15% Response? It’s Easy In A Small, Specialized Business

The benefits of owning a small business are many. They include being your own boss, making decisions on your own, and providing for your own financial future.

But in direct marketing, there is another compelling advantage seldom considered when deciding to go into business for yourself. You can choose to enter a specialized niche market where the entrepreneur becomes an expert in a limited field, providing valuable hands-on customer service, and eliminating the need to compete with hundreds of look-alike competitors.

John and Michael Sullivan, the father-and-son team who own Envelopes & More, Bloomfield, CT, are highly successful in their $2 million-a-year operation selling printed envelopes to small printers happy to outsource envelopes. They sell only one product, envelopes, and their niche is limited to the printing trade. Their mailings get a 10% to 15% response.

In printing, John explains, the costs of setting up a small run of envelopes on a sheet-fed press are the same as for running large quantities, so that small runs of envelopes are not cost-effective. Even quick print shops that print letters and brochures in two or three days will order envelopes separately from Envelopes & More. The Sullivans can turn their orders around faster and at a lower cost.

Envelopes & More gets new customers from trade show contacts, direct mail and magazine inserts, as well as their Web site, www.envmore.com. Their chief selling point is that all orders are turned around in three to five days, regardless of the size of the order, or the size of the envelope.

John Sullivan says the company has great success with direct mail. “We mail postcards to get attention, since we’re an envelope company. On Earth Day, we once mailed an entirely empty envelope on recycled paper, with the message that there was no need to open the envelope. The entire sales message was printed on the envelope.”

They mail out price catalogs in addition to the postcards. “Mailing experts can’t believe that we get a response of 10% to 15%, but we get it because of our very targeted audience, just a few hundred printers,” John says.

Most Envelopes & More orders are small, averaging around $250, and they are shipped right out to the printer’s door in five days or less.

Ease of ordering is part of the company’s customer service. You upload your typeset copy or art work directly on the Web site. All pre-press and printing processes are digital, so envelope copy goes almost immediately into production.

What about re-orders and customer loyalty? “A printer waits until he’s writing up a request for a bid,” John says. “If he hears from us at that moment, he’ll place an order. If he doesn’t hear from us, he won’t order.” So frequent contacts are essential.

Mike Sullivan has been the manager of Envelopes & More for the past two years.

He’s taking over the reins from his father. “It’s my retirement,” John says, another of the benefits of owning your own business.

Fred Morath is a direct mail consultant, copywriter and list specialist at Fred Morath Direct Marketing, Natick MA.