Direct Mail Campaign Tracking

[Jake Knight]

Happy Friday all!

I recently started mailing a few different segments and the one area I haven't figured out is how to effectively and efficiently manage the lists. What are people doing to keep track of what was sent, when it was sent, when to follow up, etc.? My addresses are all in Excel and we're doing all handwritten, self-mailed letters so now third-party company managing the data for us. I want to have a better system than my personal notes.

Any suggestions?

P.S. we have other people doing all the writing and stuffing of envelopes so we can focus on other aspects.

Thanks!

[Parker Fairfield]

@Jake Knight

Years ago (2002) I lived right near you (Cambrian area of SJ) .... and ran a construction company in Dublin.

I bought a Konica Minolta BIZHUB photocopier, printer for what you're talking about.

A) pay the monthly fee for the data - fairly cheap. 

B) Massage the data into your list

C) write your 'current' copy and put it into a template that the Konica Minolta sales/tech staff help you create (we did a LETTER SIZED TEMPLATE which we would then cut in half to get 2 post cards; the largest sized that USPS still considers a post card)

D) append to your telephone number an EXTENSION NUMBER. Everytime someone calls you ask (if they don't mention "Please transfer me to extension 12" - does it have an extension number? they say YES, 12) 

E) print it to your BIZHUB onto the CARDBOARD STOCK that was high quality for great photos, and thick enough to not get destroyed by USPS

E) cut the output cardboard in half

F) Mail with the cheapest rate you desire via USPS

when the prospect calls, the EXTENSION NUMBER lets you know the content you'd typed ... or the photo(s) that you put on the other side.

Works GREAT . . . .