Direct (Bulk) Mailing Issues

Hello Friends,

I have been reading the old posts the last few weeks and have seen several threads mentioning the use of CD's purchased to create mailing lists. I understand the limitations of these and it'll be fine for what I'm looking to do for now.....however I can not find any such software CD . I have gone to Best Buy, Comp USA, Circut City, Office Depot and Office Max this week all with no luck. Nobody even knows what I'm talking about when I say I want to buy a CD w/ names on it or a CD phone book, or yellow/white page listings......any suggestions?

I know I can buy names on line for a price per scenario however I am not looking to do that just yet.

thank you in advance for the help....

Benjamin

I think the company name is infoUSA look it up on ebay and you will probably save some money. My experience with that company is its garbage but some people like it. I do direct mail in my area and it works very well. I just dont use InfoUSA.

Benjamin,
I thought about mailing lists when we first started but companies like Mark as talking about can be expensive and the other thing to remember is that in the time it takes to place your order, process, and ship the cd to you is that many other people have probably contacted those people on the mailing list. We do it the old fashioned way and either one of my people or a kid I hired will drive through neiborhoods and write down addresses and do our mailings from those lists. Works well, for every thirty we mail we usually get one job averaging $1500.00. To me time and money well spent. Plus gets you out of the house while things are waiting to get busy.
Good luck,
Lou

Lou -

I have thought about doing just that. I thank you for your suggestion. May I ask what you are pressure washing that is bringing a price of $1500 for one job residential? Or do you mean $150?

Also are you using a postcard or a flyer/letter in an envelope type set up?

thank you again,

Benjamin

I have found I avg around 1 call per 100 flyers . I'm trying a few new tricks this month to try to stimulate some new business, I'll let everyone know if it works in a month or so.

Benjamin,

Why do you need to buy the lists? There are numerous on line directories-Superpages, anywho, etc. We use software to extract information from these online directories after doing a search for say Realtors within a 20 mile radius of your town, etc. and put it into our contact management software. from there you can call or print labels, postcards, etc.

Mike Cassidy
www.PowerWashNow.com

We send out about 1000 postcards a week at the start of the season until we are too full then we back off. I have no time to deal with that part. I buy my list once, and have them mailed out. This guys pulls fresh data from the city and according to my specs. Then sends it out for the same price as my bulk mail price so it doesnt cost me anymore then if i were to do it.

Try logging onto your city's web site and see if you can sort by business.

If you can, you can get property management groups, realtors, etc...

I pulled up like 500 property management groups that do business in this area.

I bought the InfoUSA disks at Office Depot about a year ago...haven't used them yet. I'm hanging onto them for the commercial contact info, since I will eventually be marketing in that direction. I'd say it is pretty much worthless for residential...you can get the same info off your property appraiser's website.

The problem with InfoUSA is that you buy the data, but you also have to buy the ability to export the names/address/phone etc. You get something like 2000 exports with the software, which isn't much.

The ones you buy at the office/software supply stores are the copies InfoUSA liquidates when they come out with an updated version.