All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Originally posted by Stephen Norton:

Taz,

On the letters how do you handle the signature? Do you use the same font as the body of the letter?

Yes, we used to use a scanned signature but now just use the handwriting font for the signature wherever needed.

Also, when you print on the yellow stock paper do you print the lines so it looks like yellow notebook paper?

We used to and you can work out the alignment issues. But, our testing didn't show a strong advantage.

Here is the write up the mailing manager did last year to explain how we mail to answer the question from Field Guide members. http://fieldguide.reitactics.com/content/how-we-mail

The reality is if you are doing a couple of hundred mailings a month, you can do this with very inexpensive equipment and software. For small quantities a word processor and printer might be all you need. If you need help getting it all setup and working, contact me off-line and I will walk you through it.

Originally posted by Hazel L:

Taz, I completely agree with your points. I'd like to add one more:

Underestimating the poor credibility relayed by bad design.

Honestly, the real estate industry is 20 years behind current marketing trends. Take time to look around at sites with design awards to see what's out there before designing websites/direct mail by yourself.

There's a lot of truth in that but crappy marketing done consistently will beat the snot out of snazzy and well designed marketing done haphazardly. It is the planned and consistent repetition that is the key.

Originally posted by Justin Schnettler:

Taz-

What model printer do you have and how many envelopes can you feed at a time? I'm looking to upgrade and a big fan of automating this stuff.

The 2025 I just finished with a friend can hold a max of 550 pages. I think the envelope capacity it 200 but that is from memory and may not be accurate.

The capacity of the printers we are using in our center is a closely guarded secret. No, not really, I just can't remember the specs on those printers. I can find out tomorrow.

Originally posted by Robert Mack:

Taz can you tell us how many letters/postcards you print monthly and do you have a cost per letter/postcard compared to using a service such as click2mail?

Off the top of my head I don't know how many we are currently printing and sending each month. I can find out tomorrow. It is a lot, we upgraded the printers and print handling equipment about 18 months ago. The costs are spread among various partner companies not just our mailings.

I was thinking about printing my own letters/postcards and the information you gave on top is a great start to doing so.

What HP laser printer are you using and how many times do you need to replace the cartridge?

Thanks

The setup I just finished for a friend who was piggy-backing on us, uses two HP 2025 printers. I think all of the printers in our center are HP 4005s but I can check tomorrow.

All in, your per page printing cost for toner and printer and support is about 1.5 to 3 cents per page for black, about 10 cents a page for color. The toner cartridges are about $120 each and the printer takes four of them. If you shop around you can get some deals on the cartridges.

Terry,

If you want to test this before you invest in the equipment and setup let me know. Last month I got someone who had been piggy-backing on our mailings setup to do their own mailings. So, I know we should have some slack in our usage and could help you test this before you spend the money to set it all up.

Just let me know.

I don't know if we have seen the actual bottom yet, but I do know the recovery will not be a V-shape. It will take YEARS for prices to recover to where they were even if we are at or near the lows.

My gut, tells me some areas still have a ways to go down before starting bouncing along the bottom for a while.

Originally posted by Terry Royce:

taz - do you send the envelopes through the printer too?

Also, do you personalize the body of the letter at all, or just do a plain generic letter.

where do you purchase this handwritten font at?

Yes, the envelopes go through too. Yes, the letters and post cards are all personalized.

Just google for "handwritten font" and pick a free one you like. There are thousands out there.

This is the one used for letters with my name and contact information on them...
http://eknp.com/php/fd.php?f=steve_handwriting

Well, I had a font created from my handwriting when I started sending out the letters and post cards years ago. Now, we use a generic cursive font to generate the letters so we can put the name of our employee buyer in that area on it.

These go out on yellow stock and the entire letter including address, return name and address and personalized name of the recipient are all printed in batches using a very cost effective HP color laser printer. The envelopes are printed this way too.

If you do that, make sure you buy one with each color in a separate cartridge. We use a blue color for the font and while that does use a little of the other colors, it is mostly from the blue one. So, as you might expect, that gets replaced often.

When you look at the letter you have a very hard time figuring out it is not handwritten on yellow paper with a blue fine point sharpie pen.

One other bit of advice, use stamps, real stamps and put them on the envelope a little bit crooked. In other words, like you would if you really were sending a handwritten letter.

We have tested mailings many different ways and an envelope that looks handwritten with a real stamp stuck on it gets opened and read at a much higher rate than any other option to affix postage, yes, that includes things like stamps.com.

Our first letter is always in the handwritten font, yellow 24# paper, blue text.

The second one is in a sans-serf font, I don't remember exactly which one but I can find out. Slightly off-white 24# paper and matching envelopes.

After that it's the post card and those are in the handwritten font. The colors vary, but are conservative meaning no fluorescent pink, the text is almost always black.

The key with mailings is to get a system in place and follow it religiously. The more you send, the better your results.

There is one fundamental point I always drive home in a situation like this.

No matter what anyone says or writes, if it in any way is in conflict with what your paid professional is telling you... They are right and we are wrong.

You should absolutely take the advice of the professional you have chosen and pay as a professional, be they lawyer, CPA or in any other professional capacity.

Why? Because they are the ones with the malpractice insurance policy to cover them and you if they give you bad advice and you follow it.

That doesn't mean I would follow their advice, but then I have my own professionals I pay too.

Anyone here can say your CPA is so full of crap their eyes are brown, but that CPA is the ONLY one who can go into an audit with the IRS and explain why they gave the advice they gave and defend the deductions and accounting standards used.

At the Field Guide we always encourage the members to take the materials to their professional with them. If the professional says it is crap, they are right and the SME who wrote the materials is wrong. No debate, no exception. Everyone should take that same approach with anything they read from any site even here at BP.

Originally posted by Mr_Investor:

Hey Taz if you can find a girl I had a crush on in the 3rd grade that would be sweet :mrgreen:

Was it the blond or the redhead? :cool: