Very nice Mary!
I see great minds think alike as we have come up with similar designs - although I think I tried to cram too many little pictures into too little an area! One can always re-design the next batch if these produce any results at all.
Good luck!

A side note about ordering mailing lists. If you use USAdata.com, or other, watch where your quantity cut-offs are. I realized that my list of 500 names (of the 7500 available names) came to about $70, but if I had been paying attention and ordered 501 names (the cut off for the next lower price per name), the order would have only been $50.

Man, I am saving you guys a lot of dough out there through my own mistakes. What are friends for, right?

Those cards look great! I am really wanting to do this now.

Mary- that little boy outside by the urn - I remember the reference photo, but did you Unveil it? It looks really good.

I just happened to see this thread on direct mail and thought I'd join in on the discussion ( a little late maybe). I, too, did my first direct mail attempt (also in Nov., John). I ordered 1,000 larger postcards through modernpostcard.com, but gathered names on my own (ugh!). I spent a lot of time and money on this "project", hand addressed them and used artistic stamps. I got names through private school buzz books and (get this!) through the internal revenue website by searching street names. I happen to know where the wealth is in my city, in fact I was even able to get the addresses of August Busch and Mary Englebright (like she would have me do a portrait for her!). However.....I must tell you all that I have gotten ZERO responses. The only people who verbally mentioned something were those I knew personally. If I could get one small commission from this mailing I would feel it was worth it. To tell you the truth, I will not be using this marketing method too much in the future. I think people get so much junk that even the most gorgeous postcard goes unnoticed. I would love to hear if any of you get a response from your mailing and I will let you know if I ever do :)

Melinda, Hello.
I believe the direct mail is a sound avenue to get your name out there. I also believe that it is only one part of a whole effort. In my location (several cities with upper class dwellings) direct mail along with viewings, newspaper stories or anything else you can do will put you in the mind of your chosen target. Usually it takes several mailings to the same people to make an impression. Explore all avenues available to you to get your name out. I will admit that direct mail might not be the best avenue for every situation.

I still believe that I made a mistake in mailing so close to the holidays. But even on the down side, they might recognize me the next time.

Also keep in mind that just because you mailed a card to someone there usually is not a call for action. It's not like we are advertising a "sale". The decision to have a portrait done is one that the client makes in their own time frame.

Melinda, what's a "private school buzz book"?

Thanks for sharing your experience Melinda. I too think however that it is too soon to tell. Like anything else, persistence yields results.
I just got my cards back today from overnightprints. They look very nice, but for those of you concerned about color (that would be all of you painters), it is not exact. My nice burgundy panels came out more of a velvety chocolate. They still look quite nice and I am not that concerned about color. How did yours turn out Mary?

When I ordered prints online the printer also had me use my own printer for a small portion of the painting (at the size the print would be) and print him off exactly the colors as they should be since every computer is different. This enabled him to adjust the digital file he had to match exactly. Im wondering if the postcard companies offer the same thing?

Heidi, I just tracked the tracking number and they are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.

Hi Heidi,

With sculptures, I wouldn't imagine you would be as concerned with color matching, but for others I wanted to mention a few things that will hopefully be helpful.

To match color precisely, the printer should be able to tell you what color space they are working in (i.e. RGB, sRGB, CMYK, etc.). Then you could provide them an image saved in that color space if you have Photoshop CS. If it's an odd color space, they should provide a downloadable color space profile for you to use. This is assuming that your monitor is calibrated, so that the image you see on your monitor in that particular color space will match the image on their calibrated monitor in that same color space. While it certainly would work to provide the printer a proof yourself, as Kim said, and have them match it, you're relying on them to adjust color correctly, and they're potentially messing up the balance of color/tone that you have in your image.

For those of us who don't have Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements and many other image editing programs don't allow *real* conversions between different color spaces. They may allow you to save an image in different color spaces, but when they switch between different color spaces there will be a very noticeable (and unwanted) color shift in your image. There is a relatively cheap ($40) program called Qimage that will convert without a change in color. It has a very different interface, and a moderately steep learning curve, however there is a 30-day free trial.

I provided Modern Postcard with exactly such a printout (called a "match print") to help them with the color. The color of my cards was darn near an exact match to the match print and the CMYK file I sent them.

