Direct Mail - Page 2

Mary Sparrow · 12-30-2004, 10:11 AM

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

Mike McCarty · 12-30-2004, 10:36 AM

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 · 12-30-2004, 01:21 PM

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 · 12-30-2004, 02:44 PM

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

Michele Rushworth · 12-30-2004, 03:33 PM

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.

Kimberly Dow · 12-30-2004, 05:36 PM

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

Heidi Maiers · 12-30-2004, 05:42 PM

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.

Kimberly Dow · 12-30-2004, 06:03 PM

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.

Mike McCarty · 12-30-2004, 06:42 PM

Quote:

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.

Mary Sparrow · 12-30-2004, 06:47 PM

Here is Michelle's Postcard.

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