Okay, I've used bandit signs, I've used magnetic car signs, and I've used personal letters to a select group of people. I admit I haven't been as assertive in any of these approaches as I should be, but I thought I would have gotten at least one deal. To date, all I've gotten were a few callers who were upside-down on their properties. So, to use Emeril Legasse's quote, it's time to kick it up a notch.
I've been doing some research the last few days, and stumbled across a very well written article on CREOnline about direct mail marketing using postcards. I found some local mailing shops in the area that specialize in the complete soup-to-nuts direct mail system. They handle all the U.S. ostal Service intervention, plus do all the printing and mailing for you. The only time in the line I'll probably interject my services will be when it comes to the actual mailing lists. According to the article, the cheapest place to get reliable address data is from Melissa Data. When calling around these places, I'll need to see if they can offer the mailing lists for a cheaper price.
The article in question mentions HUGE mail-outs (i.e., 5,000-10,000, or more, at a time). While my farm area certainly has that many people, I want to target sections of the area first, and then stage in subsequent sections. When the area is covered, I'll repeat the process. I'm thinking probably a 2-4 months spread in any one area. So for 3 month intervals at about 2,500 people per area for ~$0.16/each, I'm looking at around $1,600/yr (or roughly $130/mo) for this campaign - not counting other overhead. But I figure if I get one deal out of those 10,000+ mailings, I've more than paid for the service.
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Okay, after re-reading my last paragraph, I realized a big mathematical error. I'm guessing my farm area consists of about 10,000 homeowners. I want to send postcards to all those people in 3 month intervals, however, that will be:
10,000 x (12/3) x $0.16 = $6,400/yr
(or $533/mo.)
YIKES! Not what I was looking for. It would still more than pay for itself with ONE deal, but with a lot of upfront costs first. I may stage the sections in over time to ease the pain a bit. For example, concentrate on only 1,000-2,000 homeowners first, and then add in another section, and then another, until the entire area is covered. Of course, I'll probably do this in conjunction with the coupon bulk mailer at $0.045 each.
Dang.
I did a free count on Melissa Data in my farm area, and it came back with almost 30,000 hits! I'll definately need to scale this back some at first. :-(
The one area of concentration had almost 4,000 hits, so I think I'll try to target them first.
I am not so sure on that .16 price. I went to the post office and asked them about bulk rate and they said it was about 17 cents a postcard, but you have to do presort, plus get a license for $150 to do it, and there was another $150 fee on top of that. I've just been using stamps at 23 cents a piece. By the time you hire a company to do it, it will be a lot more.
I print the cards at home, about a penny and 1/2 a piece. The address labels are another penny a piece. It costs me about 26 cents total per postcard.
I am sending about 500 a week, or about $130 a week. I will keep this up for 4 weeks and I'll see what my response is. I'll be if for about $500 bucks at that time, if that does not produce a few good leads, time to re-evaluate.
Yeah, I'm not sure about the entire costs myself. As you said there are a lot of additional fees besides the actual postcards and postal rates.
I've thought about doing the postcards myself, but the one thing that seems to bother me is the price of printer ink/toner. Printers are cheap these days, but ink is outrageous. In some instances, the cost of ink easily surpasses the price of the printer itself. Of course, using black ink only can substantially reduce the cost, but I wonder if it is cost-effective in the long run.
Keep me informed on your progress.
You can probably squeeze another penny out of the cost of doing it yourself. I sent out postcards for a while and printed them myself. Just used Avery postcards, 6 to a page. I didn't use address labels, so that saved the time of applying them and the money of buying them. If you've got a database of addresses, set up a mail merge in Word that imports the addresses into the front side of your postcard template.
Thanks everyone for your input. It's good to get advice from people who have "been there, and done that". I'll need to sit down, get all my notes together, and run all the numbers to figure out the most cost-effective process. Thanks again!
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