Direct Mail Questions

[pbbaseball]

with the ones i design, i have been using vague mailers (SS only pays $255 for death, did your medicare supplement premium go up, etc), without any company specific information on them. lots of customers mail it in "just to see what it's all about" I see them all face to face, don't call any of them, so lots that say that, I'll still sell.

but if I use a MoO mailer, that already has the plan, the price, etc, on their company letterhead, people know exactly what they are looking for, like the company name, and already know the price, so it's just a matter of going out and writing them up

 

[agentexhorter]

How long to stuff 1000 envelopes with reply card?

Would it be easiser to have the reply card as post card?

Do you instruct people to call instead of mailing back a response card

I would think it would be more expensive to do a mailer yourself.

Jerry176,

here's a page on my site that explains the process.
Generate Your Own Insurance Mailers - DIY Direct Mail Insurance Leads

 

[pbbaseball]

good little timeline listed above.... the folder/inserter is the best investment for your time...if you know how to sell, time is money, and the inserter will knock out 1000 in 30 mins

 

[johnsharp]

Doing it yourself will require a lot of time and effort. You'll save in the long run but getting all the equipment needed is costly up front if you are planning gon sending a large portion of direct mail.

 

[pbbaseball]

here's a breakdown on the costs with some tips that I just sent a member



Asa general rule, it looks like most of your cost is coming from a way overpricedlist, and over priced ink.



Toget the numbers down, get all of your ink on ebay, and refill solo. You’ll also save a ton more by switching totoner instead of ink. Toner will alwayscome out cheaper if your printer is under 10k. The high volume print shops do have some ink that are cheaper, but onlyin really big machines.



Forone of my old desktop laserjet printers, the toner was supposed to be good for4k pages, and was $70 online, but I bought refill kits for $4, and refilledmyself. Super easy. I now have a big Savin CLP240D printer, andit really gets them done quickly with duplex, and never jams the way a standard desktopprinter does when printing cardstock. Atleast with your inkjet, it shouldn’t jam a whole lot.



Getyour paper and envelopes online as well. Usually cheaper than a store where you have to pay fees to stock them…keep your eyes open for sales though… my local staples had #10 securityenvelopes for $6 for 500, so needless to say, I bought all 34 cases that theyhad.







Mynumbers look like this



110lbpaper – 250 pages are $15. 3 to a page, 333pages, $20. (about 2 cents a piece)

Envelopes– 500 for 12 bucks, about ( 2 cents a envelope)

List– 2 cents a name, which of course can be reused. For 30 bucks, you can get unlimited lists atinfofree.com, so lists can be cheaper than that.

Postage(I always just do a 3 digit sort, 26.5 cents each, can get other discounts forsorting, and barcoding)

Casscertification (might already be included in your list price, if not 1 cent aname, which of course I don’t reuse when mailing to the same list)



Addthose together, and you are around the .325 cents a piece, or 325 per thousand. Reusing the names/cass certification knocksoff 2 cents, down to 305/thousand.



Idon’t do trifolds unless they come from a company where I can order them forcheap. Trifolds you have to havesomething to fold them, perforate them, and a tabbing machine, which is another$800 minimum.

Now that I've done it a while, it's a must to have a folder/inserter, commercial quality printer, stack paper cutter, and address imaging printer. but for one agent, i think it's justifiable to do it in-house on a desktop printer, manually stuff them, and manually cut them. Before I got all of the equipment, I just did it while watching football/baseball games. all depends on how much time you have, and what's it worth

 

[kwamster]

Not worried about saving pennies per se, just looking at getting the returns faster is all.

If you are able to get them back any faster than you normally would using a direct-mail lead company, it probably will only be about a day or two at most, due to the fact that most companies email you the leads the same day they receive them.

For me personally, it wouldn't be worth the extra aggravation of doing it myself.

 

[pbbaseball]

when I go with local drops, i can drop 1 day, and get calls the next... when they fill out business reply, 3-4 days is the fastest. i've never had a mail house get them back that quickly.

it's definitely not for everyone, but i'm personally very glad i can do it in house. Faster, cheaper, don't have to do in sets of 1000, can customize my own pieces, etc...

 

[edward67]

pbbaseball, can you recommend a good address printer and tabber that will handle printing 3k addresses a week and has good reliability? I only print double postcard by the way.

 

[pbbaseball]

I have a secap 5kle address printer, but it only works on windows 2000 and earlier, so i have an old computer set up just for it. Have looked at martin yale tabbers, but have never bought one

 

[grod]

pbbaseball, can you explain how /who/where etc, to design and print the brc return address. I notice, those I have seen, all have bar codes of different sorts. Where do you get this done? If this is done by a third party vendor, who do you use.

Thanks in advance