I thought the price was reasonable considering all I have to do is ship the postcards to the mail house and they will take care of the rest. The company is called Mail Source and they are based in Amarillo, Texas, but they can do saturation/bulk mailouts anywhere in the U.S. Their web site is www.listrlabels.com.
Nick,
Having similar customer bases (smallish 1500-2000 homes), how are you going to keep 5000 postcards both timely and relevant with orders. I thought about ordering 5000 (price break big time) with a 3-month expiration date (violating every marketing concept on earth). The dam price point between 2500 (what I need) and 5000 (so dam cheap and tempting) has me waffling between the two. I can’t afford to send 2000 out a month (even if I got the permit–right now I am paying the full $.26), so I would need to stretch the postcard marketing at least to 2-3 months. Ideas?
Thanks,
Bob
Pizza Bob, Do you have any local mailing houses in your area? You should be able to use their permit and get a reduced rate on postage.
Instead of putting an exact expiration date on your post cards, try putting “expires in 14 days” instead. It still creates a sense of urgency and it extends the life of your post card supply. In reality you won’t really have an expiration date but the customer will still think that you do. I always accept expired coupons anyways. The whole idea of sending out post cards is to get the customer in the door to spend money, so does it really matter if the coupon is expired or not?
You said that you can’t afford to do a mailing more than once a month. Even at 26 cents a piece, I believe that you can’t afford not to mail more than once a month. If you sent out 2000 post cards a week, it would cost you $520. Lets low ball it and say you get around a 3% return. That would give you 60 new orders. Now lets say that the average ticket is $18. This will give you $1,080 in sales. Your coupon offer will probably run a food cost of around $2 a coupon if it is an aggressive offer. So your food cost will run around $120 for the 60 returned coupons. The total cost of your mailing will be $520 + $120 = $640. Your profit will be $1,080 - $640 = $440. That’s an extra $440 that you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t do the mailing. Now if you end up getting a 5% return, your profit will be $1,360! You also have to figure in all of the new customers you will obtain and the money they will spend on their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, etc. orders. You can earn an extra $70,000+ in sales a year by mailing 2,000 post cards a week. See what I mean when I say you can’t afford not to mail each week? Let your money work for you and make you more money! The profits from your first mailing will pay for your second mailing and so on.
You can get 5,000 full color glossy post cards for $128.95 (around 3 cents a piece) or 10,000 for $249.95 from www.gotprint.com
This is all solid philosophy, and I agree with it. The only difference is that the scale of magnitude changes when your ENTIRE MARKET is 1800 homes. That’s the entire pond to fish in . . . .not just a segment of that pond. 60 returned coupons will not mean 60 “new” orders or guarantee new customers will be in that batch.
Small market marketing is a little trickier for me than dumping things into neighborhoods and counting the money that rolls in. We have a longer realization of return in our small town of 2500 people. We pop our name out there over and over until people decide to come in . . . we are confident that every marketing effort pays for itself (based on some math), but cannot be certain of long term value for a few months afterwards.
PizzaBob,
We had to go for the 5000 with the price being just $40 more. Our restaurant is pushing for increased dine-in exposure, so we are expanding our marketing sphere in coming weeks. This postcard will be mailed to the 2000 addresses in the zip code . . . . AND sent to areas of neighboring towns, placed in the Chamber of Commerce, placed in Visitor/Tourism bureau, handed out to local businesses who might distribute them, sent out to real estate agents for their new local purchasers, and handed out to new customers at School Night Promotions in coming weeks.
We will get gracious plenty exposure with them, and do hope we get a good return. This along with our new color, glossy menus, ads in county magazines, 2 School Nights, and maybe some doorhanging will be our marketing plan for the next 4 to 6 weeks. That and hiring enough staff to handle the shifts 
Nick,
I know exactly what you are saying. One of my shops is in a town of 2,700 addresses. The funny thing is that it pulls a 7% average return on post cards which is higher than my other shop.
I see what you are saying about all of the returns not being new customers. If anything, by sending out post cards 3 or 4 times a month, you will still see increased business. Each time a customer receives a post card, they will see that delicious looking picture of a pizza on it and will put the idea of ordering some pizza in their head. If your post cards persuade a good chunk of the customers to order more frequently, then they did their job.
My whole point was that Pizza Bob should definitely send out post cards more than once every 2-3 months. One thing that I’ve found that gets an even better response in a small town is personalized letters with an offer. Like with any marketing, you have to make sure to track all of your results accurately.
Oh yeah Nick, congratulations on getting your new place open. I seen a few of the pictures and it looks really nice. Great job! -Roger
I sent out 2000 card wound up costing me .24 apiece, printed and mailed out ,oh yeah and ice cream for the kids lol (for labeling postcards)… 
You can use them as boxtoppers if you are concerned about getting them out quickly.