Direct Mail
 

In an effort to start the ball rolling I am promoting myself via direct mail. This seems to be the best way to reach those potential customers.

I have done one post card with a few images and bought a mailing list with the criteria of -1. Households with an income of $150k or more, 2. Home values of $500k or more, and 3. Expressed interest in art/antiques. I chose a geographical area with good numbers and convenient to my location.

I will also have an unveiling/showing this January or February within the same geographical area and the audience fits the mailing criteria with the exception of the interest in art/antiques.

What other ideas are out there? Should I continue to bang away at my mailing list to reach saturation? My marketing experience tells me to hammer away at this customer base. Any advice?

Sounds like you have gotten a great start. Just exactly where do you go to get a list like that?

I see that you are in NC also. I'm in Shelby, near Charlotte.

Mary,
There is a direct mail company in Winston-Salem called PostMark. Their web address is www.PostMark.ws

Give them a call.

John

Lots of companies will provide direct mail lists to a set of demographic statistics that you specify. (Area, income, kids in the home etc.) I recently did a mailing to 1500 names in my area through www.modernpostcard.com -- they do the printing and mailing all at once, which saves me from having to put labels on, etc. I plan on mailing to this same list over and over again. I haven't heard any response from my initial mailing, but from what I understand this sort of thing takes repetition to really bear fruit. (Of course, that's what the mailing companies say!)

Michele,

I am sure this sounds negative, but - how do you know they mailed all they said they did if they do it all? If you had heard from someone that would prove it. Maybe I just have control issues. ;)

Kimberly,
Hi. It's always a good idea to seed the list with names and addresses of people you know and who will let you know when and if they recieved their post card and in what shape it is. I'm a little familiar with Modern Postcard. They have a reputable reputation and their pricing is hard to beat.
I chose a local company and printer because I have friends in those businesses and I was able to design and produce the card myself.
John

Michele, you and John seem to have made a strong commitment to the mailing strategy. For the past few weeks I've been in the process of trying to design a double sided card for myself. Coincidentally, I chose Modern Post Card http://www.modernpostcard.com/ to help me. I have really been amazed with their level of support and thoroughness.

In my design strategy(?) I have concluded that I would show more painting images rather than just one or two. The card that I am contemplating is big (anything worth doing is worth over doing, my usual strategy), when folded it is 6" x 11" full color on one side and black and white on the other. Another thing that I discovered is that each time you add an image you increase the cost, but if you combine images as I have done below you can save money. The image below is considered one image.

What strategy have you employed as far as size of card and number of images.

I chose their medium sized card which is about 6" x 8", not folded, with color on one side and black and white on the other. I put four paintings on the color side. Next time I will only do two so they can be bigger.

I created the entire layout, front and back, myself, and sent it to them on CD. That way I could completely control what went where and at what size, what color, what font, etc. It's cheaper than having them do the design, there are no separate charges for additional images, and best of all, I can decide exactly how the card looks.

Michele,

I was told that each additional image was $35 for the color side and $15 for the B&W side. You do get one image free I'm pretty sure. Of course it may be as you say for the size of card you chose. I was working with the "double sumo" size.

http://www.modernpostcard.com/gettin...features.shtml

I have gone with a somewhat smaller format, its 5-1/2 x 8-1/2, full color, both sides, full bleed. I only have 3 images, a large one on the front and two smaller ones on the back. I tried to give a well rounded impression regarding subject matter - I featured a couple painted in their living room on the front and on the back was a portrait of two teenagers in an outdoor setting and a head and shoulders of a woman (in her 30's).

My biggest mistake I fear was my timing. Without thinking about the holidays I mailed them in the middle of November. I plan on an additional mailing in the first quarter.

One other note worth mentioning. Check to see if the list you are buying can be used more than once.

Michele and Mike-
What criteria did you use for your lists?

Do any of you have these in hand that you could show us?

You people are so visual - pictures, pictures, pictures.

Mary, I haven't got anything to show yet, but the following page from Modern Post card helped me visualize the possibilities.

http://www.modernpostcard.com/help_c...ble_sumo.shtml

I haven't been able to post images on SOG for many months now -- since I "upgraded" to a newer version of Norton Anti Virus a while back, or else I would post an image of my postcard.

