Posted by michaela-ATL on November 02, 2002 at 14:20:17:
ron,
you must mix me up with someone else - i’m the one with the purple mohawk ;-). and here i thought i was unique and stood out and people remembered me. but then on the other hand, you did remember the mohawk
keeping record of my responses - not here - lol. i hate paperwork. i also don’t do mailers on a regular bases. one of the calls i did get was from that owner, that i’m suing for performance (hm, maybe that’s a sign of who answers?). since i signed the contract and now the arv has gone up to about 220k, so if i make my projected 120k profit, it was worth the postcard ;-).
calls i did get were evenly split between men and women, so no preference there. i sent to a general area, which was/is coming up and did not target distressed owners, so my response was less, than a foreclosure mailer would have been.
i jsut base a lot of deicisions on how i would act or react and since not everybody thinks like me, not everbody would respond. i think i’d rather have those people respond, that think like me, because there’s a better chance that we can come up with an agreement.
michaela
Creating and Printing Your Own Postcards? - Posted by IB (NJ)
Posted by IB (NJ) on November 01, 2002 at 16:50:54:
Has anyone done this? If so, where did you get the postcard stock and what software did you use? What printer and dig. camera did you use?
I’m trying to find postcard stock in Staples and can’t find any. I’d like to add my own artwork or photo to the front and back of a postcard and mail it out to potential sellers.
I do it like Doug(ON) says. I go to local print and copy shops here in Oakland and Berkeley. They have a lot of different cardstock colors on hand. I use the “astrobright” colors. Print them four-up on 8 1/2" by 11" sheets and cut crosswise in the middle of each dimension. I agree with Doug about having them cut them for me. I hate paying the extra $1 or $2 for the cutting since I am an uncertified but self-admitted cheapskate. But it takes about 5 minutes for several hundred cards and it would probably take me more than a half hour to cut them by hand, even with my own guillotine cutter.
I do not put any printing on one side. Just a stamp and an address label on that side. My address goes at the top of the printed side as a letterhead sort of thing.
Have you been reading books on direct marketing? I have read probably a dozen or more. I wonder if you have a real reason to put the picture on the card? It never occurred to me to do such a thing. Have you read some research that shows that it helps increase responses? I worry that it may be more of an ego thing. You like to see your picture and name on paper, so you plan to put it on the card. I would put it on only if there were good proof that it would benefit me, by increasing my response rate. Do you have some reason to believe that your picture will have some impact? I may have to get a picture ready if you have a good reason for doing this. Hmmm, I know that a lot of the real estate agents who send me solicitations to list my house have their pictures on the pieces. But I have never felt myself more inclined to call them up because of that. Any research?
Now, if you had a picture of a near-naked woman on the card, that might have some impact, particularly for male readers. For female readers, a baby has the most emotional impact. Hm, maybe you need to have a near-naked picture of yourself on the card, and one of your baby pictures, too. “Bearskin rug” IB we can call you from now on.
When I do it again I will print one master copy at home and take that back to Staples and have them photocopy and most importantly CUT the sheets into postcard sizes on the cardstock. Cutting any more than a few sheets by hand is not something I plan on repeating!
Re: Pssst, Want Picture Postcards? - Posted by michaela-ATL
Posted by michaela-ATL on November 02, 2002 at 07:18:56:
ronald,
actually i have my picture on part of my postcard. i just think, that a photo might create a personal connection and since distress is personal some people might rather want to deal with a person, than a slick company. at least i would.
michaela
Re: Pssst, Want Picture BILLBOARD? - Posted by $Cash$ (NV)
Posted by $Cash$ (NV) on November 01, 2002 at 22:02:25:
Ronald * Starr(inNoCA),
In my radio station days I designed a billboard that showed a lady undressed with one of those old time radios covering the best parts.
The punch line was “I can’t get enough” at the bottom of the billboard “of KUDO Radio” Talk about a response rate every Women’s group in town expressed their concerns.
However the station shot up to ‘number one’ in the ratings, so the heat I caught was worth stepping in the kitchen.
Re: Creating and Printing Your Own Postcards? - Posted by Cairns
Posted by Cairns on November 02, 2002 at 15:21:56:
Doug…do from home…usps.com, gives you break on postage and everything is done from your computer…addresses, design your postcard, attach, pay, (very cheap!) they print, cut and send…the more you send out the better the cut on postage…it costs about $.23 a postcard per 100. A postcard stamp is $.23 alone. So for the same $.23 you get a postcard, cut and sent. All from home…no traffic no run around!
Posted by IB (NJ) on November 01, 2002 at 17:35:30:
it didn’t work out. I took pictures of about 5 houses incl. mine (just for testing). I didn’t get the post card of my house back until 2 months later?! (quality wasn’t that great either). I realized then that if I’m going to be confident that my message got to my target audience, I need to send those cards out myself. But thanks anyway.
Well, I understand your thinking, but how many people have confidence in somebody with a green mowhawk hairdo?
Seriously, I understand what you have just said. And you may be right. I have read many books on direct marketing, and the universal advice is to “test,” or, I would say: experiment. That means trying different pitches and see which ones seem to work best. If you had a picture on one version and not another, do you do enough mailings and keep good enough records that you could track the response and success figures for each version?
Also, I’m not sure my picture would work. After all, a grey-bearded fellow with glasses? Hmmmm… no… I guess using your picture on my card would not help out, if they met me they would know something is wrong.
