Marketing Update - BIG next step!
So I have kept up getting my pieces out.
Last we spoke I had sent 510 more and was pretty early to say that didn't generate much. Feel confident saying that one didn't get me any results either.
On 10/29 I dropped another 660 pieces, putting me up to 2,490 total.
(Obligatory picture of a stack of postcards)
Still a little early to call this one a bust, but people probably should have gotten them all at this point (it is 11/2 as I write this), so might be another dud.
To recap I still have only received ONE CALL (Not deal, not lead, but CALL) on just about 2.5K pieces. Challenge someone to tell me they have had worse results! :)
Clearly something isn't working here!
I have had a few people look at my piece and feel it looks a little to much like a Realtor card. I didn't think so when making it, but trying to look at it again I see how that could be the case. I had not planned on continuing to use this after I worked through the inventory I have and that is cemented now! I will keep using this as the first piece as I finish refining my absentee list. (Especially want to thank @Shane Woods for the great feedback on the post card itself)
I plan on using totally new things after that!
So the BIG next step is that I decided to take advantage of the sale at yellowletters.com (Which is over now) and bought 6,000 EACH of their yellow postcards and Zip letters. They were having a very good sale on letters too, but I am less convinced I want to go that route since I don't want a lot of calls, I want a lot of quality calls and there is some debate on if the higher call rate on YLs actually delivers better results.
Not saying that I never will but decided to stick with postcards as a main vehicle. The Zip letters look pretty awesome and while close to double the cost of a PC they are only a little more than half of a letter so it was worth dropping a few grand to try (Only money right...).
As I hope you can see I am NOT discouuraged but want to learn from what I have done and keep pushing forward. If it was easy everyone would do it right?
Comments (3)
It has been my experience that paying for the marketing pieces is a much better use of your time if you trust the list. They know what works, saves some of the trial and error. New Refined Images does more of the building on the previous letter thing we talked about before. Can't beat that sale price though! Looking forward to your updates. And thanks for the mention!
Shane Woods, over 10 years ago
Yeah it seems like postcards are a no brainer to outsource fully. I can see the argument on letters as it is hard to outsource that for less than a buck if you want 1st class postage. If you can get someone to stamp and stuff for you fairly cheap I could see saving $0.20 a piece or more. When you get into thousands of letters that will start to add up.
Shaun Reilly, over 10 years ago
As an aside: While I do not regret doing these first mailings myself for both the experience of working through the lists and getting the stuff out as well as seeing how much work it actually is, WOW is it a relatively cheap thing to outsource! I have the PCs and basically got them all for free as I mentioned in previous posts. So more or less I am paying for the postage and some minimal costs of labels and ink to print them. A 1st class PC stamp is $0.33 and I just paid $0.35 for my Yellow PCs which includes the mailing piece and the 1st class postage and them doing all the work. So I am saving at most $0.02 a card to do all the work myself! This is a sale but even at the regular price it would only be $0.06. Anyway since there is SOME cost of the labels and ink my savings is actually less. I have been able to bang out 100/hour fairly easily even when watching the baseball games (Good timing to find a mindless activity to do since I was going to watch them!) which means I am working for $1-2/hour prepping them myself. You can't get a VA to work that cheap most of the time!!!!!
Shaun Reilly, over 10 years ago