Table of Contents
“Kick Off Your Sales” advertisement
“Want To Celebrate” advertisement
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is attempting to increase direct mail postage by getting companies nationwide to participate in Super Bowl Sale Week in Your Mailbox, a campaign aimed at generating $50 million in new postage, during Super Bowl week, for the Postal Service. This campaign will benefit the Companies that participate by increasing sales. Extensive advertising for this campaign will be executed during the months leading up to the Super Bowl. We will use direct mail as our primary medium and magazine advertisements to target national and local customers. In addition, one business will be awarded a visit from Tom Peters.
The USPS serves several million retail customers daily, with 107 billion pieces of first class mail being delivered each year. Overall, the USPS handles 41 percent of the world’s mail volume totaling 650 million pieces every day. Clearly, the USPS has a proven track record with good results in the delivery and servicing of mail (www.usps.com).
Why
Use USPS?
In 1998, an independent opinion research group (The Pew Research Center for the People and Press) stated, “9 out of 10 Americans give the U.S. Postal Service the highest favorability rating of any federal agency.” They received an 89 percent favorability rating in 1998 compared to a 76 percent rating in 1987 putting them at the top of the list of 15 federal agencies (Annual Report 4).
The Postal Service is trying to increase customer satisfaction. Four years ago, they implemented a management system called Customer Perfect that allows better communication among USPS employees and their customers. As the annual report states, “When our customers asked for more modern retail services, we refurbished hundreds of post office lobbies throughout the United States. When customers asked for access to round-the-clock answers to postal questions-from a person not a machine-we made plans to build six National Service Centers to deliver 24-hour call-in service.”(Annual Report 5)
Working With Businesses
Catalog sales in the U.S. reached $87 billion in 1998. Direct marketing sales, which include mail order and catalog sales, are growing at more than double the rate of overall retail sales (Annual Report 12).
Postal Service representatives work closely with small businesses to help them build more business. The representatives work with larger companies to ensure the support they need to serve their customers (Annual Report 12).
Sales Leads and Mailing Lists
To find our target businesses, we will purchase four lists that include small, medium, and large businesses with a wide range of employees and sales revenues. The listed businesses will be receiving our letter.
We are emphasizing the fact that the USPS is spending $10 million on advertising; that alone should get companies to participate. Super Bowl Sale Week In Your Mailbox will be so well known from the extensive advertising that everyone will be looking for fantastic deals in their mailboxes. It will be beneficial for companies to participate since their customers are looking for their ads. Executives of selected companies will receive letters explaining the event, and others will see our advertisements in magazines.
Companies that participate are eligible to win a visit from Tom Peters, the best selling business author of all time. He is the author of several best sellers such as: In Search Of Excellence, The Circle Of Innovation, and Thriving On Chaos. During his visit to the company, Peters will provide training and consulting support to give insight on ways to become a better company.
Tom Peters
Tom Peters is a graduate of Cornell (B.C.E., M.C.E.) and Stanford (M.B.A., Ph.D.). He presents roughly 85 major seminars each year all over the world. Peters has reexamined, refined, and reinvented his views on innovation (Peters iv). He has been making his ideas and themes come alive inside companies with energizing individual and organizational development for the last ten years. He provides training and consulting support for companies that are serious about making the work matter in their organizations. Peters uses a system he calls “5 Transformations.” The transformations include: From managers to leaders, From work assignments to wow! projects, From departments into professional service firms, From employees into brand you professionals, and From customer service to customer experience. These transformations will ultimately transform individuals and organizations. Tom has written several best-selling books: In Search of Excellence (1982), Thriving On Chaos (1987), Liberation Management (1992), and The Circle of Innovation: You Can’t Shrink Your Way to Greatness (1997). He has also authored hundreds of articles in various newspapers and popular academic journals: Business Week, The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. What distinguishes Peters is his boundless energy and passion that he brings to his audience (www.tompeters.com).
Introduction
We are using media to reach the companies and/or organizations that we are targeting to participate in Super Bowl Sale Week In Your Mailbox.
