Without clear data, it’s nearly impossible to optimize your budget or make confident, data-driven marketing decisions. Unfortunately, many contractors struggle to measure direct mail performance, leaving them guessing.

Here’s how not to track ROI — and the best method that works.

1. Why Call Tracking Falls Short

At first glance, using a unique phone number for each campaign seems like a good way to track responses. But here’s the catch:

Most prospects don’t immediately call the number printed on your mailer. Instead, they’ll:

• Google your business
• Read online reviews
• Visit your website

When that happens, your tracking number gets bypassed — and the mailer gets zero credit.

Quick Tip: Call tracking is still useful for listening to conversations and evaluating call quality. But it should never be your primary method for ROI tracking.

2. QR Codes Are Great — But Limited

We do recommend including QR codes on your mailers — especially to promote online scheduling. It creates a sense of convenience and makes it easy for customers to book appointments.

However, QR codes only show you how many scans occurred. They don’t provide full transactional data — and don’t link back to revenue.

3. Relying on Customers to Tell You Isn’t Reliable

Even if you ask every single customer how they heard about you, you’ll often get inaccurate or incomplete responses.

Why? Because customers are exposed to your brand in many ways:

• A yard sign
• A neighbor’s referral
• A billboard or truck wrap
• A direct mail piece
• Your online reviews
• And more

Most customers will only mention the first thing that comes to mind — not the full journey. This leads to misleading or overly simplified attribution.

Final Thought

Direct mail is a powerful tool for your roofing, windows, or siding business — but only if you can measure its impact.

Matchback Reporting is the gold standard for ROI tracking. It’s simple, reliable, and based on actual customer conversion data — not guesswork.

Ready to stop guessing and start measuring?

Contact one of our direct mail experts today to learn how Matchback Reporting and address-based campaigns can help your business grow.

No pressure. Just proven strategies and clear ROI.

— Josh Davis

The post How Roofing, Window & Siding Companies Can Accurately Track Direct Mail ROI appeared first on Best4mailing.

This article is short, sweet, and straight to the point. We won’t dive into all the technical details of EDDM options like Retail vs. BMEU. Instead, we’ll focus on what you really need to know before deciding to use EDDM.

1. EDDM Targets Every Residential Address in a Postal Carrier Route

EDDM mailers are sent to every single residential address within the postal carrier routes you choose. A carrier route is simply the path your local mail carrier takes each day, and routes often include a mix of:

• Single-family homes
• Apartment complexes (MDFUs: Multi-Dwelling Family Units)
• Trailers
• Off Campus College housing
• Seasonal Addresses

Your roofing, windows and/or siding services are intended for homeowners, particularly those who own single-family homes, EDDM can lead to significant waste — because renters and apartment dwellers will never need roofing, siding, or window services.

Quick Tip: Just because an address is labeled a “Single Family Home” doesn’t mean it’s owner-occupied. Many of these homes are rentals. That’s why working with a real direct mail marketing professional is key. We help you analyze and select routes based on owner-occupied vs. renter demographics and other valuable data.

2. You Can’t Exclude Your Existing Customers

The EDDM program doesn’t let you remove specific addresses from any carrier route. That means your direct mail will be going right back to customers you’ve already served — wasting your marketing dollars.

Even worse, your new customer direct mail is designed to attract new business with first-time offers or messaging for new customers and it could alienate past clients.

You should never market to a past customer the same way you market to a brand-new one.

3. Using EDDM Makes Tracking ROI More Difficult

One of the best ways to track your return on investment (ROI) is through a “Matchback Report.” This report compares the list of addresses you mailed to against the list of new customers you’ve acquired, giving you clear insight into the performance of your campaign.

However, EDDM does not provide a list of specific addresses delivered to — making accurate Matchback Reporting virtually impossible.

With mailers that have a physical address on each piece, you can get a complete, trackable list of all recipients. This allows for transparent ROI reporting and smarter decisions about where to invest future marketing dollars.

The post Roofing Companies: Think Twice Before Using Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) appeared first on Best4mailing.

With direct mail you can target the exact prospect you want, at their exact address with the ONLY MEDIA THAT GUARANTEES a 100% OPEN RATE and the highest attention rate of any media. Isn’t that the holy grail of marketing, being able to target the exact prospect  you want, at the exact time, with the exact message, and guarantee that they SEE IT.

This is exactly what direct mail delivers and just two of the many reasons that make direct mail so powerful when done right. Let me repeat that, when done right as there are so many things that will kill a direct mail campaign before it even begins. Furthermore, for most industries, direct mail is one of the easiest media to track response rate and ROI. Therefore, you can take if from does direct mail work to this is exactly how well it worked for my business.

