Direct Mail - Page 9

Mike McCarty · 02-11-2005, 09:31 PM

I hope to make my first post card mailing next week from here in my new surroundings. So far I have been very pleased with the local mail order company. They have worked up a list from their internals that is very targeted. In the defined desirable areas I took 850 names (holding back 150 of the 1000) off the top of a list of 25,000 that met this so called high value home / condo list. The last one on the list sorted by descending value, number 850, had a value of $1,719,500. I can only imagine what the top dog would be.

They are charging me $50 for a one time use of the list and about another $100 to handle the mailing. I'm having the cards mailed directly to them where they will be processed and pre-bundled for the mail man.

The cost looks like it will be very close to $1.00 per card. A folded card that is 6" x 8.5" after folding (no small matter). Full color front and back and black and white inside. It has a total of six painting images and four photographs with just the essential amount of plagiarized text.

As for the paintings that I used -- I took one each from four of my favorite artists on the forum, one Bougeureau and one JSS. I figure that should do it. Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Kimberly Dow · 02-11-2005, 10:25 PM

So - which one of my paintings did you use?

Mike McCarty · 02-11-2005, 11:46 PM

Quote:

So - which one of my paintings did you use?

This is yours , right?

Kimberly Dow · 02-12-2005, 12:10 AM

I wish....!

Mary Sparrow · 02-12-2005, 08:45 AM

Mike, your card sounds awesome! I want to see it.
I didn't get so elaborate, but my dinky little postcard has been received very well and I'm quite happy I did it. I hope you get a great response too.

Kimberly Dow · 05-01-2005, 05:32 AM

I have a question -

I'd like to give this a try (the link Mary posted above with the sale is now at $49 for 1000). I would like to push more 'figurative' portraits though. It's what I enjoy most and think I am better at as well. Does anyone think this is a bad choice when it comes to marketing?

Richard Monro · 05-01-2005, 06:08 AM

Kim,
Go for it! Your figurative portraits would look great on anyone's wall. They obviously say more than a typical portrait does and thus will have wider appeal. Direct mail is a very smart and relatively inexpensive way to self promote.
Some suggestions:
1- plan multiple mailings ( at least 1/month for 6 months. A full 12 month campaign would be better.)
2 - Use a standard post card size. Saves on postage
3 - Use a simple 2 sided postcard with enough caontact info to get buyers to you website, gallery and/or studio. 4 sided postcards add unnecessary expense for the return.
4 - Mail to the same list each time. Remember it is the image/message recall that you want to establish.
5 - Don't change a campaign unless it stops working or is an obvious bomb - i.e. response rate drops well below 1%, 2 to 3% is typical and more than 5% is a raving success.

Mary Sparrow · 05-01-2005, 07:31 AM

Kim, go for it! For the price you really don't have much to lose, but if I remember correctly 49 dollars was for one side, it went up to around 89 to put something on both sides. I, according to the above statistics, had "raving success" - just completed my 7th portrait from that mailing and I only mailed out 100! I have had several more people comment they want one so there is no telling how many I will end up with out of that. Now to figure out who to mail these other 900 cards.

Richard Monro · 05-01-2005, 07:41 AM

Mary,
Your conversion rate (making the sale) of 7% is astounding. In typical direct mail terms one would expect only 1 conversion to a sale for every 20 responses. For the typical 3% response rate the conversion rate would normally be about 0.15%. Congratulations. You are doing something special in your postcard that we would all like to see. Could you post it for all to see and imitate (with your permission of course)? Could you also tell us what demographic profile you used to develop you mail list? Nothing succeeds like success.

Mary Sparrow · 05-01-2005, 08:21 AM

Richard, I can almost guarantee that I have several more coming in from that 100 alone.

My card is posted earlier in this thread. There are a couple of things working in my favor. I paint children, I have 3 between the ages of 2-6 so I started my list from their play school classes. I live in a small suburb of Charlotte where you will find most people have portraits done of their children. I then contacted a couple of previous clients, one showed up with a list of all of her old sorority sisters with young children. This list was great because it got me out of just my town. It is sort of a situation where they all have to have what the other one has

Her list was a little gold mine. The mother of the last portrait I did (Lydia in unveilings) is in Atlanta, she is so excited about hers she wants more, and she emailed me yesterday to tell me she had four other friends that were planning to call. The brother sister pair has also resulted in another contact not on my mailing list. This word of mouth thing is great!

I'm not exactly expensive, so that makes a sale easier I'm sure. I doubt I would have gotten this sort of response, if any, had I just mailed out postcards to people that had never heard of me.