[HN Gopher] Show HN: PostalAgent - Send Postcards online by circ...
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Show HN: PostalAgent - Send Postcards online by circling areas on a
Google Map
Hey HN, I just launched https://PostalAgent.com, a site that lets
you easily send highly targeted postcards to specific
neighborhoods. I originally built this site 5 years ago but shut
it down when my full time engineering job became too demanding, but
recently I did a full rewrite with many new features. To start you
can select an area using a City, State, or even by circling
specific areas on a Google Map. Then, you can refine your results
and filter on specific demographics, like household income, home
value, rental status, etc You can also search for Businesses
rather than consumers, and even filter by franchise type, presence
of email, IRS tax code, Franchise Type, etc. I was able to get a
few clients signed up very quickly, mostly home services type
businesses and real estate agents, but I think it could be used by
many types of businesses. I have a few customers that are only
using the mailing list feature without sending postcards, likely
for cold email or other marketing outreach. I'm looking for a bit
of feedback from the community.
Author : AutoAPI
Score : 34 points
Date : 2024-10-07 16:28 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (postalagent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (postalagent.com)
| tonyBran wrote:
| that's pretty awesome. I'm going to give a try. What did you
| build it in?
| AutoAPI wrote:
| Thank you. It's built using Laravel and I am using a Javascript
| canvas editor for the designer
| barkerja wrote:
| Are you using anything like Mapbox?
| AutoAPI wrote:
| No, just Google Maps
| channingd wrote:
| Love the simplicity of just selecting the area on the map.
|
| Great stuff!
| patcon wrote:
| Really curious, but seems to be down. Internet archive showing
| white screen too though, so not sure:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240904211947/https://postalage...
| AutoAPI wrote:
| Sorry about that, I had an issue with Cloudflare and had to
| purge the cache, does it work for you now?
| tylermenezes wrote:
| Still happening here.
| AutoAPI wrote:
| Are you outside North America and possibly getting a
| captcha from CF? Looking into it now, sorry
| tylermenezes wrote:
| Neither.
| MidhaelBollox wrote:
| No
| connor11528 wrote:
| Very cool! I like that you can send small batch sizes to do small
| marketing bets. Going to build a campaign to promote my b2c saas
| in my city
| joshmlewis wrote:
| Are you willing to share what you are using for data sources?
| Particularly the renter, net worth, etc aspects as that is not in
| the publicly available data out there.
| AutoAPI wrote:
| I use MelissaData and a few other similar APIs that are
| available
| muttantt wrote:
| MelissaData has quite a hefty API set up and minimum commit -
| how did you get them to give you API access to the direct
| mail leadgen API?
| AutoAPI wrote:
| I paid a hefty setup fee
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I have a use case immediately for this. Thank you for sharing
| this!
| Y_Y wrote:
| I hate getting unsolicited junk mail. It's got all the attention
| theft of online advertising with the litter of shoving flyers in
| the mailbox.
|
| Also some national postal services sell this "feature".
| fsckboy wrote:
| in the US, this type of junkmail pays for the postal service to
| keep it in the black, so that non-profitable one-off mail of
| personal interest can be delivered quickly and affordably.
| Y_Y wrote:
| The postal service is established the constitution and
| provides essential infrastructure. The fact that it can
| balance its books shouldn't matter.
| simple10 wrote:
| It's fairly easy to opt out of unsolicited ("junk") mail in the
| US [1]. I'm not sure what happens if you try to send bulk
| postcards to people who opted-out. I think either the post
| office doesn't deliver them (but you still pay) or you open
| yourself up to fines if people complain.
|
| Postal Agent might want to auto exclude people who have opted-
| out on the DMAchoice list [2] if it doesn't already do it.
|
| [1] https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-
| remo...
|
| [2] https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| _This service will not eliminate all promotional mail. It
| does not apply to promotional mail from companies or
| organizations that consumers have an existing business
| relationship. It also does not apply to local retailers,
| restaurants, and political organizations. You should expect
| to see a major reduction in the overall volume of prospect
| promotional offers received. Please note that ANA is not the
| source of consumer names for marketing purposes. This opt-in
| mail suppression service is a tool to assist consumers in
| managing their marketing offers._
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The fact of the matter is postal marketing is return positive
| from a marketing perspective, and it will continue so long as
| marketers spend, consumers respond, and mail delivery agencies
| need the revenue.
| muttantt wrote:
| How are you able to get all addresses within a polygon?
| AutoAPI wrote:
| There are several occupant APIs that let you do this
| clay_the_ripper wrote:
| Hey this is cool - our application helps real estate investors
| select locations. Our users would get a lot of value from this.
| Be happy to feature you!
| AutoAPI wrote:
| I'd love that, shoot me a message from the contact page and
| let's get in touch
| dennisy wrote:
| This is very neat, well executed! So congratulations to you!
|
| Do you use a 3rd party for the "physical" parts of the business
| such as printing and mailing?
| AutoAPI wrote:
| Yes, I use an API to print and mail. There are a few of them
| available
| thedigitalone wrote:
| Many years ago I had a take out and delivery pizza shop, this
| would have been a very handy tool to have! Add in the ability to
| set a drive time radius 'During regular traffic you can reach
| these addresses within 15 minutes from this location" would have
| been gold.
| AutoAPI wrote:
| Yes, exactly! I am hoping some restaurants will signup because
| they can really control their marketing spend by only mailing
| to people they deliver to. Although with Uber Eats does anybody
| order direct anymore?
| rafram wrote:
| This is an interesting idea, but the advertising is a little
| misleading. Your pricing page claims that "A USPS Postcard Stamp
| is now 56 cents!", but nobody who's mass-mailing direct marketing
| materials is paying retail for a postcard stamp per mailpiece.
| They'd use Every Door Direct Mail [1], which is 22 cents per
| postcard/envelope and doesn't require individual addressing or
| individual stamps. Printing adds a bit of cost, but that doesn't
| nearly make up the 53-cent difference between your service and
| USPS's.
|
| [1]: https://eddm.usps.com/eddm/select-routes.htm
| AutoAPI wrote:
| It's not misleading at all, that is exactly what a USPS
| postcard stamp costs.
|
| It's not fair to compare this to EDDM. The whole point of my
| site is so you dont have to mail to "every single door".
|
| For example, I have 2 landscapers using my service and they
| target based on home value because they know most of their
| clients live in houses > $xxx. They also exclude renters
| because nearly all of their clients are homeowners. If they
| were using EDDM they might pay a bit less per postcard, but
| they would be sending to houses that will never signup for
| their service, so the actual CPA is higher
|
| You mention "printing adds a bit of cost" but if you look
| around you will see that it adds quite a bit of cost. It
| depends on how many pieces you are sending but it could be .25
| cents or .40 cents for 500-1000, or more -- but you have to
| send to an entire route, where you can send to a single house
| with my service.
|
| Also, with EDDM you either have to batch your mailings per
| route, and deliver them to specific locations for USPS
| distribution, or pay extra for a print house to do that for you
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