With all that said, the reason behind asking the question “Does Direct Mail Work.” Boils down to either one or a combination of the following 6 reasons.

1. I have tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.
2. XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work. Often this comes from a digital marketing company trying to sell the direct mail or could be a friend or colleague has told them that direct mail doesn’t work.
3. I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.
4. I just don’t think it will work for my business.
5. Let’s really break down each of these reasons and bring some transparency to the heart of the questions.
6. I’ve tried direct mail in the past and it just didn’t work.

If this is you, here are the important questions that need to be asked.

Do you know who and where your mailers were sent to?

There needs to be a sound strategy behind selecting the right areas and prospects to target. Nothing will kill a direct mail campaign more than a bad list and sending your mailers to the wrong prospects in the wrong areas.

Do you have a copy of your last mailer?

This is an easy checkpoint to identify If your direct mail marketing was designed properly both from an aesthetic perspective and content perspective.

If your direct mail marketing wasn’t easy to read, easy to scan, did not have a strong call to action, a compelling offer, contained technical jargon and did not include strategic ad copy that would resonate with your prospective customers, you might as well toss your money down the toilet.

How did you track and/or gauge the effectiveness of your direct mail response and ROI?

Tracking your marketing efforts and determining how customers are finding your business is arguably one of the hardest parts. This becomes even more difficult when deploying a multi-channel marketing approach.

I often hear that call tracking was used to a client’s direct mail response rate. Unfortunately, in 99.9999% of all cases call tracking is NOT an accurate method to track direct mail response.

The reason being is that many prospects who receive your mailer will go online, read reviews and call from the number on Google or your website. The minute a call is made from any number other than the call tracking number on your mailer, you have lost all accuracy.

Although call tracking will show some results and does have some merit, It will only show you those that called from the number on the mailer and is not inclusive or indicative of all calls made from the number on google or your website, thus making it grossly inaccurate.

However, for businesses such as Home Services, HVAC, Plumbing, landscaping, Power Washing, Construction, etc. Auto Repair, Dental Practices, Fitness Centers, Insurance, Financial, Education, etc. etc. etc. that acquire their customers address when they become a customer, it is very easy to attribute ROI.

This is done with a very simple report called a match back report. The match back report takes the new customers your business acquires after your direct mail marketing has been sent out and compares It to the list of prospects who have received your direct mail marketing matching back a detailed list of every new customer acquired that was targeted with direct mail.

Of course, it cannot tell you if your direct mail was the only reason,  they became a customer. For example, the direct mail got their attention but your website and google reviews is what pushed them over the edge. The latter you will likely never be able to solve for at scale and you could spend a decade determining if you want to consider it first, touch last touch, etc., but it surely does give you the ability to  attribute direct mail as one of the touches, if not the primary touch that got them to become a customer at your business.

For other types of business such as restaurants, retail, etc. that are not able to acquire a customer’s address at time of purchase, it is likely you will never know your exact response rate. In these cases, the best you can do is count coupons or try and track special offers with unique codes to tie them back to an offer directly from one of your mailers. Many suggest look at sales as a determining factor. As intuitive as those sounds, I have seen a customer who are getting a response and have declining sales due to operational issues.

XXXX told me direct mail doesn’t work.

First, we must ask, who is providing you with this information. If it is a company trying to sell you another form of marketing and they are bashing another marketing channel, then you should probably just disregard it and/or ask them to provide you with fact-based evidence to substantiate their claim as opposed to what they think or what they say they are seeing. I’d be willing to be they can’t provide you with anything accurate.

If it is a friend, family member or colleague, it can only have come their opinion or from an experience they have had in the past with direct mail. If it is opinion based and not fact based than it can be disregarded. If it is based on previous experience, ask them the questions above addressed above to uncover if they executed their direct mail campaign properly and/or accurately tracked their direct mail campaign results to substantiate their feedback.

I just don’t really understand marketing in general and/or do not understand the capabilities of direct mail and how it really works.

This is a fair concern. Most business owners and managers aren’t marketing experts. Even those business owner managers that do understand marketing or have some expertise may not be the authority on a specific channel of marketing like SEO, Direct Mail, etc. Therefore, it’s always a best practice to find an expert in that field and rely on them to help you.

The key is finding the right expert which is the biggest challenge. Fortunately using google can help make this process much more efficient. I recommend by starting by looking for companies that have expertise with your specific industry and have the google reviews to match.

