Mailbox marketing

I know placing marketing material inside of mailboxes is illegal. But does anyone know the law regarding placing magnetic business card items on the outside door of the mailbox?

You cannot in any way touch a mailbox. Is a federal crime

Thanks. I guess I should have googled first. My bad

Ask your local postmaster.

Cant touch the mail box but you can touch the post.
Get a hole puncher and punch a hole the the corner of your cards and hang them on the post with a rubberband

Mailboxes are tricky, and to be honest it all depends on the carrier that delivers to the route.

Anything inside the box is definite no.

The outside of the box is technically off limits as well. But it’s much more of a gray area. I know people who’ve done magnets on the outside, who’ve put door hangers on the flags, and who’ve hung hole-punched-and-rubber-banded flyers from the opening clasp. Some routes, the carriers didn’t care and the materials stayed. Some routes the carriers collected them and the result was an uncomfortable phone conversation.

It’s really a crapshoot. You’re not going to get fined or arrested, unless you keep doing it after being told not to. But it could result in a waste of time and resources.

I’ve said it a hundred times here and I’ll keep saying it because I believe it: there is no substitute for face to face. It’s really easy to ignore a flyer or an email or a door hanger. It’s hard to ignore a person.

The people with the best success rate are those who ring doorbells. As long as you’re presentable and professional, you’re good to go. If no one is home then you leave the hanger at the door. Although I have no stats to back this up, I’d bet my mortgage that knocking on 200 doors yields a better return than putting 1000 flyers on mailboxes.

BUT: door hangers and flyers and that sort of thing are VERY effective when hitting homes in a radius around a home you’ve just cleaned. It’s the whole ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality. People often don’t know how dirty their house/driveway/fence is until they see how clean their neighbor’s is.

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I have walked my local neighborhood with a backpack sprayer and clean them as I drop a door hanger on the door/garage door or a business card on the flag- never been called on it and have been thanked several times… try to do a good deed and they seem to appreciate it. Even talk of it around the neighborhood… “Who’s that guy that cleans the mailboxes?”

In our County- the difference between Soliciting (which is prohibited without a permit) and Advertising is contact with the homeowner and booking services or taking payment on the spot. We drop hangers and wait for calls. Very effective in my area. Hands down the most cost effective form of marketing for me so far. If I drop 100 hangers, I get 10 calls on average… I would like to knock but not advisable around here unfortunately. Older population will call the cops on you!

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So your saying you wear a sprayer and clean peoples mailboxes while you put out flyers/door hangers?

Not always but yeah, in my neighborhood. I have a lot of regulars in the area and the older folks really appreciate it… a little good will goes a long way right?

Sure, but what is your time REALLY worth? If you devote your time to knocking on doors you’d be lucky to get to 200 in a week. You’ll have little time for a life, and if your successful you won’t be able to sustain 200 per week because of your work load, leaving you without the marketing to sustain your lifestyle. NO SIR, while knocking on doors is certainly prudent, when starting out, there’s a reason why most seasoned professionals don’t do it. That’s because time is too valuable. Knocking on doors will suck the time right out of your life.

That’s not the most impressive thing he said in that post, Ken. He’s getting 10% on his flyers. Shoot, Ken you probably don’t need but 10 jobs a week. At Cost Printing is offering 30% off for the next couple of weeks… Go get you some cards!

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Lol, yeah i wasnt paying any mind to that.

And 10 jhouses would put me working overtime dude.

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Where did you get those pictures from?