Anyone attempted direct mail advertising?

D

digzober

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Hey guys,

I have this crazy idea to generate myself some residual income after just a few months. The idea is solid if not super solid. However, I need clients, which is where I am stuck. I must approach businesses for this idea, and typically small business owners, or newly owned businesses... I was thinking about designing a neat little postcard and purchase a list for direct mail advertising...

Question is, has anyone ever tried it? Where can I go about purchasing the list I need for super cheap? Or if possible free. If not, what is the best place to purchase these lists from? Thank you!
 
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No one has ever tried direct mail advertising?
 
I thought about it anв collected about 150 businesses in the area, I paid someone from DP $4 per hour to do so. I haven't had time to use them as of yet, I hav been far to busy, but I plan to in a month or two. I had a look at buying a list from one of the companies, but it worked out expensive, and I was anable to search for exactly what I wanted. I got the guy to use Yellow pages and cross reference google.

Good luck.
:)
 
save money on collecting addresses + postage and just pay someone to drop them off in your local area?
 
I would say that it would take a while to drop them off in the local area, and If you are targeting a specific type of business eg window cleaners alot are likely to be residential and not close to each other. Also if you get the phone numbers when collecting you could

inform them that you are sending it
follow up with a phone call/ go through details etc

But obviouslly you could just pay a kid to deliver them in the local area. But you would still need to find the address of the business you are targeting etc.

:)
 
The best is Edith Roman. I purchase lists for my clients from them. They're very reliable. The better you can target your niche the better the list is. They'll let you drill down to as tight as you want to get.

If you want to target every female adult, 21 to 24 years of age, under 3ft, with blue eyes and missing a pinky on their left hand they can probably generate a list. Not a huge list but if that's your market then the list is more than worth whatever you have to pay for it.

Good luck...
 
dollarkid said:
save money on collecting addresses + postage and just pay someone to drop them off in your local area?
Click to expand...


The main problem with putting them on doors is the guys you pay to put them on the doors. I ran an operation where I hired a flyer company and you have to stand right on top of them. If you have 4 flyer guys putting out flyers and one of them is in an area with 850 homes, 930 homes, another with 910 homes and the last one in an area with 800 homes (using round numbers for ease of addition) you can kiss 510 of them goodbye. They aren't going to turn in the extras that they didn't put out. If they do turn them in then the flyer manager will just throw them in the trash.

I had a discussion with a flyer distributor over a few beers and after he got a little tipsy he told me that they NEVER get all the flyers out. They aren't going to round everyone up and go find another area with 510 homes to deliver the rest of the flyers. Aint gonna happen!

So, you're out delivery charges and hard costs for flyers.

If you factor in 80% deliverability into your numbers and if that works then you'll be happy.

I personally prefer the USPS. They aren't perfect but their better than a bunch of crack heads putting out flyers in the heat.
 
Direct mail has the potential to get a HUGE response if done right, but also none at all if not. Read into traditional marketing if you don't want to waste some cash testing.
 
A yellow pages harvester is a good start for finding the businesses.
Then send em by snail mail.
Quite effective if you have a great offer.
Notice I say Great, not good, but great.
Make sure the postcard made well & is not tooo detailed.
You will see great results
 
PinkPanther said:
A yellow pages harvester is a good start for finding the businesses.
Then send em by snail mail.
Quite effective if you have a great offer.
Notice I say Great, not good, but great.
Make sure the postcard made well & is not tooo detailed.
You will see great results
Click to expand...

Have any good yellow pages scrapers that you'd recommend?
 
I used to do this when I had a small vending machine business but I was able to get them mailed for free because my friend's parents owned a mid-sized company with a maildropbox where we'd just put them in and they'd get mailed, if not for that it probably wouldn't have been worth it but I did get a few calls from the ads I sent out... this was for B2B so I don't know about sending to consumers but this could get expensive pretty fast so like someone else said something like coupon books may be good... where you have someone paying you to send it out (like a few different businesses to put into the coupon book then stick in some of your own ads)
 
Direct mail advertisements are also in our mailbox in there they send many postcards with offering special offers and discounts on them which is a good way to promote ads.


[FONT=&quot]Direct mail advertising[/FONT]
 
Tomcleverley said:
Direct mail advertisements are also in our mailbox in there they send many postcards with offering special offers and discounts on them which is a good way to promote ads.


[FONT=&quot]Direct mail advertising[/FONT]
Click to expand...



Hey great first post that included bumping a 2 year old thread. Look forward to your next donation to the forum...welcome aboard!
 
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