My neck of the woods
 

modernpostcard is 30 miles from where I live. In case anyone needs somebody to make a quick dash over after 3:00pm Pacific Time for emergencies you can keep me in mind.

overnightprints is about 90 miles from where I live which won't be an easy feat but for a dedicated SOG forum member I can be persuaded to bend over back-wards on Fridays :)

Disheartened
 

Well, I sent out my postcards yesterday and didn't even expect any of them to be delivered so soon. When I got home from work, there were messages on my phone machine. They were not the type of messages that I would have hoped for. They were from people telling me to take their names off of my mailing list.

They must have no idea that it was a one time mailing list borrowed from a public data source - I couldn't remove their name if I wanted to.
Did any of you ever get such a rude response? I mean really - if not interested, it takes a lot more time to sit there and call someone and tell them so than to just toss the little piece of paper in the garbage. Anyway, I hope ALL of them don't feel like they've been spammed. How disheartening :( - people can be so thoughtless.

Heidi,

I think that when you reach out to a large number of people you can expect every type of response. It's just a matter of percentages. In any large sampling of people there are a certain number of A.H.'s. There should also be some percentage of people, albeit small in percentage terms, that will respond positively.

Yeah, I know that to be true Mike. It's just a darn shame that it's the A.H's that are so quick with their A.H. responses!

Heidi,

How ugly! A.H. isn't strong enough but I can't think of anything else that I can use on this forum.

I agree with Mike but this is just outright rude. When someone goes that far to make you unwelcome you must shake their dust from you, turn your back and walk away. They are unworthy of you.

I've seen your work posted here and it's beautiful.

By the way, when I was in advertising we used to say, "Everybody has an A.H. and some people have to act like one."

Holly,

I just read your post regarding color and would like to add something on the subject that I know and might be helpful for others.

Most of the postcards being discussed here are from one supplier on the west coast. That supplier is an offset printer. They work in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and key or black). When designing your postcard you should use CMYK "process" colors. That means colors that can be achieved by mixing CMYK. You should never use spot color or a pantone color as this would then have to be converted and CMYK can't match all pantone colors. If you do use a spot color the printer will have to lay down an additional color, raising the cost to you or try to match as close as possible.

Also, a match print is always a necessary tool if you are critical regarding the color. With that the printer has a goal that is achievable. :exclamati

Wow Heidi, I'm so sorry you got that response.

I got mine yesterday. They look nice, it is odd, the paintings themselves look pretty much like I expected them to look, but the rest of it looks darker and browner than it does on my monitor.

At any rate, I am planning on mailing some out this week. My husband is a financial planner so he kindly printed out his mailing list and went through the ones that he knew had young children and that he knows could afford a portrait. The rest of the names on my mailing list are coming from referrals, I have asked a few people that have portraits from me if they knew of anyone that may be interested. One of the girls just gave me 20 names of all of her old college friends that had recently been to visit and had expressed interest in her portrait. My sister-in-law also has given me several names of people that have expressed a little interest at her daughters private school in her town.
My hope is that while I do not know many if not most of the people on my list, that they have all have some form of connection to someone that already has a portrait I have done. I am hoping that this will keep me from getting the response you have unfortunately gotten.

Michelle, a private school buzz book is what people around here call that school's telephone directory. Not everyone wants to lend them out, including my own sister who teaches at a very exclusive private elementary school. It's not a bad way to find young parents who may want portraits. I guess I need to be patient (which I'm not at the moment). Hope that helps!

Michele and others,

Did you include any price information on your card?

What is your thinking on this?

I didn't include any price information on my card. I'd like it to have a long useful life and my prices could change at any time. I wouldn't want someone to expect a price that was printed on a card they kept from two years before, or from a card that I put out on a table somewhere two years after it was first printed.

A compromise might be "Prices start at ...."

Mike

I chose not to include pricing information as I believe that is something that should be discussed in closing the sale. I will not hesitate to give out a beginning price but too often it needs to be qualified.

I didn't put anything about prices on my postcard. I did say, "For addional portrait samples, visit www.melindaroeleveld.com. " That was my main purpose---to get people on the website to see all the possibilites. I'm still waiting for the phone to ring :-)

I was talking to Modern Postcard about purchased lists. They indicated to me that for a list of families in my little burg which have a combined income of over $150,000, homeowner - single family dwelling, and with home valued at $775,000+, the number of available contacts that fit this demographic profile was 939.

