5 ms·

How to Send Postcards as Effortlessly as Email

20 points by bavidar 12y ago

shittyanalogy 12y ago
You should send me these so I don't leak out of your conversion funnel.
idoh 12y ago
I'm working on an iOS Postcard app, so I tried them out. lob.com is a really great service, very easy to set up and get started. Do note that in my test it took over ten business days from ordering the card to deliver, so it is good for marketing postcards, but not good for transactional postcards (e.g., welcome to the service type things).
IgorPartola 12y ago
I struggle with this. On the one hand, direct mail is the bane of my daily existence. I get so many catalogs, flyers, etc. (mostly directed at previous owners, or just random names), that my recycling bin just can't handle it. Yes, I am actively unsubscribing from these things, but it's a slow one-off process. On the other hand, between the Valpacs and the Red Plums, I do get occasional good things. A reminder that my sprinkler system needs to be winterized, or a card reminding me that my dogs are due for their vaccines. These things could be email-based, but a postcard is a great point of initial contact with a customer. As a developer I am excited to see if I can use this service to send out party invitations, birthday cards, etc. Combined with a database of people's addresses and birthdays, I could automatically send postcards to lots of people, whereas doing it manually would mean that I would constantly forget.
throwaway7349 12y ago
How do you get the physical address from the email address? Or you need them to have provided that somewhere else in the sales funnel?
Animats 12y ago
From the article: "You can mail a single postcard and it will only cost you $0.70 all-in, no strings attached." That appears to be the cost penalty for sending postcards from an API. Less than half of that is postage. There's still a direct mail industry, but it's all about getting the big discounts available if you send in bulk and pre-sort everything. It's a form of spam; most of it is discarded. Worse, people who still pay any attention to paper mail are likely to send you back a reply on paper or call you. Now you need a mail room, a data entry operation, and a call center.
- crb3 12y ago
  > Worse, people who still pay any attention to paper mail are likely to send you back a reply on paper or call you. Now you need a mail room, a data entry operation, and a call center. I'm not all that happy about paper spam either, but this makes sense depending on your target demographic. If you're selling to seniors, for instance...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
aareet 12y ago
From the article >"Everyone is unique, so you should make sure each individual mailpiece is customized as much as possible. Don't be afraid to use customer data to personalize and make a statement with your mailing." "Dont be afraid to use customer data" seems like a dangerous general recommendation to make for an article recommending using the API to send postcards that are open to the world to read. Now I can't just discard spam mail adressed to "Resident", I'll have to read it all and make sure to shred it in case it has some sensitive data automatically encoded into the postcard?
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  I think they mean "you know you can use the person's name instead of listing 'Current Resident'?". I don't think they are encouraging you to send the recipient's social security number on the card.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
rathboma 12y ago
I really like their API documentation pages (https://lob.com/docs https://lob.com/docs), does anyone know if this was built using an open source project of some sort, or have any recommendations for one?
- harryzhang 12y ago
  Nope it's just our own CSS/HTML
- positr0n 12y ago
  It looks the same as Stripe's documentation[1], but I don't see any references to what built it. [1] https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api
- jamescun 12y ago
  Looks to be inspired by GoCardless (https://developer.gocardless.com/ https://developer.gocardless.com/) and Stripe's API (https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api) docs. As an aside, GoCardless open-sourced their API docs https://github.com/gocardless/api-docs https://github.com/gocardless/api-docs .

20 points by bavidar 12y ago

You should send me these so I don't leak out of your conversion funnel.

idoh 12y ago

I'm working on an iOS Postcard app, so I tried them out. lob.com is a really great service, very easy to set up and get started. Do note that in my test it took over ten business days from ordering the card to deliver, so it is good for marketing postcards, but not good for transactional postcards (e.g., welcome to the service type things).

IgorPartola 12y ago

I struggle with this. On the one hand, direct mail is the bane of my daily existence. I get so many catalogs, flyers, etc. (mostly directed at previous owners, or just random names), that my recycling bin just can't handle it. Yes, I am actively unsubscribing from these things, but it's a slow one-off process. On the other hand, between the Valpacs and the Red Plums, I do get occasional good things. A reminder that my sprinkler system needs to be winterized, or a card reminding me that my dogs are due for their vaccines. These things could be email-based, but a postcard is a great point of initial contact with a customer. As a developer I am excited to see if I can use this service to send out party invitations, birthday cards, etc. Combined with a database of people's addresses and birthdays, I could automatically send postcards to lots of people, whereas doing it manually would mean that I would constantly forget.

throwaway7349 12y ago

How do you get the physical address from the email address? Or you need them to have provided that somewhere else in the sales funnel?

Animats 12y ago

From the article: "You can mail a single postcard and it will only cost you $0.70 all-in, no strings attached." That appears to be the cost penalty for sending postcards from an API. Less than half of that is postage. There's still a direct mail industry, but it's all about getting the big discounts available if you send in bulk and pre-sort everything. It's a form of spam; most of it is discarded. Worse, people who still pay any attention to paper mail are likely to send you back a reply on paper or call you. Now you need a mail room, a data entry operation, and a call center.

crb3 12y ago
> Worse, people who still pay any attention to paper mail are likely to send you back a reply on paper or call you. Now you need a mail room, a data entry operation, and a call center. I'm not all that happy about paper spam either, but this makes sense depending on your target demographic. If you're selling to seniors, for instance...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

aareet 12y ago

From the article >"Everyone is unique, so you should make sure each individual mailpiece is customized as much as possible. Don't be afraid to use customer data to personalize and make a statement with your mailing." "Dont be afraid to use customer data" seems like a dangerous general recommendation to make for an article recommending using the API to send postcards that are open to the world to read. Now I can't just discard spam mail adressed to "Resident", I'll have to read it all and make sure to shred it in case it has some sensitive data automatically encoded into the postcard?

IgorPartola 12y ago
I think they mean "you know you can use the person's name instead of listing 'Current Resident'?". I don't think they are encouraging you to send the recipient's social security number on the card.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

rathboma 12y ago

I really like their API documentation pages (https://lob.com/docs https://lob.com/docs), does anyone know if this was built using an open source project of some sort, or have any recommendations for one?

harryzhang 12y ago
Nope it's just our own CSS/HTML
positr0n 12y ago
It looks the same as Stripe's documentation[1], but I don't see any references to what built it. [1] https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api
jamescun 12y ago
Looks to be inspired by GoCardless (https://developer.gocardless.com/ https://developer.gocardless.com/) and Stripe's API (https://stripe.com/docs/api https://stripe.com/docs/api) docs. As an aside, GoCardless open-sourced their API docs https://github.com/gocardless/api-docs https://github.com/gocardless/api-docs .