Direct Mail
We chose Direct Mail as our primary medium, since the whole project is centered on the usage of direct mail. We will use Direct Mail for the delivery of our letters. We will be sending letters to the companies on our purchased lists. Our purchased lists contain small and large companies with sales revenues of under $500,000 to a $1 billion to establish a wide variety of participants.
Magazines
To inform other potential customers, we will place advertisements in the six magazines most likely to be read by upper management: Fortune, Forbes, Industry Week, Entrepreneur, Golf Digest, and Advertising Age. Our ads (“Kick Off Your Sales” and “Want To Celebrate”) will include information on the event, our toll-free phone number, and our Internet address.
Internet
We have created a web page where executives can access information about Super Bowl Sale Week in Your Mailbox. Our web page contains a discussion board where people can post their questions, a digital entry form, and a section with information about Tom Peters.
Telemarketing
Ten telemarketers will be making follow-up phone calls to “close the deal” with the companies that have received our letters. Our telemarketers will be available to answer questions from other prospective customers who call in on our toll-free number (1-888-SBSWEEK).
Introduction
To effectively execute our direct mail, our magazine ads, telemarketing service, and Internet media options, we have established several formats and plans to reach targeted business customers.
Direct Mail
We are using classic format (letter with business reply envelope) for our direct mail piece (see appendix A). This format will present a simple, yet professional, appearance. This style is more likely to be read by our targeted audience. Our mailing will commence August 1st, 2000.
We will include an entry form for company name, address, phone number, email address, and fax number with each letter. The deadline to return entry forms is January 1, 2001 (see appendix B). The entrant will check the box at the top of the entry form to commit.
Our staff will immediately send a letter of congratulations to the winning business once the winner has been announced (see appendix C).
Telemarketing
We are utilizing our ten most experienced salespeople to represent the USPS. These telemarketers will start contacting companies approximately two weeks after the letters have been mailed. We will pay our telemarketers $50 per hour for work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The project is expected to extend for six months (August through January). Our telemarketers objective will be to “close the deal” with interested companies and to persuade hesitant companies to participate (see appendices D-1 through D-4).
Magazines
Our advertisements will emerge in Forbes, Industry Week, Golf Digest, Advertising Age, Fortune, and Entrepreneur. The full page, four-color ads will appear in six issues (August through January) of each magazine (see appendices E and F). According to Bob Stone, “Test results indicate an increase of anywhere from 30 percent to almost 60 percent where there is appropriate and dramatic utilization of the four-color process,” (Stone 71).
Internet
Our website (http://www.usps.com/superbowl.html) is part of the United States Postal Service’s web page. We have included on this site: information about Super Bowl Sale Week In Your Mail Box, a discussion board, information about Tom Peters, and an on-line entry form (see appendix G). On Super Bowl Sunday during halftime, we will update our website announcing the winner of our event.
We have selected six magazines that are likely to be read by our targeted market. Some magazine advertising costs were found on the Internet (Industry Week, Advertising Age, and Entrepreneur), and the others were contacted by telephone. All magazine ads are full page and four-color. We have two different ads, which will be alternated throughout the six months. Ad one is titled “Kick off your sales,” and ad two is titled “Celebrate Super Bowl Sale Week In Your Mailbox.” The breakdown of costs is as follows:
Magazines Months Ad Cost
Industry Week August One 25,190
September Two 25,190
October One 25,190
November Two 25,190
December One 25,190
January Two 25,190
Total 151,140
Entrepreneur August Two 54,400
September One 54,400
October Two 54,400
November One 54,400
December Two 54,400
January One 54,400
Total 326,400
Advertising Age August One 22,530
September Two 22,530
October One 22,530
November Two 22,530
December One 22,530
January Two 22,530
Total 135,180
Fortune August Two 71,700
September One 71,700
October Two 71,700
November One 71,700
December Two 71,700
January One 71,700
Total 430,200
Forbes August One 72,900
September Two 72,900
October One 72,900
November Two 72,900
December One 72,900
January Two 72,900
Golf Digest August Two 69,300
September One 69,300
October Two 69,300
November One 69,300
December Two 69,300
January One 69,300
Total 415,800
We are utilizing our ten best salespeople to work on this project for a period of six months. They will be working 40 hours a week, and will be paid $50 per hour including fringes. They will be calling the businesses on our purchased lists (see VI). A toll-free number will be purchased for six months (August through January). We anticipate receiving 90,000 calls on this number (BizBuyer.com).
