[Please Help Critique] Sending Postcard To Business Owners - Bob Ross Giant Postcard

I intend to use the Bob Ross mailer as per normal, that is B2C. However, I want to do a B2B mailer where I reach out to local businesses and introduce them to the idea of the mailer. So I am wanting to prospect and sell the spots through establishing contact via mailing local businesses.

Once spots are sold, I would be mailing it out to the whole area as per normal. Sorry that I was not clear the first time, thank you for your reply!

Regarding the cost of mailing out the post card, I have a way in which I can get these sent out to every business owner at about the cost of EDDM. So cost wise it isn't all that much.

The reason I would like to prospect by postcard is because I am not keen on going in person. That would be a little out of my comfort zone, but I realise it might be a lot easier to sell it in person like that. I wouldn't mind cold calling and then if there is an interest, going in to discuss. But I would not enjoy doing cold walk-ins. Also, the idea I had was if I could successfully prospect using a postcard in one town - scaling would be a lot easier to move on to other towns.

That being said: the postcard would be going out to ALL registered businesses in the area. Not just shop front businesses with a brick and mortar location. Example: plumbers might be registered in my town but many of them won't have a physical shop front. In normal situations, I would be unable to walk in there to meet them - but with what I have found, I can send a postcard to all businesses - even those without a physical location - therefore reaching more people than I could just through doing cold calling or cold walk-ins. With the postcard, I get the database of business addresses (which I think they use Government data) - but with cold calling, I would have to find the numbers of all businesses first somehow, and I doubt I could find them all online.

I hope that wasn't all rambling. But essentially I think the postcards will have a bigger reach (targeting literally every business in the area, based on Goverment data) but with cold calling/cold walk-ins I'd really only be able to do with businesses that have obvious physical locations or shop fronts.

I do understand that a postcard is not the best way of prospecting here. May I ask, do you think a postcard is not good because it is too small to present the idea properly? Or do you just think mailing in general, in this case, is not a good idea?

Because if it's the fact that it's a postcard and not big enough, etc then I can create larger mailer that goes out to them as well. Costs would be a little higher but the return on a giant postcard mailer is big enough to warrant the costs of prospecting (assuming they turn out to actually work).

You raise a very valid point that after the first month, I would need to find another 16 that are interested. At this point I was hoping that the social proof of having received one of the giant postcards would be enough to get business owners a little less resistant to the idea. On the postcard itself I would have a bit of information on how to 'advertise here' and also I would be doing another mailer to all businesses again, encouraging them to sign up. I feel the giant postcard itself, once mailed, would win over a lot of their trust + following up with a direct mail again after the first giant postcard has been mailed would secure another 16 spots.

Ultimately, though, I do agree. Cold calling and talking to business owners would probably produce results quickly. Meeting up with them also would be useful - but I am happy to do both of these, talk and meet in person - but I'd just like something to break the ice a little first. Maybe I am being a little too optimistic about a postcard being able to break the ice.

Thanks so much for responding Aaron!

I can't disagree with you. In this case, 'dont be a puss' is called for and I agree. That is certainly part of why I am trying to prospect using direct mail. To reiterate on what I said above with Aaron, I don't mind calling or meeting in person - but it's the initial interest that I would like to establish using the mailer. I am not very confident at just cold calling and pitching things, especially so when it comes to actually doing a cold walk-in.

It looks like I may really need to reconsider the way I would prospect.

Although, since the direct mail works out to be rather cheap to do - I may give it a whirl and just see what happens as well. I was thinking of potentially sending a few, maybe one per week and this may build up enough to sell some spots before I launch, over the course of a month.

I am very thankful for your reply, and if you have anything else to contribute (or anyone else) I will be very, very appreciative!

Yea - he surrendered here . . .

Hi Aaron, thanks for stopping by again. You seem to be full of creative ideas. I really like the idea of putting coupons on one side! I think I might just use that!

Another concept would be to use YOUR business on the reverse side - offer a time-sensitive discount on your EDDM mailing.

I think if you use the giant postcard to show how the card is noticed, it will help alot. Try an headline like "Size Does Matter, When You Want To Get Noticed". A picture of the card in a mailbox would help alot. Then go through the benefits of the card; saturation marketing, exclusive featured business, nothing to open or flip through, inexpensive, etc.

Hope this helps, good luck!