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Have You Used BRM Direct Mail?

by Rearden
7 replies
Anyone using BRM (Business Reply Mail) direct mail campaigns to generate offline leads?

There's always a lot of talk about using direct mail here, but I don't see much discussion about the BRM/direct mail lead generation side of the equation.

The insurance business uses them almost exclusively in the Senior Market for burial insurance, annuities, and Medicare insurance.

Basically, you send a piece that describes loosely an offer for free information on whatever you're selling. The recipient then fills out the card with their information (name, phone number, etc.), and sends it back in.

Generally, the vaguer the better. And if the envelope looks like official government correspondence, response rate tended to be higher.

Very scalable concept; you can go from 15 leads a week to 40 leads a week easily by increasing mail volume. Good insurance agents could convert a ratio of 1 application to 4 leads.

Thoughts on this?
#brm #direct #mail
  • Profile picture of the author Anthony Carrera
    I think its a good idea Direct Mail is a Powerful vehicle if you have the right message to the right Market/list.... i would suggest post card mailings for lead generation just because its cheaper and is still effective

    you might also want to look at adding a free recorded message to take you in your leads... wich is sure to boost response given it takes the extra steps of mailing something back out of the equation.... you should test both.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rearden
      Thanks for reminding about the power of free 24-hour pre-recorded messages.

      I did a 3000 piece drop with a 6"x9" goldenrod postcard that had tons of copy on burial insurance.

      The call-to-action was to call my free 24-hour pre-recorded message hotline.

      I made each person sit that called sit through a 9 minute presentation of how my program worked versus others.

      Then I had them leave a message if they were interested.

      I closed 50% of the leads that left messages and practically secured an appointment with all of them. ROI was only 2:1 or 3:1 -- wanted more like 4:1 or 5:1.

      Originally Posted by Anthony Carrera View Post

      I think its a good idea Direct Mail is a Powerful vehicle if you have the right message to the right Market/list.... i would suggest post card mailings for lead generation just because its cheaper and is still effective

      you might also want to look at adding a free recorded message to take you in your leads... wich is sure to boost response given it takes the extra steps of mailing something back out of the equation.... you should test both.
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      David Duford -- Providing On-Going, Personalized Mentorship And Training From A Real Final Expense Producer To Agents New To The Final Expense Life Insurance Business.
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    I do 5k - 15k BRC's (I call them Business Reply Cards) per month for my remodeling business for them to enter into sweepstakes. I get around a 5-7% response
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  • Profile picture of the author Rearden
    Bob, what is your ROI?
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    David Duford -- Providing On-Going, Personalized Mentorship And Training From A Real Final Expense Producer To Agents New To The Final Expense Life Insurance Business.
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    • Profile picture of the author bob ross
      Originally Posted by Rearden View Post

      Bob, what is your ROI?
      I think BRC's are the most effective direct mail strategy for me actually. The only thing is that they don't seem to be effective if sent routinely, so I only send them out every 4 or 5 months to the same list. I rotate mailings of them each month, with regular postcards sent in between.

      For a 10k BRC mailing to enter a sweepstakes, I can count on 500 or more returned with about 20 converting to appointments and 10 sales or so (roughly 5k per sale).


      Also.... I use newspaper inserts that have a perforated BRC on them and they pull some great response as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rearden
    Thanks. How do you work thru 500 names? Calling, auto responding ?

    Also, what kind of list? House list of clients or purchased list?
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    David Duford -- Providing On-Going, Personalized Mentorship And Training From A Real Final Expense Producer To Agents New To The Final Expense Life Insurance Business.
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    • Profile picture of the author bob ross
      Originally Posted by Rearden View Post

      Thanks. How do you work thru 500 names? Calling, auto responding ?

      Also, what kind of list? House list of clients or purchased list?
      I have a calling room and when the BRC's come in I go through them and weed out the ones that are jokes (people love to send 'funny' responses), then hand them to my telemarketers where they use a script to set them up into appointments. They get $5 for each one they convert to an appointment.

      the list is not a house list, I send them separate pieces. These are homeowner lists pulled from infofree using my promocode.
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