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Do you have a direct mail sales system?

by maxrezn
4 replies
I see a lot of threads here about direct mail and grabber pieces. It's great information and very helpful..but I don't really see any talk about direct mail systems or what others have done to consistently mail out x amount of pieces per week and follow up.

I'm in the process of putting together a system that can churn out individualized letters and phone call follow ups that I can scale and fine tune. So far here's what I have:

List creation: Find a VA on Elance to create lead lists of businesses with business owner names and stats on the business. ($5/hour)

Letter printing: Not sure. Mail merge possibly? I've never really had to print out many individualized pieces of anything. Would like some help with this.

Envelope stuffing: Hire an intern or college kid to stuff the envelopes with the letter+grabber, write the address, and attach postage stamps.

Follow up: Hire a well rated sales person on Elance to call the businesses 3-4 days after they received the letter. All interested business owners will be transferred to me to set up a meeting. Non-interested business owners will be mailed 2 more times and followed up with 2 more times. ($8/hour)

What do the pros think?

PS: I know this could be done by one person, but I really want to create a system that can run by itself.
#direct #mail #sales #system
  • Profile picture of the author Doran Peck
    Something to be aware of...The advantage local print shops will have over you is that they use certified software that sequences lists into delivery order, thus getting a massive discount on postage.

    If your going to use mail merge your going to pay full postage, or some discount if you hand sort them by zip code....regardless, if your local customers are getting bids elsewhere, you will get beat every time.

    Yearly subscriptions to such software runs around $1900

    However, where you will appeal to some clients is if you are going to make their mail in handwritten envelopes.

    but...be prepared to answer the "why couldn't we just do this ourselves" question.
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    • Profile picture of the author maxrezn
      Originally Posted by Doran Peck View Post

      Something to be aware of...The advantage local print shops will have over you is that they use certified software that sequences lists into delivery order, thus getting a massive discount on postage.

      If your going to use mail merge your going to pay full postage, or some discount if you hand sort them by zip code....regardless, if your local customers are getting bids elsewhere, you will get beat every time.

      Yearly subscriptions to such software runs around $1900

      However, where you will appeal to some clients is if you are going to make their mail in handwritten envelopes.

      but...be prepared to answer the "why couldn't we just do this ourselves" question.
      Doran,

      I'm looking to do this for my own SEO firm, not to sell it as a service. Would a print shop be something worth looking into for this?
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  • Profile picture of the author TakenAction
    Why don't you use InfoUsa and easily pull company stats and get the names of the decision maker. You could easily do it yourself rather than pay $5 an hour.
    Signature

    The best thing you can do is put yourself out there.

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    • Profile picture of the author SashaLee
      Originally Posted by TakenAction View Post

      Why don't you use InfoUsa and easily pull company stats and get the names of the decision maker. You could easily do it yourself rather than pay $5 an hour.
      And thus make YOUR time only worth $5/hour??? That has to be some of the worst advice I've heard in a long time.

      Sasha.
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