The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at Universal Studios Orlando June 18 and the studio is reporting rising attendance and guest spending. This is of particular significance since Universal’s theme park attendance had been hurt by the global recession and travel slowdown. The opening of the new attraction had been a long awaited event for Universal and Harry Potter fans, so the news of positive performance brings a welcome sigh of relief for the hefty $250 million bet Universal placed when they went after the Harry Potter attraction and scooped it out from under Disney who resides only a few miles away.

While all looks great with Harry Potter and the investment Universal made, the naysayers have been wondering out loud if Harry Potter will indeed have legs for years to come, after the last movie is out. After all, J.K. Rowling has said she will write no more Potter books and she certainly has enough money (Forbes estimates her net worth at more than $1 billion) to make that statement believable.

First, it will be a very long time before all of the Harry Potter fans even have an opportunity to go to the attraction. By then, many of the readers will have had more of their children come of reading age and turned into Harry Potter fans. And at some point, the books will pass down to the next generation. Additionally, just because J.K. Rowling doesn’t want to write any more books, doesn’t mean she won’t license different forms of Harry Potter adventures, from cartoons to video games. All of this brand continuity is up to Universal, who has both the burden and the opportunity, to make the Harry Potter brand stay fresh and make its product line continue to flow.

The lesson in all of this for us is to remember that we too must be vigilant with our own brands and work to keep them fresh with new ideas and expanding products that not only grow in number, but also lead into new business verticals and opportunities. Like Universal, most of us have invested lots of time and money to build our brand and in doing so have secured a bit of intellectual property that we have that is unique. While our brand may not have the value of Harry Potter, it doesn’t have to for it to be an opportunity to create more jobs, economic growth contributions, and a nice nest egg for ourselves and families. That’s a bit of “Wizarding” magic in and of itself.

Even in our highly digital world, branding consultants will tell you that the direct-mail campaign is still one of the most important tools in a branding agency’s bag. But even if you plan the best campaign, if your campaign doesn’t reach your intended recipients, you might as well throw your cash out the window.

When your mail piece arrives at the post office, it is feed into a machine to read the address and give it a barcode for delivery. That’s right, a machine. There is no guy in the backroom assigned to reading every addresses piece of mail that comes through the PO. Since you are dealing with a machine, you have to think like a machine, so while Florida, Fl, Fla, FL. and FL all mean the same thing to a human — to a machine reading a bulk list only one of these is correct. What does that mean? It means the other labels could delay or completely prevent your piece for ever reaching its destination. It’s true. (Wondering which one is correct? The two-letter state abbreviation in capital letters, no period.)

The problem with lists is that often the person entering the information is copying and pasting from another location. Sometimes that information is up to postal regulations, sometimes it is not. So, it is important for the person creating and maintaining your lists to know what is acceptable and what is not.

Here are some more pointers from USPS about addressing your mail:

• All capital letters
• No punctuation
• At least 10-point type
• One space between city and state
• Two spaces between state and ZIP Code
• Simple type fonts
• Left justified
• Put the attention line on top — never below the city and state or in the bottom corner of your mailpiece
• If you can’t fit the suite or apartment number on the same line as the delivery address, put it on the line ABOVE the delivery address, NOT on the line below
• Make sure your labels are straight — mail processing machines have trouble reading crooked or slanted information
• Words like “east” and “west” are VERY important

Learn this lesson now, friend. Otherwise you could loss a good portion of your list before you even get the mail out the door, and what will that do to the statistics for your personal branding?

It turns your photos and videos into movie preview style videos. They look better than just about anything else I’ve seen. Enjoy!