I asked if they might take off the "single family dwelling" indicator, because I thought that there were oodles of condo owners in this area that would be nice to include.

Having dropped this criteria he came back with the number 1008. This is curious to me. Sarasota is nothing if not littered with million dollar condos, yet he only picked up 69 more hits.

I'm dubious about these lists but don't know of another effective way to do it.

Mike, I don't know much about this listing business but I sorta think it's categorized under "fulfillment" industry. Judging from the volume in my mailbox everyday, I'd think there would be quite some competition out there, maybe even in your local area.

What about getting the cards from Modernpostcard and find a suitable local fulfillment company to do the rest ?

There is a certain logic to that. I'll be getting some local quotes. I'm always in the mood for local fulfillment.

I wonder if the list services don't capture information on people who aren't full time residents of a particular area. These high end condos may be just winter homes for people who might show up on a database of Cleveland instead of Sarasota.

As you have probably already learned, you can shop around for lists without committing. There are several list services on the internet where you can enter your criteria and get a total number of addresses.

Try shopping around and see what consistency's exists.

Heidi, I hope that you stopped getting rude calls about your cards.
Have you gotten any positive feedback?

I am happy to say that I mailed out only fifty a couple of days ago and already had someone call to have a head and shoulders done of their toddler to be followed by a larger one in a couple of years...I feel quite sure this is someone that probably wouldn't have thought to call without the nudge of the card. So at the very least, this little investment seems to have already paid for itself. :)

Congratulations Mary!

Michele,

There are bunches of these types around here. I learned today from a local vendor of lists that you have the ability to target either the address of the physical property, or the address where the tax bill is sent.

In the case of the Florida snow birds, as the seasonal travelers from the north are called, this is their season to be in the south. So I think I will mail to the local address.

Nice going Mary,

That's a two percent response. I've heard that three percent is a very good response.

Great news Mary. That is certainly encouraging for you to continue sending them to the names on the list that you have acquired.

No responses here yet. Arizona has the same problem as Florida - full of snowbirds. Many of them build million plus dollar houses and only live in them for a week or two during the year. Unimaginable.

After thinking about it, the list that I had a sampling of was so large (about 8000 residents with million$ plus property values), I should have narrowed the field down substantially by choosing 750k + home values and also added a lifestyle filter of expressed intrest in art/antique collection. That category exists on usadata.com, but I didn't apply it. Just because someone has money, we can't assume they have any interest at all in art.

I'm a little late for this thread, but I thought my MBA in marketing and 30 years experience might be of help. It is correct that direct mail will elicit a 2 to 3% response rate. However, the real key is the frequency or number of times the image comes before the customer. It usually takes 12 or more mailings before direct mail makes an impression in the mind of the recipient and 25 or more mailings before a purchase decision is made. So don't give up. Keep the mailings going. It is a very smart and effective way to market. Also, don't change the campaign image once you start. Use the same mailing image unless it is an obvious bust.

Thanks, Richard, for your insights. Not sure I can afford to do a dozen mailings any time soon but I do plan to mail to the same group two or three times a year. Might be four years at that rate before I get a commission!

Michele, If the number of mailings is limited, then schedule your mail drops about 4 weeks apart. The object is to reinforce short term memory recall. Even 3 such mailings should have some impact. Also, it is better to have a smaller, highly targeted mail list than a larger, less focused one. Money spent on specific demographic features is money saved for extra mailings.

Direct mail houses can take your list and fully automate your mailing at bulk mail postal rates. This is a big time saver. If you seed your list with your name and address and maybe that of a friend, you can check whether or not the list was sent out properly. Wish you success.

Thanks, Richard, great suggestions!

Can any of you refer me to someone to design a postcard for me. Thank you.
Lisa

Lisa, Jennifer Geary did mine. She is a member of this forum. I think she is quite good with graphic design.

Lisa has decided to hire me to do the graphic design work for her postcard. Her paintings are great and I'm sure she'll do well.

I have 7 years of experience as a professional graphic designer prior to becoming a portrait artist. If anyone else is interested in having me design promotional print materials for them, just send me an email.

I previously wrote:

I have since contacted a local list company. I gave the same parameters to this company and they came back with 8000 on the list. I think you could make differenct conclusion from this. One is that local knowledge is best. They also spoke of their ability to pin point neighborhoods and not zip codes, which in this town would be very inefficient. Again, they talked with local knowledge.