Postcard Marketing FAQs

Transcription

1 Postcard Marketing FAQs 1. What are the sizes and specs of your postcards? We offer two sizes of postcards: 4 X 6 or 5.5 X 8.5. The postcards are printed on 14 point card stock, full color both sides. The front has a UV coating for extra gloss. 2. How are your postcard marketing services priced? We offer a complete design, print and mailing service (including standard postage paid) of a 4 X 6 postcard for neighborhood saturation mailing, for 28 per piece. This includes help with a concept, the custom design of the postcard and printing. It includes target area selection with the help of our demography department, choosing and acquiring a mailing list for your neighborhood selection, by zip code or radius, addressing and mailing the postcards. All that for 28 per piece! Other offers (larger postcards, different kinds of mailings) are covered below. 3. What are the minimum numbers for printing and mailing? The minimum number of postcards we will print is 4,000 and we print multiples of 4,000. The minimum number we will mail in a single mail shot is 4,000 unless you are on our regular mailing program to new movers or new businesses which is covered in question 4, point C below. 4. What are the different types of mailings? A. Neighborhood, saturation mailings. These are bulk mailings to residents or businesses in an area near you, determined either by zip code or by radius. The postcards are addressed to Resident or Occupant or some other specified tag line, not by name. This is the type of mailing which is done for 28 per piece for 4 X 6 postcards. If the larger postcards are used, the price is 35 per piece. This is the most cost-effective type of mailing. B. Targeted mailings to consumers or businesses. These are bulk mailings sent out to targeted mailing lists, based on demographics and/or geography specified by you (e.g. home owners with income of over $60,000 in Riverside County, California or say to mortgage brokers in Atlanta). This can also include mailing to your own list. For a targeted mailing, whether we or you provide the mailing list, the cost is 39 for 4 X 6 postcards and 46 for 5.5 X 8.5 postcards. C. New movers/new businesses regular mailings. We will print a minimum of 4000 postcards and send out regular mailings to people who newly move into the area or businesses that

2 start up in the area specified by you. We will get new names and addresses once a month and send out postcards to all the new movers or new businesses in the area specified by you. You don t have to do anything after placing the original order. When we have used up the initial supply of postcards we will let you know so that you can order more. This type of mailing, which involves more frequent, smaller mailings and multiple set-ups for the monthly mailings costs 45 for 4 X 6 postcards and 50 for the 5.5 X 8.5 cards. 5. Why is the targeted mailing more expensive than the neighborhood saturation mailing? This is simply a matter of postal rates and the higher cost of targeted mailing lists. The neighborhood/saturation mailing goes by USPS carrier routes. Bulk mail rates for such mailings are lower than for targeted mailings that typically don t achieve high densities within a given area. 6. Why is the new movers/new businesses mailing more expensive than the regular targeted mailing? The fact that we are mailing a smaller amount every month involves additional set-ups for us and this raises the price. It s the extra work required to manage this kind of mailing for you that makes it more expensive. 7. Does the price drop if we order larger quantities? The price per piece remains the same for quantities up to 40,000 pieces. 8. Is there any charge for the design of the postcard? No, concept and design are included in the overall service. We will also provide stock photos from our library if photos are needed. There is no extra charge for this either. 9. Do you charge less if we design our own postcard and send you the artwork? No. The design of the postcard is included in the price and does not change if you provide camera ready artwork. 10. Can I get extra copies? Certainly. If you let us know ahead of time we will print extra copies for you. We will charge you for the extra copies and shipping. 11. What are your turnaround times for postcards? The time of production, from concept through to printed postcards and mailing is about three weeks. This would depend on hearing back from you promptly when we send you proofs for comment or approval. (See also the next question about the time for the postcards to reach the door of your public.)

