Right now I am just ramping up my mailers.
About a thousand this month but increasing at a fast clip next month.
I am different in that I own a commercial real estate company and as the head broker I am searching for listings to obtain and also off market properties for my buyers and myself. So I am targeting specifically triple net properties and larger apartment buildings because they are what I focus on day in and day out for my clients.
I have a full time research analyst doing nothing but building my mailing list and research from scratch that is local to me. It is a ton of work sourcing the information as each county in my state has different zoning codes, different assessor search functions they use by county, etc.
I am using a white envelope mailed every month and we were using labels but switched to printing out from the printer on the envelopes because it's cheaper and I am not limited on a label size with what I can print. The larger label size the less labels you get for the money.
I bought an HP 8100 only printer that was 150 on sale at Staples for 96 bucks to give to my assistant to use. The XL black cartridge costs 36 bucks and does about 2,500 full size pages. Since we are only printing return mailing address and mailing address on each envelope the copy count should be around 7,000 to 8,000 envelopes or more because of the limited text. The auto tray holds 250 envelopes at a time and we mail merge the lists to auto print. I like print on the envelopes because we can choose a handwritten font for the outside for the addresses.
I have a local UPS store that will print black and white copies for 4 cents a piece which is cheap that I go to. They wanted 8 cents to print out the envelopes outside addresses so I decided to do those ourselves. I can print the outside addresses for less than 1 cent per envelope. Best price on envelopes I have found is Staples at about 8 dollars for 500. Occasionally they run a sale with coupon to where you can land for 5 bucks and I stock up.
I checked into bulk mail and first class would go from 46 cents to 36 cents but I would have to pay an annual fee. With the volume I will be doing the fee will be worth it.
So far I have :
Letter 4 cents Envelope at 500 for 8 bucks at 2 cents Mail at 46 cents currently but I am working on 36 cents and annual cost factor Print outside of envelope 1 cent (ink cost) Roll sticks so you do not have to lick the envelopes 1 stick at 2.00 does about 2,000 envelopes marginal cost at a fractional of a cent
So I am at 49 cents per piece mailed and I haven't even factored in savings from getting envelopes for 5 bucks instead of 8 or saving with bulk mail.
I like the fact I have a full time assistant who only focuses on my business and nothing else. I know many cannot afford such a person but for me and what I am doing it works. Yes the assistant is a cost of mailing but I have other things they do for me as well. I plan to get up to about 4,000 to 5,000 a month.