I just don’t think it will work for my business.

You may be right about this concern. Direct mail may not work well for your businesses, or it may work, but you may be able to

get a much better ROI using another form of marketing. This can only be determined by consulting with a real direct mail expert.

For example, let’s assume you owned an auto body repair shop. I would not recommend direct mail as the best use of your marketing dollars and the most viable way for your business to acquire new customers.

The reason being is that the need for auto body repair cannot be determined by someone’s demographic or where they live and there is no direct mail list you can buy that breaks down vehicle owners that may need auto body repairs. A vehicles owners need for an auto body repair will typically be determined by a recent event or immediate need they have to repair  their vehicle.
A better use of an auto body repair shops marketing dollars would be better deployed to channels like local SEO, optimizing your google business profile, executing PPC. These channels will ensure you are optimized so that when a prospect has a need arise and they head to google to find a local body shop that yours is at the top of the list.

In summation, direct mail is extremely effective when executed strategically for the right type of business.

To learn more about how Best4mailing can help your business strategically acquire and retain more customers the right way. Contact us today.

The post Does Direct Mail Work? appeared first on Best4mailing.

1. Customer retention being one of the most important keys to growing a successful home services business.
2. Word of mouth referrals being the absolute best source of leads, providing a low customer acquisition cost and the highest close rate.

We know it’s an obvious statement that having a strong customer retention marketing plan proves critical to the success of any home services business. It’s impossible to build a successful home services company with a leaky bucket of customers, even when you are a Plumbing Company like Big B’s Plumbing (see what we did there)….?

Therefore, putting together a strong retention marketing plan should be a top priority for every business owner and/or marketing manager. With that said, we are going to let you in on a little direct mail retention marketing strategy secret that will take your retention marketing to the next level by also generating more customer referrals.

If it sounds too good to be true, don’t worry, it most certainly is not. It’s actually a very simple yet highly effective strategy that 99.9% of home services companies aren’t doing….YET.

So, how well did this strategy work for Big B’s Plumbing????

Big B’s Mailed a total of 8,637 direct mail plastic postcards. From the time the mailers were delivered in homes the week of 3/14-22 through the week of  9/14/2022 which is a 6-month period, Big B’s Plumbing Booked 69 jobs, 12 of which were brand new customers.

THE BEST PART OF THIS STRATEGY IS………….There is Absolutely nothing to lose by making one design/offer tweak adding a “Savings for a friend or family member” and increase the likelihood of referrals. That is the beauty and the simplicity as to how one minor tweak to your direct mail marketing can have a big impact on your results.

To view the full details as well as our other latest Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical ) Consumer research click below to download “Cracking The Code” .

Josh Davis CRO

The post Home Services Direct Mail Retention Marketing Strategy appeared first on Best4mailing.

Don’t assume that your direct mail marketing partner knows your industry and has worked with HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical companies like yours. During your consultation with whomever you are considering, pay close attention to see if any of the below points are discussed.  

A good mantra to go by is trust but verify.   

In no specific order, below are 6 tips you need to ensure your direct mail marketing partner is aware of and addressing when consulting with you about targeting new residential prospective customers for your specific home services business. 

2. CUSTOMER SUPRESSION

Make sure you discuss removing your current customers from your new customer acquisition direct mail marketing. You current customers should not receive new acquisition direct mail marketing, they should be setup on a customer retention marketing plan, with a different message.  

4. THE RIGHT OFFERS

Make sure your direct mail marketing partner consults with you on what offers to run and has a strategy behind their suggestions. Having the right coupons/offers can make or break your direct mail marketing results.  

The most glaring example of a good vs bad offer is the Furnace Tune-Up offer. By editing the ad copy on the standard furnace tune-up offer, to be easier to understand and to include the benefits of a furnace tune-up,  it is possible to increase interest in your offer by up to 74% based on our consumer research found in “Cracking The Code.”   

Below is an example from our consumer research.  

The full results of this consumer research example can be found in “Cracking The Code.” We highly recommend you download a copy today for this as well as many other game changing consumer insights.

6. PERSONALIZATION

Make sure your graphic designer discusses personalizing your direct mail marketing. Whether that 

be with an image of you, your team and or a picture of one of your vehicles, personalization will resonate much more with consumers as compared to pictures of HVAC equipment. 

To learn more about how we strategically help Home Services, HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical companies get the best response with their direct mail marketing by addresses each of the 6 points above as well as many others in conjunction with proven direct mail marketing best practices contact one of our expert home services direct mail marketing experts today.  

