Image Publishing is looking to collect at least $2 million in revenue this year from its cooperative mailings to small businesses, says company director Sunil Patel.
Along with its daily flagship program Welcome Business USA, the Los Angeles company mails Bizpak every two weeks to the same 3,000 to 5,000 firms it sources every day from county registrars in 32 major markets across the country.
Bizpak is a biweekly mailing which costs less than half that of Welcome Business USA, but has fewer side benefits (such as a Web site). The company has distributed the daily drop for the past seven years.
“We’re doing this to get new companies interested in co-op mail,” says Patel. “This is a medium they can test for six months, while with Welcome Business USA we require a yearlong commitment.”
Advertisers for the programs include Dell Computer, First Data, HP and Sprint. These organizations reportedly get response rates between 1.5% and 2% to their offerings. Image is looking for 15% more revenue from Welcome Business, says Patel.
Besides the mailings, Image maintains a Welcome Business Web site (www.welcomebiz.com) and is developing another site for a new homeowners program.
Image runs Welcome Business in conjunction with the Service Corps of Retired Executives and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
“We’re a major source of new names for them,” says managing director Alon Doron.
Image has assigned three of its eight salespeople to work on Bizpak. The mailings generally will be in 5-1/2 by 8-1/2-inch packages. Bizpak is starting out with 16 advertisers in fields like computers, credit card merchant processing, and voice over Internet protocol telecommunications. Patel hopes to have more than 25 participants by year’s end.
But he adds, “We don’t want to be a Valpak and have 40 or 50 advertisers.” Nor is the firm seeking any category-exclusive advertisers.
