Direct Mailing Campaigns

Curious to see what demographics everyone has used in the past and what they have found to have worked. Was debating whether to add children in the household to my mailing list. Does everyone offer coupons or do some feel that too many people offer some dollar amount or percentage off too much? I basically have my demographics set to household income and and home value.

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Lawn care business tips

I tried one last year using color post cards offering Organic spray solutions to the prospect's lawn, I did street by street target marketing which we can do through Canada Post in the core of what we refer to as the South End, the rich area of the city that has lobbied for years to eliminate chemical sprays, we sent 5,000 cards and did not receive one response. The highest return for us was and will be stopping and handing or leaving a card that is specific to a service we noticed the customer could use, the response rate is over 50% for at least a quote which is excellent IMHO. If you go to my website, click on Business Cards for Service, the back of the post card encourages the reader to visit our site and lists other things we do. www.oakridgeyardcare.ca

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Andy
Halifax, Nova Scotia

[Steve]

Andy,

When shooting for a customer base, do you feel it's better to target the richer areas of town as a rule of thumb or no?

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Originally Posted by Steve

Andy,

When shooting for a customer base, do you feel it's better to target the richer areas of town as a rule of thumb or no?

It depends, the area I went after is full of complainers, I thought it would be a slam dunk.

We all need a few clients on the upper end of the food train, they seems to be very connected and wanting to keep up with their neighbours, we ended up with quite a few later in the season but I acquired them in a way I hadn't considered.

As I posted I received a call from a long time client of the bank and friend although I hadn't told him what I was doing, anyhow he had a piece of art that needed framing, rush for a 55th birthday, anyhow when I arrived at his place, private gated community on the Ocean, the first thing I noticed was the grass in the common area. Anyhow long story short, we not only picked up his community, we now have three on that road and I want them all within three years. These are all multi million dollar places and the people that live there for the most part want nothing to do with lawn care, they just want everything to look like a golf course, we can do that if you want to spend the bucks as so far they do.

Thats pretty depressing. 5000 postcards and no response. Anyone else have problems like this? I am debating on including children in the demographics, and debating what I should keep the home values at. Do you think 350,000 plus home values is too high?

Another thing, do a lot of good demographics not include their home value. Is it better to keep to home value out of a mailing list?

Last year i put out 500 flyers and got one call and zero business. This year I am going to try door hangers with the actual price on them. I think if people know what they would pay if they went with you, it might give you a step over the competition. When I go out I try to put them out when no one else has come around. On weekends in March and April there are so many things out there people just throw them away. I try to take a day off durning the week and put out the door hangers. Direct marketing can reach more people but your like everyone elses flyers. This way they know how much you would charge and they can think about it can get back to you. I hope this works for me.

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Originally Posted by LawnMedic

Thats pretty depressing. 5000 postcards and no response. Anyone else have problems like this? I am debating on including children in the demographics, and debating what I should keep the home values at. Do you think 350,000 plus home values is too high?

Another thing, do a lot of good demographics not include their home value. Is it better to keep to home value out of a mailing list?

Depressing, espensive and shocking, there is not a house in the south end under $750,000.

We do some spraying and lawn care in this area however but I picked up the business because I had known the owners from my banking days, I only picked up one out of the blue and she found me using google search. I expected to receive at least 20 calls as the card was designed by a professional marketing company and was designed to address their lobby which the city ended up passing which is why I did what I did.

So I take it everyones best marketing is door to door flyers? Always including the price, or do some people get success without leaving the price?

[Steve]

So I take it everyones best marketing is door to door flyers? Always including the price, or do some people get success without leaving the price?

You have to ask yourself, what would make for a better sales presentation, a flyer left at a door with a price, or you at the property walking the customer around their yard and showing them what they need then giving them a price.

It depends, the area I went after is full of complainers, I thought it would be a slam dunk.

What is your take on why this group was full of complainers? Was it a socio-economic reason? Or was it something else?

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This group has managed to get some pretty ridiculous rules passed, for example you can no longer burn brush of any kind in HRM, no exceptions, the reasoning was pollution, they are trying to get wood stoves banned now.

Chemicals however are dangerous and I don't have an issue with our city being the first Herbicide and Pesticide city in Canada.