The post Home Services 6 Quick Direct Mail Tips appeared first on Best4mailing.

As a direct mail marketing professional, I know having a strong offer on our client’s direct mail marketing in the form of a coupon or special is a major catalyst to entice new customers to try their establishment for the first time as well as getting current customers to come back and become loyal repeat customers. 

However, when speaking to many of our clients, it can be difficult for them to understand that offering a small discount is well worth it when comparing the discount amount to their customers lifetime value. Your customers lifetime value is the amount of money a customer is expected to spend at your business during the entire time they remain a customer. You can easily google “customer lifetime value” and read endless articles on the topic. 

Furthermore, there is still a misconception as to who uses coupons. For example, we often here from our clients in areas with higher incomes, that wealthier people aren’t looking for coupons or that their clients wouldn’t be interested in a coupon. 

 Of course, we know this is not the case based on previous data and many studies that have been done in the past. However, we wanted to refresh the topic with current relevant data and find out how many wealthy consumers use coupons compared to those with lower incomes. Furthermore, we wanted to see if and how these numbers changed based on the product/service being offered. E.g., Are more consumers using coupons for pizza than for auto repair service, HVAC services, etc. etc.  

Therefore, we decided to take four industries (in no specific order) Auto Repair, Pizza/Restaurants, General Dentistry & Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical) and conduct our own research to get the answers and provide updated current data to the old question. 

Below we will cover our key findings by industry. If you would like to dive deeper into our survey methodology, how we conducted our survey, parameters to be included in our survey as well as more details regarding these and many other key findings, we have provided a link at the bottom of this article to each specific consumer research and insights report entitled “Cracking The Code.” Cracking The Code is our full industry specific consumer research and insight report that answered these questions to consumers in addition to many others.  

Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) 

We asked 5,818 homeowners: 

 If you received a coupon/special in the mail from a reputable home services provider offering a discount on services and/or product you need, would you use it? 

Results based on income:

Dental: 

We asked 5,842 consumers: 

If you received a coupon/special offer in the mail for dental services that you need, how likely are you to redeem that offer?

Results based on income:

As you can see based on each industry we analyzed, the consumer interest in coupons is high regardless of income and in many cases, those with higher incomes have reported they would use coupons more than those with lower incomes.  

The only outlier to this happens to be in the restaurant/pizzeria industry. Although over 50% reported using coupons for their favorite restaurants, this is the only industry analyzed where respondents with higher incomes reported less usage of coupons/specials than those with lower incomes. 

So quite simply it appears that some of the wealthier demographics are more interested in using coupons where the savings are greater. All in all, the answer to our original question is a resounding YES consumers use coupons and YES consumers with higher incomes use coupons. The challenge for you now is to develop a strategic coupon campaign that will appeal to the market you are targeting.  

Below you will find links to each industry specific consumer insight report that not only contains the details of our coupons research above but is chalk full of other key insights that will help you better understand the consumers you are targeting as prospective new customers.  

 Josh Davis, CRO 

The post Who Uses Coupons? appeared first on Best4mailing.

• With every incremental decrease in your google rating, you are losing prospective customers.
• If your google rating is below 4 stars, 68% of homeowners will not consider your Home Services company.
• Quickly addressing negative reviews is the best way to resolve and potentially reverse them.

It’s no secret that having high ratings on review sites such as Google is critical to attracting new customers. However, what isn’t as clear is at what rating customers will be deterred from exploring your company as an option for service.

To find out, we asked the following of 5,818 homeowners:

Based on a Google rating system of 1–5 stars (1 being lowest, 5 being highest), which of the following applies to you? I would only use and trust a home services company with a Google rating of ___ or higher.

If your home services business has a Google rating below 4 stars, 68% or approximately 2 out of 3 consumers will not consider using your company.

Recommendation

Quickly address and respond to poor reviews and work diligently to correct issues as soon as possible. If you can correct and or resolve the issue with the homeowner who has left a negative review, make sure you immediately ask them if they wouldn’t mind going back to update their review based on the new outcome. Your future business could depend on it.

Download Cracking the Code Home Services Today To learn More About Your Customers

And To Access All Our Latest Consumer Research And Insights.

The post When Your Google Rating Can Hurt Your Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) Company appeared first on Best4mailing.

Key Takeaways

• Providing enough clear context will ensure the average consumer understands your message.
• Tune-up the furnace/ac tune-up coupon with additional context and benefits.
• Minor content updates can have a significant impact on your marketing message.

