First Mailshot
October 31, 2003
Positive results are still coming in from that first mailshot of a few weeks ago. I've already scored 2 bits of business from it, and I'm having a meeting on Monday morning which looks like it could lead to a 3rd. So, while it is tedious and time consuming sticking letters into envelopes and pasting stamps on, it is certainly worthwhile!
That first mailshot was a lot of hard work. First I had to get the letterhead designed and printed. Then ensure the brand new printer could cope. There was steam coming out of the printer as the first of the 200+ letters came through, but it soon dissipated. Purchase the envelopes and stamps (yet another cause for one to bemoan the high cost of living in Ireland). Then stuff em. Over the past decade I've been blessed with franking machines and people who stuff envelopes efficiently and without dripping papercut blood stains all over them. So one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago I got stuck into it myself.
In the middle of stuffing, the addressee's names started to look too familiar and I convinced myself that I had double printed some of the letters. Hours later, I worked out that I hadn't and was ready to walk to the nearest postbox to rid myself of the load. The postbox beside the Shelbourne Hotel was the receptacle of choice, I wasn't taking any chances at this stage, Smithfield postboxes could be subject to vandalism, or bangers and firework damage. And a blood stained half burned piece of marketing material is hardly the image I want to put forward for Brightspark! Once they were all in, waiting for the next stage of their journey I could relax.
Two days later, the calls began. The joy of doing follow-up calls in Ireland is that people are, on the whole, very friendly on the telephone. In my experience of making follow up calls in the UK, I have been made to feel like a little worm that needs to be flicked away.not so in Ireland.
Anyway, the upshot is, 2 nice corporate intranets to get my teeth stuck into, and possibly a third. There are some others I need to call back early in the new year, so they could lead to some business then. Hot on the heels of the success of that mailshot, I'm now about to get going on another one. This time it's targeting organisations in The Arts. I'll report back on how that one goes later.