Mailing Advice

I’m looking into doing a mailing for the first time and have a few questions. What sort of response rates do you guys get from a mailing? Typical direct mail is 1-3% I believe. If one percent then you’re looking at 10 jobs per 1,000 mailers. Are these leads less interested in cost than other sources?

Does a typical size mailer work better than others in your experience? Is a certain size more profitable, as in is just costs less but seems to get close to the same return? If so, what size do you suggest?

What is the typical demographic you target? I know mostly people that are well off get their windows cleaned but specifically who do you target? Age, income, home value, area code?, etc.

Any do’s or don’t(s) you can think of?

Thanks!

I am in the same boat as you. I am starting to research the best and most profitable ways of utilizing mailers.
I look forward to some good responses on here! Otherwise I know I have found some very insightful posts searching through past posts.

Look luck!

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we just calculated our last three months mailers.
15k
15k
20k
mailed out each round.
First two ROI’s of 1:3, 1:4.

Same as last year my close rate was not good, less than 50%.
On the second round, 1:4, next week we have 2k in windows scheduled from it which were not included.

In my limited experience with EDDM, I off one mailing I will repeat 50% of them going forward, but only 25% will become annual, then you have the bi-annual or every third year people.

I like EDDM, the results have not been as great as many proclaimed, but it has done well enough for us to continue with it. Got 10k coming next week hopefully.

Try not to think in terms of response rate but in terms of ROI (Return On Investment). If a mailing cost you say $400 and you had one person respond and you landed a $1000 job, do you care about the response rate or your return on investment?

Response rates are not as important as return on investment.

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New here and new to WC but not to new to the services industry nor direct marketing…

EDDM + 6.5x11 post cards and two other non competing businesses (co-op) has worked for me in 2 separate business year after year.
10k postcards @ (.28 per home - print and postage included) divided by 3 (you and two others)
Makes sending much easier on hip pocket national bank…

Response rate is usually .5 to 1%. ROI is usually 4 to 1

I prefer 8.5x11 for the sheer size. I want people to notice my ad. I spent enough to get into their home and I want the best chance to get their attention.

My only concern is property value and avg household income when targeting customers. You can go to usps.com and use their eddm to find info about your area. Melissadata.com is another source you can use to find information. Go to zip code and free lookups.

One very important tip here is when choosing routes to mail to, make sure the apartments is low. No one in apartments pays to get their windows cleaned.

Also there is still time to sign up for the Convention in Nashville, if you haven’t already. TRUST me here, there is so much knowledge there it’s a steal at twice the price. There are people in the same postion you are, also people way beyond where you are at and can help you navigate your next steps. Plus when you leave you are so pumped and full of energy, it’s truly an amazing experience.

Agree with everything except for the 8.5 X 11 size (for me ).

These don’t fit neatly in a mailbox and unless they are card stock are flimsy.

The 6.5 x 11 card fits right in a mailbox no bends folds or creases.

Otherwise your right on based on my exp.

QUOTE=Tastycruton;307774]Response rate is usually .5 to 1%. ROI is usually 4 to 1

I prefer 8.5x11 for the sheer size. I want people to notice my ad. I spent enough to get into their home and I want the best chance to get their attention.

My only concern is property value and avg household income when targeting customers. You can go to usps.com and use their eddm to find info about your area. Melissadata.com is another source you can use to find information. Go to zip code and free lookups.

One very important tip here is when choosing routes to mail to, make sure the apartments is low. No one in apartments pays to get their windows cleaned.

Also there is still time to sign up for the Convention in Nashville, if you haven’t already. TRUST me here, there is so much knowledge there it’s a steal at twice the price. There are people in the same postion you are, also people way beyond where you are at and can help you navigate your next steps. Plus when you leave you are so pumped and full of energy, it’s truly an amazing experience.[/QUOTE]

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I get the heavy card from WCRA at cost printing, and their never folded. Luckily most, if not all, mail carriers are trained not to fold the mail. So now it’s this giant letter sized add with several envelopes on top. Makes it hard to miss.

But everyone has their preferred size for various reasons. So one other VERY important tip I forgot was test, test, and test some more. Test everything you possible can, time of month, weather, color, specials, size, font, etc, etc, etc. Once you find something that works and works well, crush it. Just beat the living hell out of it.

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This is easily skewed. That one $1000 job could be random. It doesn’t mean you did anything right this time or anything wrong the next 47 times you get nothing. If all you care about is ROI you are short changing yourself.

Yes the results could be skewed. The example I gave is just one example. There are lots more. I didn’t say the only thing you should care about is ROI. What I said is that ROI is more important than Response Rates. You don’t have to take my word for it. You may want to read more in detail about it from the Post Card Marketing Guru - Joy Glendusa. Who is Joy Glendusa?

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=verdana]Joy Gendusa is the owner and CEO of direct mail marketing firm, PostcardMania. Joy began PostcardMania in 1998, with nothing but a phone and a computer, never taking a dime of investment capital. Joy originally started PostcardMania as a full-service postcard marketing company helping clients create turn-key marketing campaigns with graphic design, printing, mailing list acquisition and mailing services. Since then, PostcardMania has expanded to offer its clients more services including website and landing page design and development, email marketing and full marketing evaluations – all while continuing to educate clients with free marketing advice.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=verdana]
In 2011, PostcardMania reached almost $45 million in annual revenue and the company now employs more than 195 people, prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards each week, and has more than 53,000 customers in over 350 industries. Please visit Direct Mail | Bulk Mail | Postcard Printing | Postcard Marketing | PostcardMania for more information.

