Direct Mail

[Mike McCarty]

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.

[Michele Rushworth]

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.

[Mike McCarty]

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

[John Reidy]

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?

[Mary Sparrow]

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

[Mike McCarty]

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

[Michele Rushworth]

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.

[Kimberly Dow]

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