Postcards or Doorhangers

[bladezlawncarellc]

My main question is which works better: postcards or doorhangers? If I were to use postcards I would be starting with the ones I have and sending about 100 of them to my targeted area. However, I am wondering if placing doorhangers will be a better marketing strategy to focus on. Please let me know what you all think.

[jonathan thomas]

Lawn care business tips

I've been told post cards work the best. What I do if I'm looking in a certain area is I drive threw the neighborhood and see about how large the yards are,and then I average the price i would charge to maintain them. Then either have door hangers made saying what you will perform in there monthly service and the monthly price. So when they call you they already have had there estimate and what you will perform for that price.

[willshome]

I do about 80 door hangers an hour (postcards with holes punched in the corner and a rubber band feed throw) or mail them 80*$0.32= $25.60
Saving $25.60 for an hour of walking durning my down time sounds good to me

Mailing means your in with 10 other peices of mail that day and how would you get the mailing list?

[Hedgemaster]

How close are the homes there?
100 of anything wouldn't get me around my block.

I have no opinion as to which "works" better - there are too many variables.



If you're on a tight budget and need to stretch things, you could do a "3 up" flyer layout on 8.5x11, photocopy it, cut it into the 3 smaller flyers, and start walking. I did this for snow removal.

Keep in mind that some areas require a solicitation permit to distribute flyers.

[JP Landscaping]

Door hangers/fliers work for me.

1. You can spread many without having to spend $ on postage
2. When people open their doors, they will have to take them off so you know they will see them (guaranteed exposure)
3. Sometimes you get to talk to the homeowners if they come to the door to get the door hanger while you are still there. You then have a chance to give an estimate on the spot if they ask for one.


The return rate is difficult to figure out on both door hangers and post cards but I can tell you that for me it's been worth it. I got a $4000 landscaping job from spreading a few door hangers one day. on the other hand on other days I've spread a couple of hundred and gotten nothing.

You just have to try it over and over again. persistance is what counts.

[Hedgemaster]

I looked for an example of my 3-up flyer, but couldn't locate it.

However, in the following post, there's a PDF at the bottom with the 2-up layout I originally did...
http://www.gopherforum.com/showpost....9&postcount=20

Just throwing it out there in case someone wasn't sure what I meant by "3-up".
You'll get 3 flyers from one sheet of letter size paper. It isn't ideal for everything, but it worked for what I wanted to do.

[shadrach]

100 is not very many. If you are doing them by hand door hangers are better. I haven't done much by way of direct mail but have been told its a better return per piece than door hanging. We mostly do postcards by hand - expecting to pass out 5k-7500 this month. We get about a 3% call rate on those but we get more one time service calls ( spring cleanup-lawn aeration-1 time mow-trim shrubs) than regular customers out of it.

[JP Landscaping]

5k to 7500 in a month are a lot of door hangers! how long with how many people does that take you? having a 3% return you must have a lot of clients.

I ordered 5000 door hangers I plan to spread 1000 per month if I don't have a full schedule. i have about 15 lawn customers per week and would like to reach 30 so I can spend the rest of the time doing landscaping work.

[shadrach]

Postcards in paper boxes - not door hanging. No walking - all done from small truck so 150/hour is fairly easy to do for 1 person.
3% call rate- close on half to two-thirds of the calls.

[JP Landscaping]

ah.. got it. do you have to put a postage stamp on them in order to put them in the boxes? Have you gotten into any trouble doing that?

last year I had two of my guys go spread door hangers and they put them in mail boxes. I received a call from the police telling me I had to stop that because it wasn't legal to do that.

Some say that if you put a postage on them then you can put them in the mail boxes, but if that is the case i would just mail them.