It had a dark red background with gold type (to carry on the look of my website.) I used four portraits, all in frames, with captions. One was of a businessman, one was the baseball portrait (since he was so recognizable around here) and the other two were of kids -- one single and one of the two kids on the chair, reading.

The criteria I used for the mailing list were $150K plus income, Seattle area, children in the home (since that's mostly what I paint). I will be able to mail to this list unlimited times, since that's what I paid for.

My timing was a bit late too and this mailing went out at Thanksgiving. I won't mail in the first quarter since that seems to be a bad time for buying big ticket or luxury items. My next mailing will go out in the spring.

I know my mailing did indeed go out because I put the words "Return Service Requested" on the back, near where the address goes. This tells the post office to notify me if the addressee has moved. Some of them had moved and the cards came back to me with a sticker showing the new address for that individual. This is something I learned about on the Modern Postcard site.

I paid for a mailing list of 1,500 names. I also have my own mailing list of about 300 names that I've been building up over the past couple of years. I had an extra 500 cards printed to send to those people and to have 200 cards left to hand out here and there. I need to print more cards just to have on hand, though.

This all really sounds good to me. Being so totally nosey - can I ask Michele what you paid for all this?

Modern Postcard has an easy price calculator on their site. For any size postcard and any size mailing they'll tell you exactly what it will cost.

I couldnt figure out the cost of the lists themselves. I'll check again.

If you go through the online order form (without actually submitting), it calculates out the total costs for you in the left pane.
I see, however, that things start to add up by the time you add cost of cards, shipping, mailing list, mailing service, and postage. I calculated out 2000 medium (flat) cards to be mailed with a mailing list of 2000 local residents with incomes over 150k. Came out to about 55 cents per card total. That's not too bad considering it costs more than that to print a one page color brochure that doesn't get mailed to anyone.

Just out of curiosity - I did it also. 500 cards only, the smallest size with my own design - households of 150K with children - and having them mail them. It came out to $445.

I'd love to hear someone say they got a commission directly from this - then it would feel like a good investment.

It's all about the quality of the list. I've always heard that if you get a 3% response that you have succeeded.

My plan was to do the leg work myself. I may be kidding myself but my little hamlet is not that huge and the pockets of affluence are pretty easy to identify. I'll research this more before I pull the trigger.

If I were to buy a list I might try and make the affluent grandparents a target. If I did I would make sure that my type was sufficiently large. I might also want to increase the annual income figures. Wouldn't it be just as easy to mail to someone making $500k. Maybe that list is more expensive.

Here is Michelle's Postcard.

It is beautiful Michelle! What did you put on the print side?

The back has a few short quotes from clients, my contact info, room for a stamp and address label, and some blank space that the post office requires.

Michele that is beautiful and classy-looking.

Mike - the modern postcard site's highest income bracket was 150k.

I think I'd like to just buy a list - and the cards - but mail them myself. I would get all returns if the addresses arent right and I could control how much I spent each week say.

I tried to this once with a flyer in the last small town I lived in. I knew most of the people there so I figured it would work. I used the phone book for addresses. I'd say 50% came back because of rural addresses that the post office didnt deliver to - and changed addresses etc. I only sent out maybe 50? and didn't get any responses - although I might have had some visitors at the old studio because of it.

Michele, your post card looks wonderful.

Mike, I chose $150k and above because that number seemed to me to be the threshold that would allow enough disposable income to afford a painting and it would naturally also go to those making $500k and above that as well. Wow! That was a long sentence. Throw in a few periods if you want.

John

You inspired me to get some cards printed. A friend directed me to overnightprints.com and said they had had good luck with them. They are having a sale at the moment and I ordered 1,000 double sided cards for $75.

Mary, I need to get a bunch of extra cards printed of the design I posted above. Is your friend an artist and were they happy with the color matching that overnightprints did for them? Also, when you get your cards can you let me know how happy you are with the color, etc?

Thanks!

Mary-
It's nice to find a good resource that will offer short runs on a real press and can give a matte or gloss varnish. They only seem to offer one size of postcard. Is that your understanding as well?
John

Michelle, No, my friend wasn't an artist, but I do trust his judgement. I figure that for as little as I was spending it would be worth a shot while they were still offering that special. I don't expect to get them until next week, and I will be glad to send you one so you can inspect yourself. Though, I don't know if that would get to you fast enough to get the same cheap price. I guess we could find out how long they will offer that price.