3 12. How long does it take for the postcards to reach the mailboxes of the recipients? Since this is standard (bulk) mail it takes a while for the piece to arrive at its destination. You should allow 7 10 days from posting to receipt. It may get there sooner but you can t count on it. This time is additional to the three weeks mentioned in question 11 above. 13. What if we have our own printed postcards? Can you mail these for us? Unfortunately not. At present our marketing services only deals with postcards that we produce in house. 14. Do you offer print-only without mailing? No. We do not provide print-only services at this time. We can print extras only as part of the mailing service (see question 10 above). 15. What works best, postcards (direct mail) or door hangers (direct-to-door)? There is no easy answer to this one. It depends a good deal on the nature of your business and the aims of the campaign. If you sell pizzas, then direct-to-door usually works best. If you are a dentist or a lawyer, then the direct mail solution has a certain sophistication to it which is often more appropriate. Many of our clients have tried both and then gravitated towards concentrating on the one which got the best response. You may find you get a good response from both direct mail and direct-to-door, in which case it would be worth your while to use them both. 16. What is the ideal frequency of direct mail? Repetition is important. It is usually more beneficial for one person to see your message three times than for three people to see it once. So you should plan to do repeat mailings to the same people in a compact area, maybe once every two or three months. You can also mail to a wider area and rotate the mailings so they go to different people each month, but try to get your name in front of the same people at least once every two to three months. 17. How much response should I expect? This is a difficult question for any marketing campaign because there are many variables, such as the nature of your business, seasonality, competition, the area targeted and so on. Optimistic response rate claims should be taken with a pinch of salt. What you ve got to ask yourself is: what is the minimum response you need in order for your direct mail campaign to be viable and to permit you to continue the campaign? You have to take into account the lifetime value of a new customer. If you are getting that or more then it s worthwhile. What we can promise is that we ll do the best job from our side in terms of concept, design, helping you with demographics and mailing to the right target audience. We can add that we have a high percentage

4 of repeat business. 18. How does the production process work? a. You let us know you want to go ahead with a postcard campaign. b. You give us the necessary information. c. We custom design the postcard. d. You approve the design after any correction. e. We print the postcards. f. We work with you to get the right mailing list, using powerful demographic tools and our top list sources. g. We address the postcards. h. We mail them out. All of the above services are included in the price. 19. How and when do I pay? You pay 50% of the total amount when the proof is approved and the postcard is ready to go to press. You pay the remaining 50% when the postcard has been printed, before mailing date. 20. How do you get an appropriate mailing list for me? You just need to specify your requirements and we do the rest. If it s a neighborhood mailing, we have access to the necessary information on local postal carrier routes in your area. We will go over these with you and you can pick the routes you want based on distance and even some carrier route based demographic information such as average income, average home value, age and so on. If this is a targeted mailing you specify the demographic and geographic criteria that you require. We subscribe to a mailing list service that provides lists to cover all but the most specialized criteria. This is how we can include the cost of the mailing list in the overall cost of your mailing without raising the price. 21. Where do you get your lists from? The mailing list industry is highly specialized. We make sure that our sources for any lists we use are very reputable and the best sources we can find. We realize how important to your business a good list is. You can be assured that we source our lists from the best companies and ones that we know and trust and with whom we have a track record of getting good results. 22. Can we do single family homes only in a saturation type mailing? Yes, you can do that and the price does not change. We will suppress Apartments and Business addresses.

5 23. What proof of mailing do you provide? Once mailing is done, we send you USPS stamped Form 3602-R which shows mailing has been done. 24. Do you sell lists? Generally we do not sell mailing lists as the majority of the lists we use carry a license agreement which limits their use to mailing projects and prohibits resale. However, on occasion we will broker lists from other sources. You can inquire about your specific needs. 25. OK, we are ready to get going on our postcard direct mail marketing campaign with you where do we start? This is simple. Go to the Postcard Design Instruction Form and fill it in as completely as you can and send it to us. You will hear back from our Creative Coordinator and we will take you through the steps. We look forward to hearing from you. 26. I need more information: what do I do? You can send us an at info@markots.com. You can call us on our toll free number or our regular number You can follow the Direct Mail Postcards Design-Print-Mail link under Turnkey Marketing Solutions on which takes you to a form that you can fill out (if you have not already done that)and we ll respond to that. That will give us a bit more information about what you want. We re here to guide you through the process. Question still not answered? your question to info@markots.com and we will give you a speedy reply.