Direct Mail Experts (1 Viewer)

[SIDA!]

Any FBGers in the direct mail biz? I have a question.

Assume for a second that you have a snail mailing list of 10,000 names/addresses. I know there is the Cass system to basically fix spelling errors and make sure that the addresses are legit. But my understanding is that it has nothing to do with the actually addressee.

If I have the following address:

John Doe

123 Disney Street

Anytown, CA 99999

My understanding is that that address would be thrown out because it simply does not exist.

However, assume I have a situation where a person signed up and used their real name and put an actual real address, but not their actual address, is there a way to match up the name with that address to see if it is valid?

I have seen mail that states something to the effect of John Doe or current resident. But, I only want to mail something to an address if it is a real address and if the person I am mailing has actually had a history of receiving mail at that address.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Long Ball Larry]

I think that you may want to look in to TLOxp or LexisNexis Accurint.

you can upload a list of names and addresses and they will tell you if and when they were valid based on things like utility bills and other databases.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

i have never used it for batch searching, but melissa data does similar things, i think.

 

[SIDA!]

I think that you may want to look in to TLOxp or LexisNexis Accurint.

you can upload a list of names and addresses and they will tell you if and when they were valid based on things like utility bills and other databases.

Thanks for the help. Just to be sure I am clear.

I would upload the contact information into something like a csv file and then run it through their systems and then it would essentially flag an address where there was no record of that name living at the address given?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Best bet is probably to contact a big mailing house (just Google for one in your area) and have them give you your options. There are definitely ways to do what you're looking for. You'll have to make some decisions about how to handle the info you get back, but you should be able to save a fair bit of $$ if you've got a big mailing.

 

[sublimeone]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

 

[Plaid Boxer]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

Mailing to physicians we continue to see direct mail as our best channel.

 

[[icon]]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

Mailing to physicians we continue to see direct mail as our best channel.

Same here. Particularly as lead-ups to events/tradeshows. They've proven great drivers of traffic.

 

[sublimeone]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

Mailing to physicians we continue to see direct mail as our best channel.

Is the purpose of the campaign to create leads or sell a product or what? Do you have any idea what your cost-per-conversion is?

 

[sublimeone]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

Mailing to physicians we continue to see direct mail as our best channel.

Same here. Particularly as lead-ups to events/tradeshows. They've proven great drivers of traffic.

You're inviting prospects to check out your event/booth? How far in advance to you do the mail campaign relative to the event?

 

[[icon]]

You're inviting prospects to check out your event/booth? How far in advance to you do the mail campaign relative to the event?

Yes. Most of our shows are Thur-Sat with Wed and Sun being travel days.

I usually shoot to have them land the Wednesday or so before the show. Many practices are closed Friday, and some docs will take the full week off if the show is in a nice location.. or they might be too busy the day or two leading up to the show to mess with mail.

I like to be as fresh as possible in their mind so they remember to stop by, but not cutting it so close as to risk missing them.

Our booth traffic is usually outstanding for the size of company we are.

 

[sublimeone]

You're inviting prospects to check out your event/booth? How far in advance to you do the mail campaign relative to the event?

Yes. Most of our shows are Thur-Sat with Wed and Sun being travel days.

I usually shoot to have them land the Wednesday or so before the show. Many practices are closed Friday, and some docs will take the full week off if the show is in a nice location.. or they might be too busy the day or two leading up to the show to mess with mail.

I like to be as fresh as possible in their mind so they remember to stop by, but not cutting it so close as to risk missing them.

Our booth traffic is usually outstanding for the size of company we are.

What type of mail do you prefer? Enveloped, postcards etc...? How many pieces of mail do you send at a time? Do you put any kind of "call to action" in the mailer?

 

[glvsav37]

sublime....what message are you trying to gut out? that might be more helpful.

the delivery method depends on a lot of things most of all cost. Postcards are cheaper to mail and will have immediate impact in the prospects hands.

Anything in an envelope will come across more classier, but will also so come with costs to print, stuff and such. Plus, you need to put something on the envelope that will mane the prospect WANT to open it—so its a 2 step process

and there's always a call to action.....just a matter of how loud you want to say it.

 

[[icon]]

You're inviting prospects to check out your event/booth? How far in advance to you do the mail campaign relative to the event?