John, I really don't know what other sizes they offer. I didn't look into anything other than 4x6.

Thanks for the tip Mary.
I just made and ordered 1000 postcards, but there is no sale going on, so ended up paying the $100. Still worth it.

I found that ordering mailing lists directly from USA data is the best way to go. Cheaper and you can narrow your field a little better. I just got a list and created a mail merge in Word, ready to print, of 500 mailing addresses. I was able to target Arizona only with home values of 1 million + for only $70.

Of course I will have to do the leg work sticking on labels and stamps (plus paying postage), but overall, an economical way to advertise to some local folks who can afford the luxury of buying fine art and who are unlikely to be spending much time surfing the web.

That is odd Heidi, because when I do a search I still find it for 49 dollars for one sided and 79 for two sided. What do you see with this link ?

I would email them and ask.

Rats, why wasn't that there earlier? All that was there was the regular price, so I paid $99 for 1000 one sided. Doubt that they will credit me since I see the order has already been printed.
I wrote to them and asked if they would honor their sales price towards my order and credit my account, so we'll see what kind of response I get.

Looks like they have two sites set up - a regular one and a sale price one. If you just type in overnightprints.com without ever having been there before, you get the regular prices. If you use the link Mary posted, you get the sales price site and it adds a cookie to your machine so that whenever you visit there, your are redirected to the sales price pages. (If you delete your cookies and type in overnightprints.com into your browser again, you will see the regular prices only.)

Too late for me I'm afraid, but if any one else out there wants to order, use the link Mary posted to access the site.

Their customer support team, I'm sorry to report, is less than helpful. I sent two letters yesterday, both which were met with short, canned (but different) responses that didn't even address my questions. Giving them the benefit of the doubt and thinking they just had a poor after-hours support staff, I rephrased my questions and sent another letter which received absolutely no response at all.
Too bad. It doesn't matter how good a company's product is or how fast they deliver - if their customer support is lacking, I won't use them again or recommend them either.

Heidi, I'm so sorry you had a bad experience. I feel responsible!
I don't understand these companies that have different prices for the same products. I was just noticing today that Jerry's online catalog has very different prices for some of their products from the catalog that came in the mail last week. There is $150 difference in a set of their pastels- both their "sale" prices??

For what it's worth, I have spoken with two different people at overnight prints and they were very helpful. I suppose it depends on who you end up with on the other end of the phone unfortunately. Seems this sort of thing is going around after reading Jimmie's experience with Dakota vs. Sharon's.

At any rate, I will reserve judgement on the printer until the postcards come next week. But have to say, the fact that they won't honor the lower price for you when you KNOW that they offer it is a big :thumbsdow .

Mary,

Were you able to upload an image(s) and create your own design online?

Mike,
Jennifer Geary did my card for me and I uploaded it into their system.

another problem with this company vs. modernpostcard - they won't send a proof first (even at a cost) - which is a problem as far as I am concerned - you really take a chance with the color.

Michele - your mailer looks very professional. I was curious - are these portraits actually all framed the same, or did you just pop them into a digital frame? It makes it look unified - and very clean.

Some of the paintings have that frame, but for the card they were added digitally.

Brilliant idea!

Mary,
Gosh, it's certainly not your fault so don't feel bad. It's my own fault for rushing into ordering without doing my research. I'm over being PO'd at their unwillingness to cut me a break. I wouldn't have bought them in the first place if I didn't think $100 was still a pretty good price for 1000 cards.

In fact, I realized I wanted two sided cards to mail out instead of one sided, so I decided to cut them some slack and placed another order for 1000 two sided at the sale price of $75. As soon as I submitted, however, I realized that I had selected the wrong side to be glossy, so I placed the order on hold immediately. This was at midnight last night and a support person replied right away and was able to correct the order for me. He was courteous, although I didn't appreciate being called "Sir".

I will use my one sided cards to hand out at shows instead of brochures and mail out the two sided ones. Here is my redesign front and back. Not quite as elegant as Michele's, but hopefully it will get the word out locally.

That looks GREAT! I'm glad you had a better experience.
For what it is worth, here is mine...