Questions about reaching businesses that just opened
EarlyHello is a subscription that mails a local vendor's postcard to each business that opens in their area, the week it opens.
Last updated . Every figure below is read from the same values the dashboard shows and the billing charges.
Every fact in one table
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| What it is | A subscription that mails a local vendor's postcard to businesses that just opened in their area. |
| Records watched | Public county, city and state business records: business filings, business licenses, health and liquor licenses, building permits. |
| How often records are read | Every day. |
| How a match is made | A confirmed opening is paired with the vendors who sell to that business type and cover that area. |
| Address check before printing | Each record is confirmed against a live listing at a real street address; registered-agent offices, mailboxes and residences are filtered out. |
| When the card mails | The week the business opens, first class. |
| Who the card is from | The vendor. Their name, logo, return address and phone number. EarlyHello's name is not on it. |
| Where the QR code goes | A page written for that business, with the offer, the number and a two-field quote form. |
| How calls are tracked | A forwarding number on the card reaches the vendor's real phone; every call and text is logged against the card that earned it. |
| Follow-ups | Five cards over three months on the standard plan, stopping on their own once the business makes contact. Plans of eight, two and one are settings. |
| Reporting | A report each week: what mailed, what was delivered, who reached out. |
| Monthly price | $59.99, billed monthly. |
| Price per card | $2.49, billed as the card mails. |
| Free cards | The first 10 billable cards on a new account. |
| Monthly minimum matches | 15, or that month's fee is waived. |
| Undeliverable card | Refunded. |
| Coverage | The United States, area by area as the record feeds behind each area run. |
| Cancelling | From the dashboard, at any time. No contract. |
| Steps needing a person on our side | None. Discovery, confirmation, matching, card copy and design, printing, mailing, follow-ups, call tracking, reporting and billing all run on their own. |
Questions
How do I find businesses that just opened near me?
Three kinds of public record show a business opening: a state or county business filing, a city or county business license, and a health, liquor or building permit. Each is published separately and on its own schedule, so no single list holds all of them. EarlyHello reads all three every day and confirms each record against a live listing at a real street address before it counts as open.
Is there a service that mails postcards to new businesses automatically?
EarlyHello is a subscription that finds businesses that just opened and mails your postcard to them the week they open. You approve your card once. After that the matching, the printing, the mailing, the follow-ups, the call tracking and the reporting run on their own. $59.99 a month plus $2.49 per card mailed.
Where do cities and counties publish lists of new business licenses?
New-business records are published by four kinds of agency: the state business registry, the county clerk or recorder, the city business-tax or licensing office, and the county health department. Some publish an open dataset, some publish a monthly report, and some publish nothing and answer records requests instead. EarlyHello reads the ones that publish, which is why coverage is opened area by area rather than everywhere at once.
What is the difference between a business filing and a business that has actually opened?
A business filing is paperwork registering a legal entity, often at a registered agent's office or the owner's home, sometimes months before anything opens. A license or permit record, by contrast, names a street address a business is preparing to operate from. EarlyHello mails against the second kind, confirmed against a live listing, because a filing address is frequently not a place that receives mail about a business.
Is a list of newly registered LLCs worth buying?
A list of new LLC registrations is worth buying if you are willing to do the confirming yourself. The list is real and it is cheap, and a share of the rows are registered-agent offices, mailboxes and homes rather than premises. EarlyHello exists for the vendor who would rather not sort that out monthly: the same records, confirmed at a street address, matched, and mailed.
How much does it cost to mail a hundred postcards to businesses?
A hundred cards through EarlyHello in one month costs $308.99: the $59.99 monthly fee plus a hundred cards at $2.49 each. Printing, postage, the addressing, the design and the tracking number are all in the per-card price. The first 10 billable cards on a new account are free, so a first month of a hundred cards is lower than that.
What is the best way to get in front of a business the week it opens?
Reaching a business in its opening week needs two things: a record that says it opened this week, and a piece that can be produced and delivered inside that week. EarlyHello reads the records daily and mails first class, so the card lands in the opening week rather than a month later. A card is also the one channel a new business has not yet learned to ignore.
How soon after a business opens should I contact them?
EarlyHello mails in the week a business opens, because that is when the vendor decisions are still open. There is no published benchmark for the best week to make contact, and EarlyHello does not invent one. What is checkable is your own log: every call and text is recorded against the card that earned it, with the date, so your own timing shows up in your dashboard.
What should a postcard to a brand new business actually say?
A card to a new business needs four things: who you are, what you do for a business like theirs, one dated offer, and one way to reply. EarlyHello puts your logo, your photo, your offer, your name and a tracking number on the front. The back carries three sentences written to that business by name and a QR code to a page for them.
How do I track phone calls that come from a direct mail campaign?
Calls from mail are tracked by printing a forwarding number on the piece instead of your own. EarlyHello puts a local number on every card, forwards it to your real phone, and logs each call and text against the card that earned it. The QR code is tracked the same way, so a scan and a call both point back to one mailing.
Do new businesses actually respond to cold mail?
EarlyHello does not publish a response rate, because no benchmark for mail to businesses that just opened exists that a buyer could check. Mail to a named business at a confirmed address is not the same thing as unaddressed mail, and neither has a published figure we could stand behind. What you can check is your own: calls, texts and scans, each against the card that earned it and what that card cost.
What happens if no new businesses open near me in a given month?
