Some Thoughts On Improving Direct Mailer Response Rates

[yaknow1]

More over-thinking aloud:

If everyone narrowed down their mailings to these age groups, but still spent the same $, that would result in far more mailings going to the same people. You have speculated here before that the problem on low returns is oversaturation of mailings.

When no one is mailing to 50-60 ages, the guy who does will get a great return.

Reminds of when I was in Honolulu a few years ago. My buddies wanted to go to Senor Frogs because that's where every other sailor was going. Get there, two hundred seamen, only two civilian women. You can imagine the feeding frenzy.

After a couple hours of that, we left and went down to the beach; picked up three girls in ten minutes.

 

[Jack B]

I ran across a guy that got the highest return on the E64 I ever heard of. Nearly 10%. He said he always gets 3.5. % but in one sweet spot there were only 1400 to mail and he got 137 leads. Now that is sweet!

Which area? I get average of bit over 3% from e64 leads in nyc, but I think I have more flakes then other areas, so it kind of evens out.

 

[Newby]

Which area? I get average of bit over 3% from e64 leads in nyc, but I think I have more flakes then other areas, so it kind of evens out.

Yes. I think I'll tell and start the next gold rush. Nah!

If you see me going on a long working vacation, you'll know where it is.

 

[Thad.Sipple]

First off the income filters are wrong 40% of the time or more.

Second throw in life insurance on the card and does the closing ratio go up exponentially. NO.

Take in consideration the timing of when the card shows up in the mail their life situation etc.

Screw the lead and what it says, the age, income etc, on a long term basis you will close what YOUR skill level and work effort allows.

I have tested every variation and at the end of the days it's about the "basic" lead.

Ya saying life insurance is a tiny better, calling only females is a little better but it isn't enough to go ****, the wheel is re invented I am a genius.

 

[Glen Shelton]

First off the income filters are wrong 40% of the time or more. Second throw in life insurance on the card and does the closing ratio go up exponentially. NO. Take in consideration the timing of when the card shows up in the mail their life situation etc. Screw the lead and what it says, the age, income etc, on a long term basis you will close what YOUR skill level and work effort allows. I have tested every variation and at the end of the days it's about the "basic" lead. Ya saying life insurance is a tiny better, calling only females is a little better but it isn't enough to go ****, the wheel is re invented I am a genius.

I was always curious how accurately income info could really be pulled...

 

[Viktor Elder]

Hi Guys:

We have discussed at length on simpler ways to lift final expense lead response rates, chiefly through eliminating references to life insurance on the reply card.

Today I'd like to explore other ways to lift response without changing the lead piece, namely through modification of the mailing list itself.

For you final expense agents marketing to the "final expense" market (50-85, 0-50k HHI), I would wager all of you share similar breakdowns of your final expense clientele:

1) 90% or greater are on a fixed income.

2) Most sales made to single person households aren't earning any less than $650 a month, and sales made to multi-person households aren't earning any less than $1300 a month.

3) Anecdotally, less than 10% of sales are made to either (a) single person households, or (b), multi-person households, making more than $2500 a month.

4) Building on Point 1, virtually all sales are made to people on Medicare.

Based on my personal sales experience above, here are some thoughts I am having:

A) There are close to 60 million people in America between the ages of 50 and 64 -- there are close to 9 million people classified as "Disabled Workers," which I would figure would represent (a) 18-64 year olds, and (b), would overwhelmingly be in the 50-64 age bracket.

Here's my point -- if 90% of my clients aged 50-64 do not work, are disabled, and on Medicare, why should I continue to waste so much marketing dollars on leads going out to a low-opportunity suspect?

B) In one of my favorite counties to work, there are approximately 12,000 50-85 year olds with a household income of $0k-$50k. Putting an income filter of $7k-$30k on 50-85 year olds cuts that number of mailing recipients in half.

My thoughts are - even if I lose a small minority of respondents by focusing the income strata, even with the nearly 50% reduction in names, if I get the same number of "ideal" names to respond anyway, I should close to double my response rate, thus reducing my lead cost by half.

C) If 90% of my customers 50-64 are on disability, and 95%+ are on Medicare, why not just mail people ages 50-64 who receive Medicare benefits, versus wasting marketing capital on low-opportunity names?

Just some out-loud thoughts I wanted to share; with response rates continuing to plummet, it's important to think creatively on how to maximize our marketing dollars so this life insurance niche remains profitable to pursue.

I came across a few sweet spots and mailed the crap out of them. I burned the pleasant sales up for a couple rotations and was left with the undesirables.

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

First off the income filters are wrong 40% of the time or more.

Second throw in life insurance on the card and does the closing ratio go up exponentially. NO.

Take in consideration the timing of when the card shows up in the mail their life situation etc.

Screw the lead and what it says, the age, income etc, on a long term basis you will close what YOUR skill level and work effort allows.

I have tested every variation and at the end of the days it's about the "basic" lead.

Ya saying life insurance is a tiny better, calling only females is a little better but it isn't enough to go ****, the wheel is re invented I am a genius.

Income filters seem to work pretty well for me. If I lower it below 20k I am getting a considerable amount of people on medicaid. I hear people say all the time that the income filter is worthless but somehow it works for me...

 

[Thad.Sipple]

Income filters seem to work pretty well for me. If I lower it below 20k I am getting a considerable amount of people on medicaid. I hear people say all the time that the income filter is worthless but somehow it works for me...

Maybe it's your list.



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In all seriousness if you pull a list and put zero age or income filter you will see a lot of blank areas, which for me are people that never get contacted.

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

Maybe it's your list.



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In all seriousness if you pull a list and put zero age or income filter you will see a lot of blank areas, which for me are people that never get contacted.

I do have access to the absolute best quality lists in the industry for very low prices. It's way better than any of those unlimited plans like infofree and others...

 

[TwiLight]

I believe the reason for Stagnate Rates that agents get, is they SETTLE for the Vendors Lead Card and do not customize their own card to mail.

Make it slightly different than the boiler room copy that a Vendor uses and make it your own in your region of the country....

We all can agree that the sweet spot is ages 60-75... Ages 50-58 and 76-80 are among the highest numbers returned and some of the worst clients as persistence and cost are issues with these ages.

I have one simple thing that actually boosts quality and response rate, no matter what your choice in DEMO..... Female First.....

It is a term that does not mean Females only it means that a household that has both spouses... The head of the household is usually male and listed on the address label the vendor uses for DM.....

Female First simply reverses the order in those households and will list the Female member of the house on the address label.... There is no cost to do this and should easily be available to any agent at Zero cost from the List house your DM Vendor uses... You just need to point it out.

Using Female First has actually added 15-20 basis points on returns for our agents, no matter the card used or demographic used.... Female First Works..

Skipper