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Should I be Worried?

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Rockstar_pizza

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I signed up with a company to do a weekly mailer. My design is compete and the first one goes to print THURSDAY. The total Cost is roughly $26,000. I heard through my food rep that a competitor. (less than one mile) is thinking of doing the same thing. While he is a very very small threat, I feel it will defiantly diminish my RIO. We have just a little over 13,000 in our town and I have heard through a supplier that a third may be doing it too! I reached out to the company and they told me there are NO PROTECTED area and will do everything possible to make sure there are no duplicate routes on the same week! BUT I have had a prior unrelated conversation about mailings and from what I was told “they have NO CONTROL on when the post office delivers them”
Prior to all of this I planned on doing a weekly chronicle on this platform of how well this worked on a weekly basis. There had been a lot of questions concerning menu mailing vs post cards vs other mailers.

I am pretty sure I am going to do just what I have designed so far and opt out. My question is how much of an effect will this have? What would you do?
 
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$26,000!? I live in a similar size town and I can send something in the mail to every address once a month for that. (It would also be my entire marketing budget for the year) How many total pieces get mailed for that?
 
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I would be mailing 1500 menu pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then 1500 Postcards (5.5x 10.5) pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
1500 4.5 x10.5 post card magnets 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then repeat the first two:
1500 menu pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then 1500 Postcards (5.5x 10.5) pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
total of 50 mailers,
75000 total pieces distributed over 1 year
so each home should recieve 5 pieces a year
 
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26K is a whole lot to commit to for a single marketing campaign that doesn’t have a proven track record for your store. I too would be pizzed if a company I just spent that much with was actively selling the other pizza shops in town. That said, being in a larger town, if I wanted all of my pieces to hit on a day with no other pizza pieces in the mailbox I would have to cease mailing.
 
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I would be mailing 1500 menu pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then 1500 Postcards (5.5x 10.5) pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
1500 4.5 x10.5 post card magnets 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then repeat the first two:
1500 menu pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
then 1500 Postcards (5.5x 10.5) pieces 10 times (13000 homes plus a few in the surrounding neighborhood)
total of 50 mailers,
75000 total pieces distributed over 1 year
so each home should recieve 5 pieces a year
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Sounds like Mailshark. I would be surprised if two of your competitors signed up with them at the same time you have. It’s also unlikely that they will pick the same number to mail per week(mailshark tends to push the 1K/week) and the exact same routes. Even if they do choose the same addresses to mail to, chances are pretty good that overlap would only happen occasionally.
 
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On a per piece basis it sound reasonable…Depending on your market it may or may not be enough times…Some of my clients do as often as 12 times a year or as few as 4 times a year…You really need to test your market to see where you land…Every market is unique and needs to be tweaked…

Will each item be spread over 10 weeks or so?..A consistent approach usually pays off over the long run…
 
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We have 11,000 addresses including all the business addresses in our town. I could do almost exactly 10 mailings to all of them that amount of money… total of 110,000 pieces. I tend to use mailings with a focus on three things:
  1. First time customers. I always include one killer offer that I call a “Try Us” offer. Yes our existing customers get to use it too.
  2. Getting customers to try online ordering so I capture an email address and can reach them for free in the future.
  3. Pumping up sales in our slower season.
To that end, I will typically do a couple of mailings per year. I would be bummed if a competitor ended up in the mailbox the same week but such is life. Make sure your piece looks as good as it can be and that your offer is designed to meet your goals whatever they are.
 
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For $26,000 you could hire someone for a year to walk around town all day and tell people about your business for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
 
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For $26,000 you could hire someone for a year to walk around town all day and tell people about your business for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
Click to expand...
I can not imagine that would have anywhere near the reach or effect…
 
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I started up with mailshark again about 2 months ago… I don’t know why I ever stop. 5 pieces of professionally designed mail including our new menu which looks fantastic, the 500 bucks a month that comes out of my account every week is a drop out of a very large bucket. Don’t worry about whatever your competitor is doing Rockstar, there is a big difference between ‘thinking about doing’ and ‘doing’. People in my market think about things all the time. No regrets here.
 
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I started with 1000 pieces/week with mailshark. Then went to 2000/week for two years. I am now doing 3000/week for the second year. It is the best $900/week I could spend! My sales have Increased over 25k/week during that time frame, and we are still seeing double digit increases. I would expect your sales to increase dramatically.
 
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