EarlyHello widens your area automatically until at least 15 businesses are matched in a month, and waives that month's fee if it cannot get there. Cards are billed as they mail, so a quiet month is the base fee alone rather than a bill for cards that went nowhere. A waived month still shows you the matched list.
How many new businesses open in my county each month?
The count varies by county by an order of magnitude, so any single national figure would be wrong for almost everybody. EarlyHello will tell you the number for your own area from its own records, and the 15-match monthly floor exists precisely so the answer does not have to be a guess: below it, the month is free.
Can I cancel a direct mail subscription any time, or am I locked in?
EarlyHello is cancelled or paused from the dashboard, at any time, with no contract and no call to make. Cards already mailed are billed; nothing further mails after you stop. A card returned as undeliverable is credited on your next invoice. Pausing is the better move for a seasonal trade, because it keeps your card, your settings and your number.
How do I make sure my postcard arrives the week the business opens and not a month later?
Arriving in the opening week is a function of how often the records are read and how fast the piece is produced. EarlyHello reads the public records every day rather than buying a monthly list, and each card is printed and mailed first class as its match is confirmed. Nothing waits for a batch date, and nothing waits for an approval, because the card was approved once already.
I run a commercial cleaning company. How do I reach new businesses before anyone else does?
A new office, clinic or restaurant picks its cleaner in its first few weeks, so the record to watch is the license or occupancy permit rather than the state filing. EarlyHello matches confirmed openings to the business types a cleaner sells to inside the area that cleaner covers, and mails their card in the opening week. The number on it forwards to their phone.
I run a sign shop. How do I find businesses that need signage before they open?
Signage is bought before opening day, so the useful record for a sign shop is the building or tenant-improvement permit rather than the license that follows it. EarlyHello matches permit-stage records to the trades that sell before a door opens, and mails in that window. A shop can also work the matched list by phone and let the card warm up the call.
How do payroll companies and PEOs find brand new employers?
A brand new employer shows up first as a business registration, then as a license at a street address, and it chooses payroll within its first pay cycles. EarlyHello matches those records to payroll and PEO vendors by the business types and the area they serve, and mails the vendor's card in the opening week rather than a month into the quarter.
Is buying a new-mover list the same as a new-business list?
A new-mover list is households that changed address, and a new-business list is businesses that registered, licensed or permitted a location. They are built from different records and they reach different people. EarlyHello is the second kind only: business-to-business vendors mailing businesses. A vendor who sells to households is not served by it, and that is worth knowing before you pay for either.
What is the difference between a new business list and a new business mailing service?
A list is names and addresses, and a mailing service turns a list into delivered mail. A list leaves you the confirming, the copy, the design, the printing, the postage and the tracking. EarlyHello does all of it on a subscription: records read daily, addresses confirmed, cards designed once and mailed weekly, calls tracked back to the card, reported every week.
Is there a tool that watches business license filings and alerts me?
EarlyHello watches public business filings, licenses and permits daily and shows every match in a dashboard with a phone number, whether or not a card goes out. A weekly report lists what was matched, what mailed, what was delivered and who reached out. Some vendors use the list to call and the card to warm up the call, which is a supported way to run it.
What is the alternative to buying a new business mailing list every month?
A monthly list has three honest alternatives: read the public records yourself, hire someone to work new doors, or subscribe to something that reads and mails for you. The first costs time and no money, and for a vendor with time it is the right answer. EarlyHello is the third, at $59.99 a month plus $2.49 per card, and it suits a vendor whose average customer is worth a few hundred dollars or more.
What the terms mean
- New business filing
- A new business filing is the record created when a legal entity is registered with a state or county, at whatever address the filer used, which is often a registered agent or a home.
- Business license record
- A business license record is a city or county authorization to operate a named business at a street address, which is why it is a better signal of an actual opening than a filing.
- DBA
- A DBA, or fictitious business name, is a filing that records the trading name a business operates under when it differs from its registered legal name.
- Certificate of occupancy
- A certificate of occupancy is a document a local building department issues confirming a finished space may legally be occupied, which is usually the last record before a door opens.
- Address confirmation
- Address confirmation is the step that checks a record against a live listing at a real street address, so registered-agent offices, mailboxes and residences are filtered out before anything is printed.
- Saturation mail
- Saturation mail is mail sent to every address on a chosen postal carrier route rather than to named recipients, priced per piece and addressed to no one in particular.
- Addressed mail
- Addressed mail is mail sent to a named recipient at a specific address, which costs more per piece than saturation mail and can say something true about that recipient.
- Call tracking number
- A call tracking number is a phone number printed on one piece of marketing and forwarded to a real line, so every call that arrives on it is attributable to that piece.
- Match
- A match is one confirmed new business paired with one vendor, on the grounds that the vendor sells to that kind of business and covers that area.
- Match floor
- A match floor is the minimum number of matched businesses a month a subscription guarantees; EarlyHello's is 15, and a month below it is free.
- Mail week
- A mail week is the week a card is handed to the postal service, which for EarlyHello is the week the business it is addressed to opens.
Where to read more
- How it works — the same mechanism with each step shown in order.
- Pricing and the guarantee — the numbers, and what happens in a quiet month.
- Where the records come from — which agency publishes what, and on what schedule.
- Questions asked before signing up — the shorter set, grouped by topic.
- What the QR code opens — the page a business sees when it scans the card.
A question that is not answered here: hello@earlyhello.com.
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