DWhite6872

It is part of our plan. I believe in having a mix of direct mail,radio,mail merge programs,and internet.

nickomon

I do a lot of mass mailing and it has paid off for me but I have a bad location. If you do it in the busy season you will benefit greatly.

tanpartner

Question to those of you that have done mass mailing. Do you have the benefit of bulk mail rates or are you paying $.23 each post card? This can be very costly. I am a little afraid of spending $700.00 plus to mail to my customer base and not getting at lease $700.00 back in sales. What do you think?

gripmarketing

Please allow me a little clarification...

Mass mailing
Mass mailings are those that you mail everyone in an area, zip code, or zone made up of many zip codes, ie, you are mailing the 'masses - hence the name 'mass' mailing. There is no targeting method utilized, as simply everyone in the selected area gets the mail. Mass mailings have the most waste and inefficiency but also typically lowest costs. This is an atom bomb approach and can be effective for many types of businesses.

Targeted mailing
Targeted mailings are those that utilize a specific targeted method to increase response rates. Targeting can include, but isn't limited to demographics and pruchased named lists. Targeted mailings have much less waste and inefficiency as costs increase slightly. This is a shotgun approach and can be effective for many businesses.

House List mailing
House List mailings are those that are sent only to your house file, ie, your database of known customers. Mailing your database has the least amount of waste and inefficiency as costs increase slightly. This is a sniper/rifle approach and is effective for every business.

To answer your question, tanpartner, the best ways to reach out and touch your customers are (in order of least successful to most): email, phone, mail.

TRayz

We did it once, end of nov. and didn't get anything. we had postcards made up that said we had holiday specials and other things. not worth the $ or maybe we didn't do it right. we tried to get ppl to come in the off season.

gripmarketing

TRayz, I can't really comment about whether you did it right or not...but there is one thing with a nag factor for me..."holiday specials and other things". Could have been too many offers and "things".

Some advice you can take to the bank...
Keep your offer to ONE. Always field your BEST offer. Remember you cannot sell two things at once. It's hard enough to sell one thing at a time.

TotalEclipse

now Grip, I know you are the expert on this, but keeping the offer to just one isn't always the best thing to do...at least we haven't found that. The direct mail we have out right now has the free trial for tanning on it, and a 4 for $40 mist special as well. We have found it to be quite successful having the 2 specials on it because if people don't tan, they won't throw the piece away immediately because the mist may interest them and vice versa. We've had a rather nice success with the 2 specials on the mail piece.

gripmarketing

Two can work effectively, but keep in mind having two offers does reduce response rates. By how much? Only way to know is to send out a split mailing and test. You'd be surprised at the difference.

Why the difference? Because you are asking people to be skilled consumers and cost compare on two different items/concepts, do more work, make more decisions, or delay a decision, or keep it for later for one of the concepts, and when you do "TRASH" happens more often. That's because people don't want to make that many decisions at once.

sizzlestan

I love the people who send one time and chaulk it up to mailing must suck. We bought a 4 year old salon in Oct 04. Immediately we sent out a newsletter letting our members know who we were, what we were adding but more importantly - why they should care. We spelled out every change on how it benefitted THEM. Then we dropped the special - TWENTY TANS FOR $20. Sure some of the regulars saved money but many of the members who hadnt tanned since 2002 and 2003 started back up. Also, we got a lot to upgrade to bigger beds and buy lotion. It was a success. This year we will probably start it in Nov instead of Oct. Many actually went through 60 tans in 3 months.

Mailing is advertising and advertising is the name of the game here folks. Send, send, send. Test, test, test. When you find a winning combo (ad, layout, area, time of year) go for it all the time, everytime.

Good luck.

PS - Now is when you should be pumping some cash into marketing. If you dont act when your competition does you will be kicking yourself when they have your members locked into yearly contracts. Kinda hard to get them back wouldnt you say? So, contact your database always and often FIRST then advertise elsewhere.

DWhite6872

I really hate to be sarcastic...but here it goes....Please do not mail to your customer base...never, never mail to your client base any offers...its a waste of money..I also believe you should not mail to carrier routes or any other types of target based advertising. I also think it is a bad idea to mail to your customer base any "Birthday Card" mailing or really any other offer or promotion.
I would love for anyone to ignore their customers and maybe once a year send them a flyer and make it bright pink or orange and make sure you sign the "Thank you note"....never , never, do a free tan weekend....I want a high LPPA....Good Luck and Happy Selling!