Envelope design is crucial to sales letter success. Without stellar envelope design, your letters will never get opened. The best envelope designers know what it takes to keep your envelopes from being lost in the junk mail clutter, to get noticed and opened so your prospects will read your letter and become customers.

For the uninitiated, here are some envelope design essentials that motivate response:

Know the purpose
Designing envelopes for friends and family gift cards is one thing; designing envelopes for corporate identity or for a direct sales letter is entirely different. Gift card envelopes are going to be opened because the recipients know the sender on a personal level, while business-oriented communications are often sent to potential customers who are not that familiar with the sender.

If you’re designing for corporate identity, your design must convey an image that represents your firm. If you’re designing for direct response, your envelope design must be targeted to the audience and offer. Before you sit down to conceptualize your envelope design, make sure you understand the purpose of the communication within the envelope.