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New Direct Mailing Company??

S

Steve

Well-known member
We’ve been using Mailshark for years and we typically always mail menus because they give us the most bang for our buck, however, it seems like every time we have a new mailing cycle the price goes up. The pricing can’t change every 10 weeks, can it??

Does anyone have another direct mailing company they use that they are happy with?

Thank you in advance
 
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My price doesn’t go up at all. You should contact your rep and see what the deal is. Are you mailing the same area and the same number of pieces every time?
 
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Steve said:
We’ve been using Mailshark for years and we typically always mail menus because they give us the most bang for our buck, however, it seems like every time we have a new mailing cycle the price goes up. The pricing can’t change every 10 weeks, can it??

Does anyone have another direct mailing company they use that they are happy with?

Thank you in advance
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My contract is $199/week for 500 pieces/week. Is yours higher?
 
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Joe said:
My contract is $199/week for 500 pieces/week. Is yours higher?
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Ours is identical for one of our stores. I think the discrepancy is that we keep going to menus rather than the postcards/magnets/scratch offs. Each piece costs slightly different and it seemed as if they were jacking the price up each time, when really T was justified

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Ive thought about Mailshark almost pulled the trigger…then this guy walked in saying he does menu distribution. He charges me .06 a door. I said sure ill give it a shot(he does other places in the city, one pizza place, one chinese, per day) Total cost was $60. I told him the neighborhood and the day to deliver them. We were slammed those next 2 days. It was the fastest marketing thing Ive done.
I was a happy camper but he now lives in Arizona:(
 
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I believe their contract price is to mail postcards , menus , magnets & scratch offs.

If you change it , the price changes. (Obviously a postcard is cheaper to print then a big menu mailer)

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RobT said:
I believe their contract price is to mail postcards , menus , magnets & scratch offs.

If you change it , the price changes. (Obviously a postcard is cheaper to print then a big menu mailer)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I would think that menus are cheaper than the magnets and scratch offs though?

I’m in the middle of my scratch offs and in what should be my slow time of year I’m hitting record weeks. But the magnet mailer they did for me seemed to have a relatively crappy response. Next year I’ll look to sub this for something else.
 
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paul7979 said:
I would think that menus are cheaper than the magnets and scratch offs though?

I’m in the middle of my scratch offs and in what should be my slow time of year I’m hitting record weeks. But the magnet mailer they did for me seemed to have a relatively crappy response. Next year I’ll look to sub this for something else.
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I would think so too.

I only did the menu mailer for the whole year . I felt it got the best response for me . I put the New York football teams schedule on the magnet mailer , and got many compliments. I still feel the best result was having the entire menu in front of the customer for bigger check averages.

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My menu is bright, big, and beautiful, there is no way menus are cheaper than my scratch offs and postcards.
 
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RobT said:
I would think so too.

I only did the menu mailer for the whole year . I felt it got the best response for me . I put the New York football teams schedule on the magnet mailer , and got many compliments. I still feel the best result was having the entire menu in front of the customer for bigger check averages.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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We did a schedule magnet as well, thought it would be a good idea to put the Penguins schedule on it since they play from October to April (Mid June this year baby! Let’s Go Pens!!)

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I ran the entire yearly program last year, and this year i have just done mostly Menu’s. This cycle i am doing the magnets to switch stuff up while my menu is being adjusted, and to get them back out again.

Taking year from year, i can tell you from what i have experienced all the different items for the yearly program do work. And yes some cost more, some less. Magnets are more for long term, keep that number in front of them every day. Scratch offs were, for me, a really quick response. We rarely got one from an area after 1 week from drop.

But for quick return, Menu’s seem to always work the best. Get the full Menu in front of as many people as possible and you will get more orders.

I like to shake things up from time to time and see what happens compared to last year. Sometimes if i think something wasn’t working i will run no advertising, just to see what difference i get. With advertising it really comes down to what works for your store (or stores and each one can be different) and running with it. Sometimes it can take awhile to figure it out, and others you can get lucky and hit it on the first try.
 
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December said:
Ive thought about Mailshark almost pulled the trigger…then this guy walked in saying he does menu distribution. He charges me .06 a door. I said sure ill give it a shot(he does other places in the city, one pizza place, one chinese, per day) Total cost was $60. I told him the neighborhood and the day to deliver them. We were slammed those next 2 days. It was the fastest marketing thing Ive done.
I was a happy camper but he now lives in Arizona:(
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So I dont know if mailshark is doing just 500 random adresses for you or data base mailing. If just a certain area you can do EDDM with the post office for $150 per thousand with no bulk permit if you can get quality postcarss for $70 a thousand thats $220 or 21 more for twice as many. You dont need address labels or anything. Just go to them and say route xyz has 1200 adresses here is 1200 cards they have to say eddm on them so check before printing. The downside is i think you have to mail an entire carier route. As far as doorhangers. They work and yield 2 to 3 times the responce of direct mail. There are two very easy doorhanging tricks. 1 sheduale every driver for 1 to 2 hrs a week of doorhanging. Ask them to pick the day they would like and shedule it before their shift. They can do between 65 and 75 an hr for houses more if you can hang apartments. The second one works really good print doorhangers with a profitable offer and a large text on top that says your neighbours at_______ just ordered. Ask them how our pizza was and get this offer valid until __________ when an order comes in grab two hangers with a felt pen write the house number only and on the second line a date 7 days later finaly have the driver sign or intial it. When they deliver they hang the neighbors on both sides. The one or 2 minute delay will be almost nothing to the store flow. But if you are doing 300 deliveries a week you will get 600 doorhangers delivered. If your product is good you will get a 5-7% responce. Because they will talk to their neighbors. The key to this hanger is a bold instantly visable offer like LARGE 2 TOP & CHEESE BREAD 14.99 and the text about the neighbors. Any driver that gets 10 of them back gets a free pie.
 
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Warren said:
So I dont know if mailshark is doing just 500 random adresses for you or data base mailing. If just a certain area you can do EDDM with the post office for $150 per thousand with no bulk permit if you can get quality postcarss for $70 a thousand thats $220 or 21 more for twice as many. You dont need address labels or anything. Just go to them and say route xyz has 1200 adresses here is 1200 cards they have to say eddm on them so check before printing. The downside is i think you have to mail an entire carier route.
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I’ve done USPS and it’s a lot of extra work. You have to separate those 1200 into 100 stacks and round to the nearest number on the route. For instance if there are 370 addresses on a route, they require you to give them 400 and if there are 320 addresses on a route, they only want 300. You still have to design and print everything yourself too plus pay for postage. It’s quite the hassle and MailShark was extremely easy to work with and on top of every detail thus far. USPS is prehistoric comparatively speaking.
 
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Lol well compaired to what it was like years ago still way better. There are print houses that give great printing rates and shil you your print in bundles of 100 already just for that reason.
 
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