Direct Mail Marketing Questions

[Justin Howe]

My partner and I are about to start our first direct mail campaign using yellow letters. I have a few questions before we start though.

• Return address...do you use your personal address or have a PO box for this? Also do you put the return address on the front or back of the envelope?
• What systems do you have in place to handle calls, track conversations, appointments, ect?
• Are colored envelopes effective?
• First class or standard stamps?
• What to do to make your mailer stand out from competitors?

We plan on mailing out 500 letters per month to start. Targeting absentee owners with 30%+ equity and at least 5 years of ownership. Any suggestions to our plan/criteria and tips are greatly appreciated.

[Karen Rittenhouse]

Hi Justin:

Never use your personal address for anything business. Best to use Mail Boxes Etc. or a UPS store for your address as they actually give you a mailing address rather than a PO Box. Looks much more professional.

Post office says return address goes on the front.

We always answer calls ourselves. People don't want a chain to follow when they call. And with only 500 letters going out, you won't have too many calls to answer personally. Starting out, we just created an online spreadsheet and used Google calendar for tracking. I'm sure others have a better format. We now pay for a pretty extensive online tracking system but we get about 200 leads per month so we need it.

Square envelopes get opened more because they look like invitations, especially with hand written addresses and a real stamp.

First class stamps get opened more than bulk mail. And you know when first class is going to land in their mailbox. Bulk mail postage takes about 3 weeks to land and happens over days.

Hope this helps!