Yes. Most of our shows are Thur-Sat with Wed and Sun being travel days.

I usually shoot to have them land the Wednesday or so before the show. Many practices are closed Friday, and some docs will take the full week off if the show is in a nice location.. or they might be too busy the day or two leading up to the show to mess with mail.

I like to be as fresh as possible in their mind so they remember to stop by, but not cutting it so close as to risk missing them.

Our booth traffic is usually outstanding for the size of company we are.

What type of mail do you prefer? Enveloped, postcards etc...? How many pieces of mail do you send at a time? Do you put any kind of "call to action" in the mailer?

We've had good results with Oversize Postcards... 6x10" or so. VERY cheap to print (under a dime apiece), Large enough to stand out, and they are sent for the price of standard first class mail. Just remember glossy face but matte back for overprinting address/indicia.

Call to action is usually a simple but visible "Come by Booth XXXXX at the XYZ Show in City next week". We'd done giveaways in the past but I'm not convinced they generated any more traffic.

One thing that did work, was for a Vegas show I bought a cheap Blackjack table, made a custom skirt for it, had custom made poker chips with our logo, and dealt blackjack all day. Started them with $25 and high value won an iPad. Folks were there as much for the blackjack as the iPad. Plus it was a LOT more fun to chat shop over cards than just standing there. Lots of folks wanted to take a chip home with them as a keeper... which was expected, and why I had custom ones made.

But back to direct mail... I think a simple one-hitter message is best. Folks aren't going to spend much time with it. I can't recall the last time I opened a letter that I didn't know what was in it. Postcards (especially oversized) usually catch my eye for a second or two at least, though.

 

[mr roboto]

We use direct mail to target age, income and proximity. Higher end fitness business. A nicely designed double sided glossy on card stock.

Email is the new junk mail. People actually have to touch the postcard or mailer.

Lots of service businesses and franchises (maids, fitness, home contracting, senior care) use it frequently.

 

[[icon]]

Email is the new junk mail.

Bigtime. We use it but mostly just to communicate new products/services to an existing client base. It's cheap so it's hard NOT to do it a bit... but our returns have been limited for our particular industry.

May have something to do with most doctors not even reading critical case communications sent via email, let alone ads.

 

[mr roboto]

Email is the new junk mail.

Bigtime. We use it but mostly just to communicate new products/services to an existing client base. It's cheap so it's hard NOT to do it a bit... but our returns have been limited for our particular industry.

May have something to do with most doctors not even reading critical case communications sent via email, let alone ads.

For existing clients/customers it's great. For new client/customer acquisition, not so much.

 

[matuski]

What is "higher end" fitness?

 

[mr roboto]

What is "higher end" fitness?

Personal training. More expensive than membership/gym type fitness businesses. Higher price point. Because we have a more targeted client (higher HH income, ages 45-65) the ability to target specific households that meet these criteria is a bedrock of our marketing approach.

 

[matuski]

What is "higher end" fitness?

Personal training. More expensive than membership/gym type fitness businesses. Higher price point. Because we have a more targeted client (higher HH income, ages 45-65) the ability to target specific households that meet these criteria is a bedrock of our marketing approach.

Gotcha.

 

[xulf]

You're inviting prospects to check out your event/booth? How far in advance to you do the mail campaign relative to the event?

Yes. Most of our shows are Thur-Sat with Wed and Sun being travel days.

I usually shoot to have them land the Wednesday or so before the show. Many practices are closed Friday, and some docs will take the full week off if the show is in a nice location.. or they might be too busy the day or two leading up to the show to mess with mail.

I like to be as fresh as possible in their mind so they remember to stop by, but not cutting it so close as to risk missing them.

Our booth traffic is usually outstanding for the size of company we are.

What type of mail do you prefer? Enveloped, postcards etc...? How many pieces of mail do you send at a time? Do you put any kind of "call to action" in the mailer?

We've had good results with Oversize Postcards... 6x10" or so. VERY cheap to print (under a dime apiece), Large enough to stand out, and they are sent for the price of standard first class mail. Just remember glossy face but matte back for overprinting address/indicia.

Call to action is usually a simple but visible "Come by Booth XXXXX at the XYZ Show in City next week". We'd done giveaways in the past but I'm not convinced they generated any more traffic.

