every door direct

[Ron Lippold]

Has any one here done the every door direct program with the us post office? 16 cent door to door

 

[Desk Jockey]

I looked at it but chose to use YP to deliver an air duct coupon. It sucked, I should have tried the EDD but a pair of nice legs took my money from me.

 

[boazcan]

Tried it last year. The price is cheap, but only got 3 calls and 1 job. I had 2 mailings with about $700 in postage, not counting the card cost.

I found it interesting that the post office was "not real happy" with delivering these on any other day than Tues, Wed, or Thurs. Just make sure the offer will make them call.

 

[Shane Deubell]

a pair of nice legs took my money from me.

Thats my life story....

 

[Desk Jockey]

Me too.
Thinking with the wrong hed has never got me anywhere but trouble!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Tried it last year. The price is cheap, but only got 3 calls and 1 job. I had 2 mailings with about $700 in postage, not counting the card cost.

I found it interesting that the post office was "not real happy" with delivering these on any other day than Tues, Wed, or Thurs. Just make sure the offer will make them call.

I got zero for $800.00 : (

Live and learn, man that was an expensive gander at a nice pair tan legs.

 

[Shane Deubell]

We have done a decent amount of direct mail over last 6 years, this was the first year we skipped it.

Love/Hate relationship, love the fact you can target specific geographic areas but still hate the cost. When you add in cost of printing looking at .20 to .23 cent piece plus you still have to sort in bundles of 100 if you do it yourself.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Love/Hate relationship, love the fact you can target specific geographic areas but still hate the cost. When you add in cost of printing looking at .20 to .23 cent piece plus you still have to sort in bundles of 100 if you do it yourself.

We've done that before too. It's a pain playing with rubber bands and separating zip codes.

 

[Shane Deubell]

A local company does it for a good price but we have to print off at least 25k pieces, then they charge postage as we use it. So i would just do small tests ourselves of 1k-2k before making that commitment, love/hate.

 

[idreadnought]

If I considered doing eddm I would partner with another business. You can easily drop the costs in half that way. Use a complimentry type business like window cleaning or chimney sweeping.

Another thing with direct mail of any type, frequency. If you plan to send out a thousand pieces to a customer base and expect them all to pick up the phone then you might be disappointed. Everything I have read and everyone that I have talked to that does it says 3 times for each route. The highest response is on the second mailing with the third mailing actually higher than the first.

Interesting that there are a few articles that mention a 3-5% response rate to direct mail. Ha Ha Ha, yeah right. Could you imagine how lucrative it would be to spend $25 to send 100 pieces and to get 3-5 customers?

 

[Vivers]

A complete waste of marketing money in my opinion

 

[KevinL]

you guys that did the eddm, could we see the pieces you sent out and see if there was another reason they didn't work? I'm thinking about doing it after I close on the rug shop and really need it to get the word out. Otherwise it's going to be all radio.

 

[Becker]

Id be interested in seeing the failed pieces also, a demo on the zip codes you sent to, how often and mow many times.

Total route mailed before giving up and calling it a failure.

 

[Shane Deubell]

I personally have only had success in affluent neighborhoods, which is top 2% of households for my specific market. The calls were between .3-.5% of total pieces with a high closing rate.The biggest factor for us was the high ticket averages, we would put carpet 1 side/ tile 1 side and alternate which is large side {mostly tile}. What would happen is on a drop of 10k pieces for example a couple big jobs would come in say $600-$1k type and then several mid size $3-400 ish.

When we tried in lower income demographics the number of calls was similar but the average $ticket dropped considerably, the kitchens were just flat out smaller and the bathrooms were tiny.

 

[SMRBAP]

I looked at it but chose to use YP to deliver an air duct coupon. It sucked, I should have tried the EDD but a pair of nice legs took my money from me.

Doc,

We had one similar vendor who to prove how bad the service was - only listed a free service...... not a single call.

She didn't even have nice legs ~

 

[Desk Jockey]

I should have known better!

 

[idreadnought]

I personally have only had success in affluent neighborhoods, which is top 2% of households for my specific market. The calls were between .3-.5% of total pieces with a high closing rate.The biggest factor for us was the high ticket averages, we would put carpet 1 side/ tile 1 side and alternate which is large side {mostly tile}. What would happen is on a drop of 10k pieces for example a couple big jobs would come in say $600-$1k type and then several mid size $3-400 ish.

When we tried in lower income demographics the number of calls was similar but the average $ticket dropped considerably, the kitchens were just flat out smaller and the bathrooms were tiny.

Let me see if I understand your numbers correctly. .5% out of 10,000 pieces is 50 calls. high conversion is 80% which is 40 jobs.

Couple of large jobs, lets say 3 600-1000 dollars with an average of $800 is $2,400.

The rest small jobs 37 $300-$400 jobs with an average of $350 times 37 reamianing is $12,950

Total revenue is $15,350. Cost to mail about 25 cents each for a total of $2,500

That is only 16% customer marketing cost for an initial service! If those numbers are correct then that is fantastic return. Factor in repeat services and your marketing is going to be under 10%!

Even figuring a .3% and you still end up with $9210 in revenue. that s still only a 27% initial marketing cost which is still not bad. With an added bonus of being able to send those out any time you want or need.

 

[smastio]

A more subtle approach to the affluent would be better I bet. I like the idea of going to your local "successful" dry cleaner and offering to pay for his/her plastic shirt protectors so you could brand then with your services. Maybe something like this: "Call or book Chavez online when the red wine reached beyond the shirt to the floor!"

 

[Shane Deubell]

Let me see if I understand your numbers correctly. .5% out of 10,000 pieces is 50 calls. high conversion is 80% which is 40 jobs.

Couple of large jobs, lets say 3 600-1000 dollars with an average of $800 is $2,400.

The rest small jobs 37 $300-$400 jobs with an average of $350 times 37 reamianing is $12,950

Total revenue is $15,350. Cost to mail about 25 cents each for a total of $2,500

That is only 16% customer marketing cost for an initial service! If those numbers are correct then that is fantastic return. Factor in repeat services and your marketing is going to be under 10%!

Even figuring a .3% and you still end up with $9210 in revenue. that s still only a 27% initial marketing cost which is still not bad. With an added bonus of being able to send those out any time you want or need.

I wish!

Out of 7 campaigns {each varying between 25-50k pieces spread out over 5 months} We had a .5 return 2x maybe and the jobs broke down more like 2 large, 8 medium, 30 small and be in the $9k range in revenue. So the other 5 campaigns ended up more in the .2-.3% range and 1 was a complete fail.

In the big picture these are small numbers so a couple big jobs like colorseal or cleaning a big marble floor can really move the numbers around.

In my experience you really want to stick with it monthly minus winter and just change the featured service. Never became rich from it thats for sure but did put together a nice client list and it saved my ass during the recession and the 2 years after. One thing that has hurt us is convincing tile/grout customers to repeat more.