No, it's not true.

Thanks for the straw man argument. LOL

The reality is that if you test 5,000 and get a 2% response rate, you'll more than likely get the same response rate when you "roll out" to 20,000 (and will stop sending those cards where you only got a .5% response).

Rearden is testing and he doesn't know whether to test 3,000 large postcards vs. 5,000 small postcards. The total cost for either is about the same.

Since the costs are the same, I'd test the larger postcard so I can get the best response possible (large postcards pull better than smaller ones and the more you tell, the more you sell).

Agree wholeheartedly with you.

I'm not worried about postage cost though, it's the advantage that first class postage has, which is faster & predictable delivery along with undeliverables returned.

Slightly off topic, but relevant to your overall success.

It's about your list.

Having a list of those that have a history of buying similar products and services at a similar price point through the mail is greatly going to put the odds of success in your favor.

You may know this, but re-hearing the proven basics can do no harm.

Best,
Ewen

Yes, sent to a good targeted list - a Postcard is an excellent media to use for this type of promo.

Going back to the bigger card debate - your audience is more likely to have poorer eyesight.

So use a larger card making it easy to read.

Don't make them squint at the copy.

Because they won't bother - it's so much easier just to fling the card in the trash.


Steve

For your test I would suggest printing 2 color, of the small postcard so you qualify for 33c postage...

...and print them 4 to a page on legal size card stock, min. weight for mailing.

Then run thru laser printer and personalize the address side, with your teaser copy just above their address and use their name in the teaser copy.

Then you take the post cards and have them cut down and stacked and run through a postage meter.

I used to do just that in the '90's and sent as much as 10,000 a week.

First question.

Yes you can rent lists of more targeted groups.

For example there are those that are known diabetics.
You can go after those that are known to have health issues.

You can go to geo targeted.
For example Santa Barbara where the average home valuation is just under a million bucks. Or the top 10 wealthiest suburbs in the States. Google the top 100 wealthiest suburbs and then you can feed those locations into your list filter.

There's a whole library of mailing lists publicly available for viewing at http://lists.nextmark.com/ http://www.impulse-media.net/ Don't use the ones where they have been compiled or come from tv. They are the worst.

Is your offer to review existing policies in case they are paying to much?

Best,
Ewen

If you're not using a strong list, strong sales copy, and making a strong offer then the size of the card isn't going to matter.

Many years ago, I did postcard marketing for my massage therapy center... some of them were complete bare-bones campaigns where I had used MS Publisher to create 4 postcards on a page, took it to the local Staples and copied them onto card stock which we cut and mailed out ourselves.

Definitely NOT a polished looking mailing piece but it was pretty common to pull 3-5% from a campaign because the offer was strong and the copy was fairly good (this was before I even knew what copywriting was and started studying it).

So my advice is hire a copywriter who will help you nail down the offer and the copy... then get the best quality mailing list you can.

You can always start with a small mail drop (to use a bigger mailer), test, and then mail out to a bigger segment of the list if it turns out to be a responsive list.

For prospecting purposes, you certainly want to test the in-home mail you see arrive in your mailbox every Wed./Thur. where you get all the grocer flyers, probably something from Dish TV, a dentist, oil change, etc.

But, what this service offers (operates as Valassis) is, you can do a full 8-1/2 x 11 inch flyer, full color on both sides and sell the hell out of your offer.

And you can target just the households that meet your demographics, meaning not everyone on the block or even in the zip code will get your offer, just the ones who are older, etc.

Often you can get 20,000 pieces printed and delivered for around $1,800, whereas just the postage on 4,000 min. size post cards will run you $1,320.

That's what I'd do. Test them both. Key them so you know where responses come from. If you test them one at a time, it's taking you longer to find out what works best.

Just seems to me (and yes I've done postcard mailings) that the advantage of the larger size is in getting more noticed because it sticks out from the rest of the mail. So all other things being equal the larger size might bump the results up a a bit.

If it does then the next thing you'd want to test is more copy on the bigger size. Because otherwise you're only sending a larger size version of the smaller card. So if more copy can be written to increase response, test that and use that additional space wisely.

Also, a thought... since I believe you sell final expense insurance. Haven't the companies in that field, like Securus, developed and tested mailers over the years where it's pretty much the best you're likely to get by way of response? Why don't you just copy what the big boys have figured out?

Also remember the post office is going to print or stick a bar code somewhere around near the bottom, to the immediate left of the 4x2 space. So don't print your contact info or anything down there.

So those are people who don't generally have wealth for the most part and/or they probably don't have life insurance already covering their burial expenses. So if people in those circumstances are found in certain areas, such as lower income areas, you may want to see if the list broker can geographically select zip codes of those areas when you order a list. Should be only a few dollars more per thousand.

And if you don't get a great response from the large postcards you'd wonder if sending 66% more of the smaller ones would have been different.

5,000 is a good test number considering these type of targets. 3,000 isn't so good, when we consider statistical variance. It's just not a huge sample size to get an accurate picture of response on a one-shot mailing.

It's not worth the bulk class postage either. If bigger postcards were responsible for that much more response, then 8.5x11 or 9x12 would be a better choice since there's 54% more selling space available.

3,000 to 5,000 piece volume is really critical here because of the small sample size, even more than a 30,000 to 50,000 comparison (same %) where variance isn't as swingy.



note: I probably sound like I'm really against big postcards. I'm not. Steve's point about poor eyesight is spot on.