Fair Price To Pay To Have Envelopes Hand Addressed?

ruskent

I want to do a portion of my direct mail in house to bring down the cost. Basically i need to find someone to hand address 200-300 envelopes a month.

My handwriting is not neat enough. What is a fair price to pay for this? I am guessing my best bet is to post a add on craigslist.

SLSTech

Hire a part time secretary? They have programs that can print the addresses on the envelope that look like normal handwriting, etc...

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concretemasonry

If you feel you really have to use a program, make sure it is not with a "phoney" font that can be spotted easily by a high school kid. You do not want to be absolutely perfect, but within the realm of personal and high quality.

Make sure the stamp is a new or commemorative stamp and it put on slightly crooked. No bulk mail stamps allowed!!!

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

Celtic

Couple of questions...

How are you getting the customer list?
[By hand from the phone book or some other source....some sort of computer generated list?]

Is it your requirement that they be "hand written"?

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dirt diggler

dude ... these quarter million dollar projects you're always talking about --- and you're going to hand write a bunch of direct mailers???




no focus again. STOP

THINK.



This is going to cost you money. I would rather pay MORE for a better quality job (from a professional direct mail service). By the time you pay for postage, pay for printing, pay some yahoo off craigslist, etc etc --- you won't save any money ... and you'll have a sh*tty(er) looking mailer


my god - at least use MS Word for the labels

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Thanks in advance!!!

pcplumber

According to the gurus, handwritten letters get opened more. This not entirely true, because I believe customers open 100%, of all envelopes, when the envelope looks like something important may be inside, even when the envelope has a label attached.

Some envelopes with labels are very important. Many businesses use the Brother QL-500 label printer, when mailing checks. I do this, every week, and I use the same envelopes, when I do direct mail campaigns.

Junk mail envelopes have unique characteristics. They use labels, with code numbers, and bar coding that is a dead giveaway.

For direct mail campaigns, I use standard No. 5 envelope (I think) that is white, and I use a 1-1/7" x 3-1/2" label. I believe that every customer opens my envelope, and no customer will take the chance and throw it away.

The gurus tell you that orange envelopes with brown print get opened more. They also look more like junk mail. Lawyers don't send you letters in orange or pink envelopes. Serious messages come in white envelopes.

Of course, your envelope does not have to be white. They could be any very light color with a design that has a professional look.

I could type 300 names, print the letters, and print the labels in less than three hours. Why pay someone. Learn to do it yourself, save the money, and have better control.

Also, what is very important, our database will print the customer's name and address on each letter. When we do direct mail, it is more important to have the customer's name on the letter, because this is what really makes the letter personal. You may fool the customer with the hand-written envelope, but you will disappoint the customer when the envelope is opened.

Our database will manage your customer lists, print the customer's name on the letters, and print the labels. Go to the File Swap section and look at the Customer List database. It is simple to use and free. Well maybe simple. I made it myself.

MALCO.New.York

Are you smellin' what I be smellin'?



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I do think that this is what pc means by "Orange".

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Winchester

I can just imagine the quality of writing you get from some CraigsList crackhead looking to make enough for his next meth fix.

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Ryan

ruskent

Dude how do you think I get these 250k jobs???? Had addressed direct mail letters.

Hand addressed #6 ivory envolpes with more then 1 stamp on it works the best. I tried countless different methods.


I would not do it myself during the busy season. But I am going to have a slow winter and have no proablem stuffing 250 envelopes a month to save a little dough.

Celtic

No offense, but you really believe the general population is a bunch of morons?
People get disappointed - whatever the color of the junk mail is - when they discover the letter IS junk mail and now they have to get rid of your trash.




YOUR database?

Anyone can easily make a database using Excel and mail merge that database into Word....it's so easy, even a caveman can do it.



This I agree with.

I, too, am starting to sense plumbing is not your trade....

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Celtic

You could use a font that mimics actual hand writing

This is one out a billion font sites
http://www.myfont.de/fonts/top100/downloads.html

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SLSTech

New Avatar suggestion for PC???

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Alabama Full Service Remodeling, Renovation, and Preservation by SLS Construction
Certified Energy Efficiency Audits, Ratings, Modeling, Verifications, & Consulting
Residential, Commercial, & Industrial Infrared Thermography Scans

MALCO.New.York

Whoever did that Portrait of Maurice (Jeff Daniel Phillips. Never trust an actor that uses three names...............Sweetie!) is one TALENTED MoFo!!

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
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ruskent

Tried that already. Not as successful.

SLSTech

Personally I would go for a part time secretary hired from Manpower or some other temp agency - have them help with Holiday cards, addressing your Bulk mailers, filling papers, etc... maybe 1 day a week

Back to the slow time vs. busy time & you don't mind churning them out yourself when it is slow - I assume you are mailing to the same people, what once every 3 months, 6 months? Address 2 or 4 envelopes to the same person - one stack for Jan & the other for July. It will take a little bit longer, but not as much as doing 1 stack now & another stack later.

Just my .02 - checks or cash accepted

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Alabama Full Service Remodeling, Renovation, and Preservation by SLS Construction
Certified Energy Efficiency Audits, Ratings, Modeling, Verifications, & Consulting
Residential, Commercial, & Industrial Infrared Thermography Scans

Celtic

Fair enough.

Hire a catholic school girl to write them out.
Seriously.
Make sure you drop off/pick up the stuff off at her house when the parents are home.
...and tell her "No silly little hearts on top of the i 's"

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SLSTech

Now that tops all the other suggestions. Amen

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Alabama Full Service Remodeling, Renovation, and Preservation by SLS Construction
Certified Energy Efficiency Audits, Ratings, Modeling, Verifications, & Consulting
Residential, Commercial, & Industrial Infrared Thermography Scans

MALCO.New.York

+ YouTube Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPIwTwGz8o

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Something to One may be Nothing to another!

Ultimate Wisdom---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-cnizLDEE

Celtic

Amen

+ YouTube Video

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Kgmz

This is something like I would suggest, except they don't have to be in a Catholic school.

But seriously a lot of high schools have a work/study type of program where the student gets out of school early and goes to work for a few hours. They get a full class credit for this and usually it is only seniors that can do this.

So if you can find enough work for a student a couple of hours a day this would be fairly cheap. You could have them do some organizing, filing, etc. besides writing your envelopes.