Postcards or Letters

[mkrotchie]

Hey everyone, I am planning my first direct mailing campaign and while I have most of the content worked out I'm still not sure what the most effective medium of transmission would be. On the one hand you have postcards; quick and to the point, but also easier to just toss out. On the other hand, a letter; seemingly more personal and most people will open it to find out what it is.

Any thoughts?

[JimOlenbush]

I use letters, but I know many use post cards and are happy with them.

I feel like letters have to be opened, post cards go down to trash with all of the oil change coupons, etc. But, letters are much more of a pain with labels, business cards, folding. I also use stamps rather than bulk rate postage so it looks less spammy... wait, I mean junk mail-ish.

[RESteve]

I think it depends on what type of mailer you are sending out. Is this a mailer to your farm area or to your network/sphere? Personally, I would mail a simple postcard to my farm area just to establish a "touch" and gain mind market share. For my network, I will send them letters and a card for special occasions.

[mkrotchie]

Good point Steve, it is for my farming area so a postcard might make more sense.

[JimOlenbush]

Whether you send post cards or letters I think either will work as long as you don't do what most agents do... mail once or twice and then disappear forever!

[mkrotchie]

Yes if there has been anything that I've learned about mailings is the necessity to remain consistent. Otherwise you're throwing your money away!

[RESteve]

Not only that; there's no way to track it if you don't track it for the long term! For my farm area, I'm using the 50:1 statistic. For every 50 people you touch 12 times a year you will get one transaction.

[Jeff Casterline]

Personally I like postcards. At least they might get read from the mailbox to the trash. Where a letter will just go straight to the trash.

Also, they are a lot less time consuming.

Definitely be consistent. It is a waste of time and money to send out 2 or 3 and then quit.

[Morristown]

I like to mix it up, letters, post cards, letters with special print on them so they look like wedding invites, Letters with First Class Stamps, Looking at doing Birthday style cards in envelopes as a mix in as well.

I find that after a while if you are doing the same thing people catch on and even if it is in a envelope they stop looking at it.

[Malok]

For the frequent stuff thats more than once a month, I like postcards. Usually those items are just to get your name/face before them as promotional material anyway. With a postcard - they have to READ your name and see your face before deciding whether to throw it away or not.



For the quarterly, or semiannual stuff with lots of information - I like letters.