Following Through How many mailings should you send, and how often should you send them? Part of the answer depends on how big a response your staff can reasonably handle.
Downing notes that direct mail returns are traditionally very low: “1% is considered phenomenal.” With that as your basis, do the math. If you want to elicit 10 lead calls, send it to 1,000 well-chosen households. If your lead flow isn’t meeting your expectations, send out another wave. Or have a mailing house do it for you, if it’s a large quantity and you want the bulk-mailing rate.
The Levine Group used to do mailings of 20,000 pieces or more, but Field says that the company intends to start mailing fewer postcards to smaller areas to more closely track responses from specific ZIP codes. Classic Remodeling & Construction plans to send a new postcard every two months for a year, targeting 5,000 households that meet certain financial and geographic criteria. “We’re very focused on the type of project we want,” says Fleming, who believes that his selective mailing list is a key reason for his company’s high closure rate on raw leads.
DeCiantis Construction plans to mail its postcards quarterly to its entire mailing list of 2,000 or so households. The company compiled the list in-house, DiCiantis says, in part through such resourceful tricks as getting directories from a local yacht club and a historical society. “I haven’t found a mailing list company I like,” he adds.
For more information about targeted mailing lists, see “Ready, Aim, Profits,” UPSCALE REMODELING, Fall 2005.
Leah Thayer is a senior editor for REMODELING.