15 minutes per call @ 32 cents per minute 4.80 per call
254,462 calls (outgoing) @ 4.80 per call 1,221,418
24 weeks @ 40 hours per week 960 hours per person
10 salespeople @ 960 hours 9,600
9,600 hours @ 50 per hour 480,000
Setup fee (phone lines) 3,000
Training fees (10 people @ 200 per person) 2,000
Campaign management fees 768,000
90,000 incoming calls @ 15 min per call 1,350,000 min
1,350,000 min @ 12 cents per min 162,000
Total Telemarketing Cost $2,636,418
III. Internet
We will hire a programmer to create a web page on the USPS’s server. This programmer will develop the page in four days working eight hours per day. The programmer will also update the web page on the day of the Super Bowl. We anticipate his rate to be $600 per hour. The setup fees refer to the programmer’s setup of equipment to work with the USPS’s server.
4 days @ 8 hours per day 32 hours
32 hours @ 600 per hour 19,200
4 hours @ 600 per hour 2,400
Setup fee 3,400
Total Internet Cost $25,000
IV. Consultant Fees
Tom Peters charges $130,000 for a two-hour presentation. To get this information, we contacted the Tom Peters Company by telephone. Peters will visit the winning company for four hours. We are also paying for Peters’ airfare, hotel accommodations, and dinner.
Two sessions @ 130,000 per session 260,000
Airfare (Continental Airlines) round-trip 2,728
Hotel (Approx.) 300
Dinner (Approx.) 150
Total Consultant Fee Costs $263,178
V. Direct Mailing Costs
We will send 254,462 letters at 16.6 cents per letter. The information about the envelopes and letters was gathered by personally visiting a local print shop. Reply envelopes will be included with our mail piece. For each reply envelope we receive, we will pay an additional 30 cents postage. The window envelope will be printed in four-colors.
Printing
254,462 #10 window envelopes @ 12 cents per envelope 30,535
254,462 #9 reply envelopes @ 3 cents per envelope 7,634
254,462 letters @ 4 cents per letter 10,178
254,462 entry forms @ 1 cent per form 2,545
1 congratulations letter @ 3.00 3.00
Total $50,895
Postage
254,462 mailings @ 16.6 cents 42,241
254,462 reply envelopes @ 30% return rate 76,339
76,339 replies @ 30 cents per reply 22,902
Total $65,143
Total Direct Mailing Cost $112,221
VI. Sales Leads And Mailing Lists
We have purchased four lists that include our targeted companies. Our first list is of small businesses (less than 50 employees) with sales revenues of less than $500,000. The second list is medium sized companies (50 to 250 employees) with sales revenues of $500,000 to $1 billion. The third list consists of large businesses (250 to 5,000 employees) and our fourth list is of industrial businesses (500 to over 10,000 employees). The lists will be purchased and shipped to us.
List Number of Records
Cost/1000 Total
Cost
Small Businesses 103,649 217 22,500
Medium Businesses 39,052 180 7,029
Large Businesses 96,301 180 17,334
Industrial Businesses 15,460 210 3,246
Totals 254,462 787 $50,109
Total Budget $4,983,046
We expect a 2% reply from our direct mail pieces.
254,462 leads @ 2% 5,090
5,090 participants from DM @ 60,000 each 305,400,000
305,400,000 mailings @ 16.6 cents each 50,696,400
The expected number of businesses to reply to our magazine advertisements is approximately 1,000.
1,000 participants from magazines @ 60,000 each 60,000,000
60,000,000 @ 16.6 cents 9,960,000
Total Projected Revenue $60,656,400