Making Your Own Direct Mail Campaign?

[MPCFinPlan]

Anyone have success with making their own direct mail campaign?

Had a talk with someone who does this today but I could not get much of a response of how they designed it.

If so, what was your layout and the cost break down vs going through a mail house?

I am doing mostly life, FE and annuities.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Rearden]

Anyone have success with making their own direct mail campaign?

Had a talk with someone who does this today but I could not get much of a response of how they designed it.

If so, what was your layout and the cost break down vs going through a mail house?

I am doing mostly life, FE and annuities.

Any help is appreciated!

If someone has found a truly successful piece, most likely they've spent thousands if not tens of thousands testing and tweaking it, and most likely would never share any specifics with forum members.

I know I wouldn't.

If you go the route of doing your own mailer, you need to take time studying direct response copywriting, how to design a piece that will cause your market (who is already flooded and saturated with this kind of stuff) to respond selectively to your call to action, and be prepared to lose thousands of dollars in order to fully test the piece to discover how well it may or may not work for you.

I recommend using a local mail house to test your mailing campaign so as to have a little more control and oversight on the completion of the campaign.

For me, I need to test at least 100-150 leads, or at least 5000 mail pieces, before I can begin to determine if the marketing campaign is worth a longer-term investment.

 

[Newby]

If someone has found a truly successful piece, most likely they've spent thousands if not tens of thousands testing and tweaking it, and most likely would never share any specifics with forum members. I know I wouldn't. If you go the route of doing your own mailer, you need to take time studying direct response copywriting, how to design a piece that will cause your market (who is already flooded and saturated with this kind of stuff) to respond selectively to your call to action, and be prepared to lose thousands of dollars in order to fully test the piece to discover how well it may or may not work for you. I recommend using a local mail house to test your mailing campaign so as to have a little more control and oversight on the completion of the campaign. For me, I need to test at least 100-150 leads, or at least 5000 mail pieces, before I can begin to determine if the marketing campaign is worth a longer-term investment.

I've designed one mail piece in my life that had absolutely magic response rates. I mailed out 175 pieces and wrote $25,000 in commissions over the next two weeks. Then I mailed $300 more and wrote an additional $20,000. The people were calling me AND sending in lead cards. This is absolutely true.

Unfortunately I've never figured out how to duplicate this with FE. The product I was selling was Funeral insurance for a low priced funeral home. The mail piece was announcing a price increase the first of the next month. I was giving them the chance to lock their price in before the increase. And I was mailing it to an in-house list.

The sun and the moon lined up on that one.

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

I've designed one mail piece in my life that had absolutely magic response rates. I mailed out 175 pieces and wrote $25,000 in commissions over the next two weeks. Then I mailed $300 more and wrote an additional $20,000. The people were calling me AND sending in lead cards. This is absolutely true.

Unfortunately I've never figured out how to duplicate this with FE. The product I was selling was Funeral insurance for a low priced funeral home. The mail piece was announcing a price increase the first of the next month. I was giving them the chance to lock their price in before the increase. And I was mailing it to an in-house list.

The sun and the moon lined up on that one.

ROI like that could definitely make an agent lazy...

 

[Newby]

ROI like that could definitely make an agent lazy...

It did.

I took that show on the road and recreated it for funeral homes all over Indiana, KY, TN and Georgia after that.

Good times.

 

[MPCFinPlan]

If someone has found a truly successful piece, most likely they've spent thousands if not tens of thousands testing and tweaking it, and most likely would never share any specifics with forum members. I know I wouldn't. If you go the route of doing your own mailer, you need to take time studying direct response copywriting, how to design a piece that will cause your market (who is already flooded and saturated with this kind of stuff) to respond selectively to your call to action, and be prepared to lose thousands of dollars in order to fully test the piece to discover how well it may or may not work for you. I recommend using a local mail house to test your mailing campaign so as to have a little more control and oversight on the completion of the campaign. For me, I need to test at least 100-150 leads, or at least 5000 mail pieces, before I can begin to determine if the marketing campaign is worth a longer-term investment.

That's what I figured.
I think I am gonna drop some pieces with the standard pieces and then formulate my own down the road. Then tweak little pieces each drop and calculate the results.

 

[dstrack]

Newby sounds like you hit the nail on the head with that one and thats why it worked.

1. You had a defined target market. (this is where nearly everyone goes wrong. Just because they can buy doesn't mean they are a good target. Who is your perfect client... What is going on is their head when they see your offer? The money is in the list!)

2. You had a compelling offer.

3. You had scarcity, rates going up. (This is also where most people get it wrong.)

Without these three things your dead in the water.

MPCFinPlan

Sorry to say....You will not find someone to give you much DM help thats actually useful for you to copy and implement right away.

Check out Dan Kennedy. Go on Amazon and buy his books. There are other guys too but he his basically a one stop shop to all your DM needs and you can get lost going down the rabbit hole. (I know I did!) Its better just to pick one person and buy everything you can from them and implement it.

pm me if you need some specific titles to look at.

 

[MPCFinPlan]

Newby sounds like you hit the nail on the head with that one and thats why it worked. 1. You had a defined target market. (this is where nearly everyone goes wrong. Just because they can buy doesn't mean they are a good target. Who is your perfect client... What is going on is their head when they see your offer? The money is in the list!) 2. You had a compelling offer. 3. You had scarcity, rates going up. (This is also where most people get it wrong.) Without these three things your dead in the water. MPCFinPlan Sorry to say....You will not find someone to give you much DM help thats actually useful for you to copy and implement right away. Check out Dan Kennedy. Go on Amazon and buy his books. There are other guys too but he his basically a one stop shop to all your DM needs and you can get lost going down the rabbit hole. (I know I did!) Its better just to pick one person and buy everything you can from them and implement it. pm me if you need some specific titles to look at.

Most def.

I figured I would get little response on design, but I really was pondering if I need to mail my own, or use a mail house to mail them out after I make a custom card.

I will def read that book.

Thank you all for the suggestions

 

[dstrack]

Doesn't really matter

If your doing 1000's then mail house... If smaller then I would just do it yourself if you have the ability to.

 

[MPCFinPlan]

Doesn't really matter If your doing 1000's then mail house... If smaller then I would just do it yourself if you have the ability to.

I want to do 2000 or so a week. Hitting different surrounding parishes (counties for you lol) and rotate.