No stupid questions, postage.

[Andrew DeLorenzo]

I'm considering a text and hand written letters as a new marketing piece for my next DM campaign and doing this in house. Previously I've used a mail house for my postcards so this is new to me. Is there a more sophisticated/ streamlined method for postage? Do I need to purchase thousands of stamps or is there another solution? 

Thanks 

[Account Closed]

Pre-canceled.

If you want to send out postcards, the most economical way is to set up an account at the post office, then go to Vistaprint.com, design & order your postcards using the post office bulk mail permit they give you, and then print your labels to put on your postcards. In about 2 - 3 weeks your postcards arrive from Vistaprint and you attach labels and drop them off at the bulk mail at the post office. I tried that years ago and after several batches of 500 sent out still no calls. I received zero - 0 - phone calls.

A more flexible approach is to design your postcard and have Vistaprint send them to you. Then buy rolls of 100 postcard stamps and affix them so you can send as many (1,000) or as few (20) as you care to send when you want to send them. You can watch old reruns of "Flip This House" while you assemble your mailer. People take an actual Stamp as being more credible for whatever reason. I usually get a few phone calls per thousand sent. 2 - 3 calls per 1,000 sent

I didn't find that using a mailing service, where they do everything for you, was any faster since they batch everything together and your postcards sit for a month waiting for enough volume to be sent out. I ordered 5,000 at $1.00 per postcard for printing the postcard, handling & which included the stamp. So, it cost me $5,000. I believe they sent all of them, since I had 2 addresses that went to a couple of addresses where I could verify if they arrived and when. I received zero - 0 - phone calls.

One wholesaler based in Phoenix says they spend about $60,000 a month on postcards alone. They spend about $40,000 on other marketing. Apparently on a large enough volume it is worth doing. And since there are at least 4 major wholesalers pounding the Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale/Glendale/etc market with postcards, text messaging and robo voice mails, & spending about $100,000 each in marketing monthly as of Jan 2022. You can see why the Phoenix market is saturated. Of course they are smart enough to turn some of that marketing power elsewhere & I suspect  that now Denver & Las Vegas & Columbus & Indianapolis & Nashville are similarly saturated with their efforts. 

The key is to pick much smaller markets that are not being hammered by the mega wholesalers.