Survey Marketer's Mailing Gets 15% Response

A company that conducts customer satisfaction surveys for automobile insurance firms and repair shops got a 15% response to a three-part mailing it sent out earlier this year. The budget was less than $100,000.

CSi Complete, Plain City, OH, launched a three-step dimensional mailing targeted at collision repair shops to set up telephone meetings with decision-makers at those shops.

For the mailing CSi used a combination of its house files and compiled lists from D&B, Zap Data and other sources, said Ernest Nicastro, president of Positive Response, CSi's Dublin, OH-based agency.

All told, CSi has converted 10 new accounts from the mailing, which went to 300 prospects. Each account is expected to generate on average $2,200 a year in revenue, which in five years is projected to reach a total of $110,000, said Nicastro.

After each wave of mailings, CSi telemarketers followed up to book telephone meetings with the company's director of sales, Erich Keller.

The first mailing, “Message in a Bottle,” was delivered in a 32-ounce squeeze sport water bottle imprinted with CSi's logo and contact information.

The premium for the telephone meeting was an engraved world time clock/calculator.

The headline on this letter read: “Thirsty for more repair orders?” The subhead read, in part, “Get ready to drink up! Write more ROs (repair orders) in '04 — and every year to come — when you take action on this message in a bottle.”

The second mailing was a bank pouch with the imprinted headline “Put More Money in the Bank.” It was mailed in a 9-inch by 12-inch full-window envelope.

The letter inside the pouch read, “How to write more repair orders while lowering your overhead and improving workplace performance. And you can take that to the bank!”

The third mailing was a boxed miniature metal trash can. Inside the can was a crumpled-up letter with the headline, “Can do? Yes!” and copy that read, in part: “CSi Complete can help you run a more profitable business. But…you be the judge.

“Take a hard look and you'll see for yourself why more than 2,500 shops in 47 states and two Canadian provinces rely on CSi Complete's top-rated service.”

At press time, CSi hadn't determined if it was going to run the campaign again, Nicastro said.