Marketing with Mail/postcards Question

It's been a long time since I have visited, but wanted to see if any of you have ever done a mailer and approximately what your success rate has been?

I have an agent who has been approached about participating in a postcard mailer that will be specifically marketing life insurance. The cost would be roughly $.50 per mailer but all leads in his area would come to him with no additional cost. I told him I thought it sounded good because if you mail 1,000 postcards, that is $500 of cost. Even if your response rate is only 2% that is still 20 prospects. Assume you sell 10 of them and they only buy a $20 a month term plan, that is still $2,400 of annual premium. Spending $500 to make $2,400 (at a minimum) sounds like a good deal, right?

But I am not experienced in mailing direct to the consumer, we only work with brtokers. What is everyone's experience with this?
 
A 2% response rate and selling half those is pretty optimistic. Even 1% would be high.
 
Assume you sell 10 of them and they only buy a $20 a month term plan, that is still $2,400 of annual premium.

I know that me and another agent are going pay split the $150 for 5K flyers that we created. I am a sucker for old-school tactics, but even if I can only get 5 sales off my investment, I believe is a win. True, the upfront hours of working putting in the foot time might be rough, but who knows how many referrals you will receive. Best thing you can say is that you tried, it didn't work, and continue forward.
 
Josh, it appears you are in this business. What are reasonable expectations for response and closing rates?

I'd expect the range to be 0%-1%. The pieces themselves can have a lot to do with the results, but without a proven piece I wouldn't expect much. There are a number of vendors that actually do mail for agents regularly and have creatives that have worked, I believe Chris at Lead Connections is the flavor of the month in that department.

Closing rates are going to depend on product and the agent. I could make a living working behind some FE agents, but realistically 50% is on the high end for sure. A third is reasonable, but that can vary a great deal.
 
Just a quick bump, myself and a colleague split the cost of a postcard mailer earlier this year. We did it because we were getting it for a very low cost from a mailer-friend of his. instead of buying a list we mailed to postal routes, sent out 5,000 postcards at a cost of $0.36 a piece (includes design/postage/print/etc..). Our response rate?

0%

I post this to say we did a couple of things wrong. 1, instead of mailing to 5,000 homes 1 time, we should have mailed to 1,600 homes 3 times. Also, we should have hired someone to design it who was an insurance person. The friend we went with mainly does political campaigns.

I still think postcard mailing can be effective, realistically out of 5,000 cards we only needed to sell 2 policies (husband/wife?) to break even. Our card was to broad because we gave the mail guy some talking points, he just used them all! When we wanted to make changes he got testy with us because he said he was already working on no profit (I countered that if the designed worked, we would re-use it dozens of times and there would be plenty of profit for him). You live and learn, just wanted to share my story for others who are interested in mail marketing.
 
Just a quick bump, myself and a colleague split the cost of a postcard mailer earlier this year. We did it because we were getting it for a very low cost from a mailer-friend of his. instead of buying a list we mailed to postal routes, sent out 5,000 postcards at a cost of $0.36 a piece (includes design/postage/print/etc..). Our response rate?

0%

I post this to say we did a couple of things wrong. 1, instead of mailing to 5,000 homes 1 time, we should have mailed to 1,600 homes 3 times. Also, we should have hired someone to design it who was an insurance person. The friend we went with mainly does political campaigns.

I still think postcard mailing can be effective, realistically out of 5,000 cards we only needed to sell 2 policies (husband/wife?) to break even. Our card was to broad because we gave the mail guy some talking points, he just used them all! When we wanted to make changes he got testy with us because he said he was already working on no profit (I countered that if the designed worked, we would re-use it dozens of times and there would be plenty of profit for him). You live and learn, just wanted to share my story for others who are interested in mail marketing.

What does mailing to postal routes mean exactly? It sounds like you sprayed and prayed. I just read a book by Bill Good and he says that the most important thing is the list and he might be right.
 
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