[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Lucida Grande]After more than twelve years of leading one of the most innovative and successful postcard marketing companies in the industry, Joy has obtained a level of marketing expertise that is sought after for counsel and speaking engagements all over the country.

Joy has written many books one of which is called “The Ultimate Postcard Marketing Success Marketing Manual”. You can see more information about it here: [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#222222][FONT=Verdana]Amazon.com

Here is a quote from Joy’s Book:

“[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]By Joy Gendusa[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]People often look at marketing ROI in terms of response rate. This is wrong thinking. When it comes to marketing ROI, you have to measure campaign costs vs the profits generated to determine the Return on Investment. Response rate is irrelevant – are you’re making a profit?[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]———- The Article ———-[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]All too often people look at marketing ROI in terms of response rate: in other words, “I sent out 10,000 pieces of direct mail and only got 39 responses which is terrible.” This is wrong thinking.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]When it comes to marketing ROI, you have to realize that the term means Return On Investment and the return is measured in dollars (or your local currency). Let’s say you spend $2,000 to get out a bulk mailing of 5,000 pieces and you get 10 calls as a result. Doesn’t look like much. But of these 10 calls you close 6 and get immediate sales of $12,000. That’s marketing ROI! And that’s not even taking into account the future sales to those 6 new customers. It could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#333333][FONT=Verdana]The same simple mathematics apply to any other marketing efforts: radio ads, press releases or articles in magazines, print ads, yellow pages, web site, etc.
Obviously you need to keep track of response from each marketing campaign you do so that you can weed out unsuccessful campaigns and strengthen successful ones.”

[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=verdana][COLOR=#222222][FONT=Verdana]
[/FONT][/COLOR][/FONT][/COLOR]

@bmcelyea, it sounds like Joy is certainly someone with some marketing prowess, and a lot can be learned from her. But we have to remember that she is attempting to sell something to us, as well. From that brief snippet, it sounds like she emphasizes ROI in order to keep her customers coming back for more mailings, even if the response rates are weak. I’m not saying she’s trying to cheat or deceive anyone- a lot of people bail on EDDM too soon because of lack-luster results. And you cannot go on response rate alone. But I feel there needs to be a balanced approach, by tracking all of the data available. That way you are more likely to identify when a piece is a real winner, or just a mediocre fluke that landed at the right time to the right high dollar jobs. A mailing like that (low response, but high ROI) is less likely to perform on a predictable basis. IMHO, you would be better off investing in repeated mailings of a piece that yields a higher response, even if it has a slightly lower ROI (for a single mailing) than the other piece.

But it all comes down to tracking, testing, tweaking, more tracking, and more tweaking. You can do split testing to try and identify which features of a piece are attracting the higher paying jobs, and which qualities are getting more people to pick up the phone. Then you’ll have some real winning results (hopefully ;))

edit: and I do recognize that Joy acknowledges these points at the end of her quote, but I just feel that she puts a little too much emphasis on the ROI, downplaying the role of response rates. But I can understand where she’s coming from, as she’s attempting to overcome the opposite problem a lot of people have with this.

Again, I never said ROI is the only thing you care about in Direct Mail Marketing. I was trying to be brief and not go into a lot of detail in my initial posting. I know there is much more to it than ROI. You may have overlooked what she said that I quoted in my last posting. She said , “Obviously you need to keep track of response from each marketing campaign you do so that you can weed out unsuccessful campaigns and strengthen successful ones.”

The point I was making is that if you are new to Post Card Marketing and you hear from someone that the Response Rate is .5 to 1% you may be discouraged and never try it. I hear so many small business owners who begin to think about Direct Mail Marketing always ask that question first. " What is the average Response Rate"? and then decide it’s too risky to try it with that low Response Rate. I know I was skeptical years ago when I started doing Direct Mail Marketing and heard that the Response Rate was low.

On the other hand if someone is encouraging you to try it and to be more concerned about your Return On Investment taking into consideration that, yes you have to track your results and try different pieces with various offerings and graphics and you can’t just make a judgement about the effectiveness of a mailing based on one mailing, then maybe it will help them to take the plunge. I am certain we are talking about the same thing, only I didn’t go into detail with my initial response.

Yes, Joy is selling postcards and graphic design but she has helped thousands of small businesses to be successful by following her advice. I know because I was one of them. She wouldn’t be as successful as she is if she hadn’t helped many small businesses to be successful. Her main focus is not selling books. She has been in the trenches everyday working for years trying hundreds of thousands of different mailings and different pieces to see what works and what doesn’t work in many different Industries and teaching others how to be successful at Postcard Marketing. I am pretty certain that no one has a better record of helping small businesses to be successful at Postcard Marketing than Joy Glendusa. I would encourage anyone to read more about her.

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By the way, I am in no way suggesting that you use Joy Glendusa’s Postcard Marketing Services. There are plenty of great postcard mailing pieces that Window Cleaning Resources have created for members that are free and have worked extremely well for me. Her services are much more expensive. I am saying if you want to learn how to do successful Post Card Marketing read her free PDF manual.

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Agreed there is few good nuggets in there. Many very self serving but as a whole will provide a fair desc. of direct marketing

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One very important tip here is when choosing routes to mail to, make sure the apartments is low. No one in apartments pays to get their windows cleaned.