direct mailing help

[paradisescaper]

d lawns what was your return on that?

[DLAWNS]

Originally Posted by paradisescaper

d lawns what was your return on that?

I got about 20+ calls and about five very good accounts and some one time job type of things. I was just kind of testing the waters with the direct mailing last year. I think it was worth it and I might be interested in doing a huge one soon. We'll see how things go.

[ford550]

Direct mailing is a very good way to advertise. We have been doing it for about 3 years now. We are actually pulling out of the phone books because they are so useless and directing those ($1400/month) into other forms of advertising. The biggest thing to make sure you are hitting your target market with the direct mail. We have compiled a list of about 2000 that we target. We use vista print, provide them with our list and they do the rest, about $850 per run. We have tracked this return from this form of marketing and about 30% of our gross comes from direct mailing. Hope this helps.

[pasto_guy]

Where do you get your lists from. I have several large neighborhoods that I would like to target but how do I get all the addresses and names?

[DLAWNS]

Originally Posted by pasto_guy

Where do you get your lists from. I have several large neighborhoods that I would like to target but how do I get all the addresses and names?

This might sound ridiculous, but I picked out the areas that I wanted to cover and made my own lists. In the winter I drove around and would write down the street names and the numbers. When I would get home, I would enter them into a database. It was kind of a pain in the a**, but it wasn't too bad.

[NEW CITY LAWN CARE LLC]

Originally Posted by DLAWNS

This might sound ridiculous, but I picked out the areas that I wanted to cover and made my own lists. In the winter I drove around and would write down the street names and the numbers. When I would get home, I would enter them into a database. It was kind of a pain in the a**, but it wasn't too bad.

That sounds like a lot of work, here in my town the county has a website where I can type in a street name and it will show me every tax lot with addresses on the street and surrounding streets, makes things a whole lot easier. I've also heard you can go to a title company and they will provide you with a neighborhood search with mailing labels.

[DLAWNS]

Originally Posted by NEW CITY LAWN CARE LLC

That sounds like a lot of work, here in my town the county has a website where I can type in a street name and it will show me every tax lot with addresses on the street and surrounding streets, makes things a whole lot easier. I've also heard you can go to a title company and they will provide you with a neighborhood search with mailing labels.

It was a lot of work, but I was bored in the winter anyway. I'm not sure if a title agency would give you that info for free. But thanks for the push in the right direction. I'll look into it.

[NEW CITY LAWN CARE LLC]

Originally Posted by DLAWNS

It was a lot of work, but I was bored in the winter anyway. I'm not sure if a title agency would give you that info for free. But thanks for the push in the right direction. I'll look into it.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they would or not, I have a Real Estate agent friend who told me that, it might be only something they do for them, not sure?

[DLAWNS]

Originally Posted by NEW CITY LAWN CARE LLC

Yeah, I'm not sure if they would or not, I have a Real Estate agent friend who told me that, it might be only something they do for them, not sure?

That might be what it is, because my wife used to work at a title agency and I don't believe they did that, because if I heard anything about it, I would have been all over it. lol

[LB1234]

Originally Posted by DLAWNS

This might sound ridiculous, but I picked out the areas that I wanted to cover and made my own lists. In the winter I drove around and would write down the street names and the numbers. When I would get home, I would enter them into a database. It was kind of a pain in the a**, but it wasn't too bad.

LOL, I did the same thing. Generated a list of about 1k homes that we mail to 2-3 times between march and april. This year I also kept a note of how many calls, where they were from, etc. I'm going to use that to takes some areas off the list and increase direct mailings to others.

Also got our bulk mailing permit from the USPS which helps a great deal on the postage costs. I use a tri-fold two sided brochure and the print shop prints the return address and my bulk postage info for me. Only thing I have to do is apply the mailing labels.

As far as what to include.......go down to a local book store and pick up a few marketing books and make sure they cover direct mail marketing. Lots of helpful tips and tricks to get people to call....from what words to use to when to mail.