All Forum Posts by: Al Bunch

We were one of the many that got a patent infringement trademark cease and desist letter from them. Looking around these days it seems like they've lost some of their steam as I see quite a few people snuggled right up to the edge of the we buy *gly houses slogan.

Hindsight is 20-20. I wish I had stayed in the stick built market instead of doing mobile home deals.

Blair H. That ad had to have been from quite some time ago...I thought that phone number looked familiar. (1010tires.com) 1010's website says they started in 2000 - no telling if the got the ph# at the same time, but that's 13 years ago if they did.

Blair H. Thanks for watching out for my best interests. I'm not quite ready to buy that many identical postcards quite yet, I just use the 20k cards as a benchmark for volume pricing. Once I get my message figured out, I'll definitely buy in quantity.

Dev Horn
Check out uprinting.com (no affiliation) for the high-zoot stuff. So far I haven't been able to find anyone in Houston that can touch their prices for 20k pieces. (I haven't stopped looking though).

Dev Horn - see if you can work this into some copy for a postcard for direct mail to absentee owners:
"Friends teasing you about being a slum lord?"

Big yellow print - black background - 5.5 x 8.5 postcards with a "you might be a landlord if..." style list on the back of the card.

I prefer humor and/or shock for attention getters.

Chris Cho & Arthur Garcia - thanks! Great info on the websites and Mr. Kennedy has a ton of books on Amazon (fortunately at a discount for the kindle editions). I'll be spending lots of time on the deck reading this weekend.

Sharon Vornholt - I started reading your blog after your BP podcast. I was already headed towards direct mail before your podcast, but your endorsement of it made it a certainty. My meager $1500/month marketing budget shifted from bandit signs & sign rentals (with a little direct mail here and there) to direct mail with some bandit signs thrown in every once in awhile. Headed over to your blog right now to see if I can find a link to that book.

Thanks everyone for the great info so far!

Trust but verify. Your point is spot on and exactly what I meant.

I don't have the desire to be a pro, just to learn enough to tell if I'm getting decent service or just getting serviced.

I'll go check out your recommendations right now, thanks!

I've seen the YL website (many times). It's hard to miss when you research anything centering around marketing on BP or REI marketing in general. SEO skills for you guys - big win.

What I didn't see on the website was general info about direct mail marketing that I was looking for (yes, I even gave the site a 19th look). I swiped a couple of ideas from your yellow postcards, but I'm just "copying" ideas - without knowing how/why the idea works, I'm nothing more than a hack or a copycat.

I have a desire to understand the science and technology behind the marketing piece.

...but thanks for plugging your product again. :)

The more I learn the less I know.

As I designed my first batch of postcards (3000 of which will be going in the mail this Friday) I realized I knew very little about the psychology behind getting a consumer to pay attention to my message long enough to get it across.

Can anyone recommend any good blogs/books/websites/online classes/audio books/mentors centered around direct mail? (I googled and found a few, but often those sites are great at SEO - I'm looking for the good info, not the easy to find info)

I realize I could pay someone to do the direct mail stuff for me, but I'm a fan of the teach a man to fish style of thinking. Once I know how to fish, then I'll turn it over to someone else with the knowledge that I can at least hopefully tell if they're fishing for ME or if they're fishing FOR me.

Ryan - thanks for the reply.

That helps me at least set a clearer direction. I've got a list of about 4800 absentee owners - I believe I'll divide the list into 4 groups and market different size/color/message postcards to each list and just see if I can spot what works best.

Have you tried different size postcards? Right now I'm using 8 1/5 x 5 1/2 but I'm tempted to try the 4x6's - since I anticipate mailing each person at least once a month for a year, I'm thinking repetition might be on my side with the smaller card versus mailing only 2-3 times with a larger card.

Working up some direct mail pieces and wanted to get some input from anyone who does direct mail on a regular basis. Would you recommend sending the same mailing piece every time or would you mix it up sending a new piece each time or repeat the first piece 2-3 times then the next piece 2-3 times?

I can obviously run trials to see what works better, but if you've done it before, I'd definitely like to hear your thoughts.