One thing that did work, was for a Vegas show I bought a cheap Blackjack table, made a custom skirt for it, had custom made poker chips with our logo, and dealt blackjack all day. Started them with $25 and high value won an iPad. Folks were there as much for the blackjack as the iPad. Plus it was a LOT more fun to chat shop over cards than just standing there. Lots of folks wanted to take a chip home with them as a keeper... which was expected, and why I had custom ones made.

But back to direct mail... I think a simple one-hitter message is best. Folks aren't going to spend much time with it. I can't recall the last time I opened a letter that I didn't know what was in it. Postcards (especially oversized) usually catch my eye for a second or two at least, though.

My company deals in trade shows a decent amount. Curious how you differentiate traffic from marketing versus booth placement versus just people wandering around.

 

[[icon]]

A lot of it is people come by asking about specific things we mention in the card...

Sometimes it's just that they say "hey I got your card, I'm curious about XYZ"....

Sometimes they flat out bring the card. Doc's can be absent minded so many bring ads, postcards and brochures for stuff they're wanting to remember to look into while at the show.

Sometimes In conversation I'll ask them how they heard about XYZ.

 

[Plaid Boxer]

Any business guys have any luck with direct mail? I kind of thought direct mail was dead...

Mailing to physicians we continue to see direct mail as our best channel.

Is the purpose of the campaign to create leads or sell a product or what? Do you have any idea what your cost-per-conversion is?

Sell a product. We've tried to supplement dm with email and saw no lift. I can grab the cpo tomorrow.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Any FBGers in the direct mail biz? I have a question.

Assume for a second that you have a snail mailing list of 10,000 names/addresses. I know there is the Cass system to basically fix spelling errors and make sure that the addresses are legit. But my understanding is that it has nothing to do with the actually addressee.

If I have the following address:

John Doe

123 Disney Street

Anytown, CA 99999

My understanding is that that address would be thrown out because it simply does not exist.

However, assume I have a situation where a person signed up and used their real name and put an actual real address, but not their actual address, is there a way to match up the name with that address to see if it is valid?

I have seen mail that states something to the effect of John Doe or current resident. But, I only want to mail something to an address if it is a real address and if the person I am mailing has actually had a history of receiving mail at that address.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

I forget what it's called now (ETA: National Change of Address (NCOA), but you can send your file off to a mailing house and get a disposition of the records back. Basically they'll label each record with a code that explains what they found about it.

You have to make some decisions about the categories since they're not all clear cut, but I think that gets at what you're trying to do.

You can probably do it yourself working directly with US Postal too if you wanted.

 

[sublimeone]

sublime....what message are you trying to gut out? that might be more helpful.

the delivery method depends on a lot of things most of all cost. Postcards are cheaper to mail and will have immediate impact in the prospects hands.

Anything in an envelope will come across more classier, but will also so come with costs to print, stuff and such. Plus, you need to put something on the envelope that will mane the prospect WANT to open it—so its a 2 step process

and there's always a call to action.....just a matter of how loud you want to say it.

We are looking to generate leads for our inside sales people. We provide web-based marketing services for small businesses... website design & hosting, email, AdWords, SEO etc... So basically I would need the mailer to generate phone calls to our sales team or visits to our landing page.

We are able to close about 1 in 3 prospects that take some kind of action (phone call, filling out a form on the landing page or interacting with our on-line chat.) In order for direct mail to work for us, at a minimum we would need to generate a deal for every $400 in spend.

I already have some prospect lists, so I would not have to purchase addresses. I priced out 1000 postcards (8.52 x 5.47) through VistaPrint, postage and verification included, with standard mail (6-22 business days) the price is $526.23... first class (5-12 business days is 646.23).

I will probably give it a test run but I am just wondering if it's feasible to think we could generate approx 4-5 legitimate leads per 1000 direct mail pieces sent out.

ETA: Vistaprint pretty much always has a 25% off coupon.. so that would reduce my costs pretty significantly

 

[sublimeone]

What strategy are you guys using with regard to frequency? Annually, quarterly, monthly? Do you see a drop-off after a certain amount of time or do you acquire more leads after they have received a few pieces of mail?