We know avoiding technical jargon is important, as our most recent nationwide consumer research uncovered that 50% of consumer surveyed don’t know what HVAC companies do. Equally, it’s important to always provide enough clear additional context when marketing your products and services and special offers. This context will ensure that customers clearly understand your message.

Let’s look at a popular special offer run by many HVAC companies, the “Furnace Tune-Up” special offer.

Many HVAC companies that run a “Furnace Tune-Up” special offer promote it by including only the verbiage “Furnace Tune-Up” at some designated price point, such as the one to the right. Knowing that many consumers may not understand basic industry terminology and may not be well versed in their HVAC systems, it’s highly likely that saying only “Furnace Tune-Up” may not be enough for homeowners to understand

exactly what you are offering and why they need this service, thus greatly minimizing the response rate.

To illustrate this, we took the standard “Furnace Tune-Up Offer” and created a second, similar offer with updated verbiage and some additional content and conducted a nationwide consumer survey. We asked homeowners which offer made more sense to them—offer A, an updated version of the standard “Furnace Tune-Up” offer, or offer B, the standard “Furnace Tune-Up” offer. The results are clear.

We asked 1,771 homeowners the following question:

“Based on the images below, which offer makes more sense to you?”

Why Did Offer A Make More Sense To Homeowners?

Offer A likely made more sense because it has a header that is easier to understand and includes the reason the service is important and the benefits of getting the service done: “Features Tell, Benefits Sell.”
That is compared to the traditional “Furnace Tune-Up” offer, which does not have enough context for most consumers to understand what they are being offered and why they need this service.
That said, offer B might be redeemed by some customers. However, offers that make more sense to consumers, such as offer A, should perform significantly better.

Recommendation

Take time to go back and review your online and offline marketing content and identify any verbiage that can be tweaked or may need additional context to be more easily understood by the average homeowner. Minor content updates can have a significant impact.

Download Cracking the Code Home Services Today To learn More About Your Customers

And To Access All Our Latest Consumer Research And Insights.

The post The Offer Many HVAC Companies Get Wrong appeared first on Best4mailing.

Direct mail gift cards sent to your database of current customers checks both customer retention and customer referral marketing boxes by including offers for your current customer and a friend, encouraging a referral. We know first-hand how extremely effective this strategy is.

We have even had clients report it as the most successful marketing campaign they have ever done. However, what is not as clear is just how many customers are willing to share the offer with friends, family, or coworkers.

To Find Out We Asked 5,818 Homeowners:

Which Of The Following Characteristics Would Dissuade You From Using A Home Services Provider, If Any?

One out of every three homeowners (33%) reported a “sloppy appearance” as the number one factor which would dissuade them from using a home service provider. Typically, customers only see your service technician/s. Therefore, their first impression of your company will be based the appearance of that technician.

One out of every three homeowners (33%) reported a “sloppy appearance” as the number one factor which would dissuade them from using a home service provider. Typically, customers only see your service technician/s.

Therefore, their first impression of your company will be based the appearance of that technician. It boils down to a matter of trust. If your technician has a sloppy appearance, it’s likely your customers’ perception is that their work will be sloppy, and you will not receive the best service.

For the same reason doctors wear clean lab coats and lawyers wear suits and ties: If you want to portray quality & trust, your technicians have to look the part.

Download Cracking the Code Home Services Today To learn More About Your Customers

And To Access All Our Latest Consumer Research And Insights.

The post How Much Does The Appearance of Your HVAC Company’s Technicians Matter to Homeowners? appeared first on Best4mailing.

Key Takeaways

• Many homeowners don’t know what HVAC companies do.
• Avoid using technical jargon in your marketing.
• Minor verbiage tweaks to your marketing message can have a huge impact.

Customer retention is critical. It is also clear that referrals remain the single best source for leads. Referrals reduce customer acquisition costs and are the easiest leads to close since there is already a high level of trust.

Direct mail gift cards sent to your database of current customers checks both customer retention and customer referral marketing boxes by including offers for your current customer and a friend, encouraging a referral.

We know first-hand how extremely effective this strategy is. We have even had clients report it as the most successful marketing campaign they have ever done. However, what is not as clear is just how many customers are willing to share the offer with friends, family, or coworkers.

To find out, we asked 5,818 homeowners the following:

If you received the offer below in the mail, would you share these savings with a friend, family member or coworker?

Download Cracking the Code Home Services Today To learn More About Your Customers

And To Access All Our Latest Consumer Research And Insights.

The post The Best Retention and Referral Direct Mail Marketing Strategy For Home Services Companies appeared first on Best4mailing.