems your gorgeous new refrigerator has sacrificed its magnetism for a greater good.
9 out of 10 Stainless Steel Refrigerators Still Hold Magnets
So the answer is that some stainless steel refrigerators will not hold magnets. However, we conducted our own study and found that postcard magnets do stick to the wide majority of stainless steel refrigerators available in stores today.
We headed to a local big box retailer and tested our postcard magnets on stainless steel refrigerators. What we found was 9 out of 10 stainless refrigerators would hold our postcard magnet.
Below is the video of our findings.
Quality of Direct Mail Piece Outweighs Its Ability to Stick
Our customer decided to move forward with the mailing and felt that if customers could not stick the postcard magnet to their refrigerators, they would still keep the postcard magnet because of the content and quality of the piece.
Ultimately the quality of the direct mail piece will outweigh its ability to stick to a customer’s fridge. However, many times this can be the difference between your piece of mail ending up in the dreaded “catch all” drawer or prominently displayed on your customer’s fridge.