[Nebraska]

We've always done direct mail in the spring and weekly for the entire season.

In the spring it's been a mailer of 7000-9000.

Anyone have any experience in reducing the overall number names, yet increasing the frequency with multiple mailers to the same smaller list.

So is it better to mail 9000 one time or mail 3000 three times - better as far as response rates.

Thoughts.....

[cutntrim]

I haven't tried direct mail. I'll be doing flyers in the local paper(s) this spring. I had a salesperson from the paper call about their flyer package: full color 8.5" x 5.5" insert in a value pack envelope along with half-a-dozen other service company (not landscapers) flyers. Minimum order of 25,000 which could be in three runs (one-per-month), or two runs, or all in one run. Cost is $29/1,000 with that 25,000 minimum.

I don't need/want 25,000 so I'm going with a stand-alone flyer (not in an envelope) which costs $44/1,000 with a minimum order of 1,000.

To answer your question, I think it would always be better to target a smaller area and hit them multiple times.

[Nebraska]

How many are you going to do Cutntrim... If their is a possible advantage to do a direct mail piece to the same group multiple times I imagine the same would be true for fliers. ???

Anyone done a repetitive type of marketing to the same prospects only a week or two apart for each "drop"????

[Stonehenge]

Nebraska - I've been looking at doing direct mail this spring - what have your rates been for mailings of that size (ballpark)?

[LandArts]

We've always hit them once and moved on. That doesn't work
This year we're going to mail repeatedly to our niche. We've always printed locally and labeled and mailed ourselves. This year we went with a company we found online that handles everything with a quick turnaround. Cost is around 50 cents each. At that price we thought it best to purchase the list separately so we could cull it before sending to the mailing house.

[Nebraska]

The price for mailing, addressing, sorting, postage etc comes to roughly $.22 each.

We use our own list compiled over a number of years.

We provide the mailing piece which we have printed from a company in NYC....cost of the 4x6 full color post card is $562 including shipping for 10,000 (PM me for the name of the company).

LandArts - is this the first year you are mailing repeatedly? By doing it repeatedly are you narrowing down your list and mailing to fewer but more frequent?

[Stonehenge]

Nebraska, how did you compile a list of 9,000?!? I can't imagine the time it'd take to do that.

I'm looking at the companies that handle the whole thing for you, ad we're looking at roughly $1 apiece, which seems way high. However, I know I don't have time to compile a large list before the season starts.

Hmmm....

[cutntrim]

I've done a quick comparison between different advertising options for me:

I've cut down my YP advertising, but I used to pay $320/mo. for a 1/4 display ad plus a few bold print listings in different sections. That's $3,840 per year. I've since dropped down to $95/mo. which gets me bold listings in two phone books.

Flyer inserts in the newspaper (as I mentioned above) are $44/1,000 or 4.4 cents each.

Canada Post will deliver AdCards (post-card size) for $2,935/5,000 or 58.7 cents each. They print and deliver, but you design yourself.

What to do...what to do...?

Well, the YP is expensive, not targeted to specific areas, and most of the year is a waste of money because most of my calls for leads come during the springtime only.

Canada Post direct mail is pricey but it can be targeted towards specific neighbourhoods and the post-card type mailers are attractive to the eye, so are more likely to be read. I can send them out in the spring when I'll get the most response.

Newspaper flyers get tossed by most people, but it's cheap and I can target specific areas, and send them out only in the spring just like the direct mail post-cards.

I'm going to do flyers for this spring in the paper. Likely around 7,000 targeted houses in specific neighbourhoods, and I'll hit them three weeks consecutively.

I could pay $60/1k if the newspaper creates and prints the flyers, or I can provide them myself for the $44/1k. I'm not sure if I'll do them or let them.

[cutntrim]

Originally posted by Stonehenge
Nebraska, how did you compile a list of 9,000?!? I can't imagine the time it'd take to do that.

I'm looking at the companies that handle the whole thing for you, ad we're looking at roughly $1 apiece, which seems way high. However, I know I don't have time to compile a large list before the season starts.

Hmmm....

Canada Post will do the whole deal for $0.95 each with a minimum order of 5,000. They have a link on their website for mapping certain neighbourhoods by demographics to help compile a list to send to.

The Canada Post pricing I quoted in my post above was for UnAddressed mail. You can target specific areas but it's not addressed to individual homeowners.

[LandArts]

Nebraska-yes this is the first year we will do a true direct mail campaign. We are raising the home value select and hitting a broader geographic area. Our numbers will be much higher than previous years until we see the response we get. If it's exceptionally good we'll probably bump up the home value even higher and just hit the high end of the market.

[Nebraska]

The list is, and continues to be, compiled on a weekly basis over 8 years from certain sources with specific parameters. We do this weekly so not much effort is required.

Anyone have experience with multiple repeated mailings within a short time frame?

[cutntrim]

Just some quick math: on a 5,000 mail-out with post-cards at 5% response, that's 250 responses. I don't know about you guys, but I can't even handle that many phone calls on top of the ones I normally get in the spring...never mind trying to schedule/keep appointments for actual quotations.

Heck, only a 2.5% response would mean 125 leads calling me. Secure 20% of those for work, and that's 25 jobs to schedule. That'd basically fill my entire schedule all season long!

Saying all this I have no idea what the response rate will actually be, but I don't think 2.5% would be out of the question. If I did end up with 25 actual jobs from 5,000 mail-outs that would be $120/job advertising cost, which on a $12,000 job (for example) would only equal 1% advertising...not too bad really.

I'm going to see if the minimum order is negotiable. I would be happy not mailing 5,000. Even half that number would be o.k. by me.

With relation to Nebraska's original thought...it looks like Canada Post requires you to do all 5,000 pieces in one mail run, but I either want a lower minimum order, or want to split up the 5,000 at least into two runs.

[mrusk]

So does anyone have any solid data on results from mailing 1x vs multiple times. I'm not sure if i should mail 10k postcards 1 time, or 5k to the same people 2 times.

[Ron Soukup]

There are a lot of factors that go into Direct Mailing.
Is it a "Bulk" type list or are you using a direct mailing to a targeted neighborhood you currently work in?

Here are some very generic response rates from my Christmas Decor business:

6,000 Distributed over 3 wks (2,000 per week)
1.5 - 2.5% Response Rate
[45-120 Repsonses]
50% - 75% Qualifying Rate
[22-100 Qualified Leads]
65% Close Rate on Qualified Leads
[70 Sales]

The Big Factor here is the repsonse rate, which can be anywhere from 0.5% to 2.5% and is determined entirely by the piece of marketing there are receiving, which could be a 2-color flyer, 4-color flyer, postcard or 4-color brochure.

I can clarify more if needed, but in addition to all this you really NEED to track the results our your campaign in some way or another. What works for me and my business may not work for yours.


Good Luck!

[cutntrim]

Originally posted by Ron Soukup

The Big Factor here is the repsonse rate, which can be anywhere from 0.5% to 2.5% and is determined entirely by the piece of marketing there are receiving, which could be a 2-color flyer, 4-color flyer, postcard or 4-color brochure.

I would agree that the type/style/quality of mailer would definately affect response rate. Probably the timing of the delivery would too. For example I would hope my spring landscape flyer/post-card would not arrive on the same day as a major snowstorm...