Mailing Out Letters Is A Lot Of Work!!!

ruskent

Well since i ended up with almost a 4% response on my 1st direct mailing or about 170 letter i decided to try to get another 300 out by the end of the week. I decided to spend all day in the office today to get a good start on them. I've been at it for 6 hours now and i am beat!! I typed 300 addresses into mail merge. Put address and return address labels on 300 envlopes. And then signed, folded, stuffed a business card in and then sealed, 130 letters. I got a long ways to go!

My last mailing ran me about 90 bucks and i got a 3500 job and still have 2 15k jobs pending. So i'm really not worried about wasting time by doing this. I know it will pay off.

I'll keep you guys updated on the results of this mailing. MY last mailing was to home owners who just bought newly built homes in the last 6 months. This mailing is to homeowners who bought newly built homes from 2003-untill 6 months ago. Only sent to homes sold for over 400k.


Matt

Peladu

Get friendly with some top selling realators and you could cut that 6 months down to six days. Just remember, they like cash.

Wolf

Wow, Matt. That is a great response. What message are you sending in the direct mail? How do you approach the customer? How have you gotten the lists that you use? Do you have a sample of what you are sending out that you could show us, Matt? Thanks.

ruskent

I am acctually getting the majority of my list from my neighbor who is a realtor. Shes going to run them off every 10 days or so for me.

My letter is just a basic letter. No bull. I get right to the point, and list the services i offer.

I am hoping i can close on the 2 15k jobs i have pending.

All the leads that came in from the 1st mailing were for decent jobs. No crummy jobs. It brings in much better leads than the service directory does. My service directory ads are bring in atleast 2 calls a day, but many of those leads are not quality.

janethu

How do you get specific mailing lists to a certain criteria/ SUch as I want to mail to new home owners that purchased homes over a certain dollar amount or send postcards to certain areas that have above average homes. Pleae help me with my marketing ideas and/ or help as I am lost. I live ina community that has about 35,000 people. What is the best way to market my mail.
lAstly, How would some of you suggest marketing to businesses, any business, property mangement, hotels, realty offices that need to expnad their offices for more brokers and so forth. Also, I ma in a community where the medical field is growing 200% and offices are being put up everywhere. How can I get in? I do not see any large firms working these jobs or I would try to find someone to ask.
ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED. thank you kindly.

Darrell

Grumpy

Alot of printing companies will also mail for you. If you plan to do volume it is cost effective to have them print and mail the letters for you.

If you do it yourself type all the names and addresses into a spreadsheet then you can mail merge again and again without having to type again and again.

Mike Finley

janethu do a search on the web for "new homeowner lists" and you will find lots of companies to help you. http://www.melissadata.com is my favorite for lists.

ruskent

I did ok with my letters. I got a decent response. But only signed 1 job. I think i mailed out about 400 letters and had an end result of 3% response.

Right now i am doing a job for a guy who owns a direct mail co. Hes going to help me out with some mailings. Lots of guys in my area do Post card mailings, so i don't want to do that. I am going to do extremely targeted direct mail letters. The guy said he'd so it for just the postage, so we will see.

I am planning on pulling all my newspaper advertising and doing just direct mail. The newspaper just brings in leads from price shoppers!!

Matt

AAPaint

Hey ruskent, if it's possible, could you post a copy of the letter. Do you sign each copy personally? What did your direct mail friend say? I'm sure personally signed letters work good...I'm very interested in what you have to say in your letters. Your response rate is very good....

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Woz the Painter

Wouldn't it be more professional to have envelopes printed with your company [name and or logo] along with a letterhead on your letter?

AAPaint

Actually, woz, from what I've studied and learned about direct marketing over the years things like hand addressed envelopes, personally signed letters, or even hand written letters and things of that nature get better than average response rates because it's a much more personal approach, and much more personal feeling to the client.

Fancy letterheads and envelopes will often get tossed without a look because they allready get the idea you're selling something. Think about it. I'm sure you get URGENT, FIRST CLASS, etc mail with stamps all over it, RUSH DELIVERY blah, blah.....and how many do you actually open?

This is why I'm so interested in his exact method because a lot of people are opening his envelopes AND calling or corresponding with him. 3% is a very good return on direct marketing....very good.

__________________
-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Woz the Painter

AA it seems his letters are addressed and return addressed with computer generated labels, I just think a letterhead on envelope and letter looks more professional. Has anyone had good success with refrigerator magnets? Seems like they are popular in my house!

ruskent

I printed labels off of my computer. The return address label had my logo on it in color. I used labels for the addresses on the envlopes. They were not hand addressed.

I signed each and every letter.

I got better results from sending the letters to newly built homes, vs homes built in the last 6 years.

Almost every job i bid was over 12k.

I only signed one $3500 job from 350 letters that i did mail out. It seemed like alot of people wanted things done and just had no idea what it would cost.

I look foward to mailing out 5-10k letters soon.

Matt

Justin

Ruskent,

I think the main reason people are asking "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?" is primarily because most direct mail gets a 1%-2% response. Seeing as how you achieved a 3% and 4% response is terrific, albeit that your sample was less than 1,000 (1000 is the typical "standard" that is used as the basis for response rates). I am very interested to find out what would happen if you did a mailing with over 1,000.

But if you could, as I would like to know as well, can you answer a few questions?

1. What exactly did your direct mail piece say? (Can you post a picture?)

2. The envelope - was it in an envelope? Color of the envelope? Size of the envelope? Any special characteristics of the envelope?

I'm really curious to what your DM piece looked like. 40% of the effectiveness of a DM piece is in the copy. Going with this note, who was your target market for this mailing? Consumers? Businesses? (You said homes, but I could be mistaken)

Thanks.

fredIII

yes, i'm interested in what you did too ? what business are you in ?

ultimatetouch

What companies do you guys use to do your mailings for you. I have my wife do it but it never gets done her being bussy with are children and all.

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

THINKPAINTING

postcardmania.com

postcardbuilder.com

quamtum mail

BreyerConstruct

We've also used Quantummail . com a bit.

~Matt

__________________
Custom Deck Builder Deck Designer Lancaster Deck Builder Berks Deck Cleaning
Breyer Construction & Landscape, LLC Facebook Page
www.BreyerConstruction.com

Teetorbilt

Property sales are public record and can be found in county records (many available on the web), ours are published in the paper once a week. It should list the address, buyer/seller names, last and current purchase price, taxes, etc.

This allows you to target locations and specific potential clients. I buy Hallmark 'welcome to the neighborhood' cards. Condense your approach letter to fit 1/4 page so that it will fit inside of the card, use good paper. If your printer won't handle heavy paper have them printed outside. Hand address and post, pay somebody with nice handwriting if yours sucks and nothing gives away an ad like metered mail. If you really want to get devious (I don't, but a friend does), use a false return address in the same neighborhood. Pure gorilla marketing.

Whatever it takes to make it past assistants and out of the circular file!

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

THINKPAINTING

Thanks for the correct spelling of Quantummail.com , my spelling teacher was a knockout