Before we delve into practical strategies to overcome this challenge, you might be wondering, “Why should I even bother with coupons or special offers?”
The answer is simple. According to our latest consumer market research report, “Cracking The Code” a remarkable 76% of homeowners we surveyed said they would use a coupon for a home service provider. For a more comprehensive look at the findings and other valuable insights, be sure to download the full “Cracking The Code” report.
Now, let’s explore two straightforward tips that will help you develop a strategic and, most importantly, effective coupon or special offer strategy.

Example Offer 1: 

This coupon misses the mark for a few reasons. First, I’m quite certain that most homeowners don’t know what “SEER” stands for, so mentioning it like this won’t make sense to them. Additionally, the phrase “A/C Heating System” is confusing; I believe it’s meant to say “A/C OR Heating System,” but as it stands, it could easily lead to misunderstandings.
To steer clear of these and similar pitfalls, follow these two simple guidelines:

1.  Eliminate all technical jargon.
2.  Have someone outside the industry review the offer to ensure it’s easily understood.

The post HVAC Companies: Rethink Your Special Offers 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.

It seems quite logical that having an exceptional looking website with authoritative content is paramount to the success of your HVAC businesses being able to attract and convert prospects into new customers.

However, in today’s digital landscape, how necessary is having a website to attract new customers?

Further would potential customers trust your HVAC business, if you did not have a traditional website and instead opted to solely use social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram?  Let’s take a closer look into this topic and find out just how influential a website is in attracting new customers to your HVAC business.

Next, to gain further insights into whether consumers would trust a business without a traditional website, relying solely on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for online interaction,

We posed the following question to 2,000 consumers: 

Would you trust a business that DOES NOT have a website, but DOES have social media pages (ex. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) ?

The responses were almost evenly divided, with a slightly higher percentage, 53% indicating that they would trust a business without a website but with social media pages. However, with nearly half—47%—of respondents stating that they would not trust a business without a website, it is evident that having a website is of critical importance.

After analyzing the data it’s even more compelling that your HVAC business to have an awesome website. There is zero downside to having a website and a tremendous amount of downside in not having a website. Based on our research if you don’t have a website 59% of consumers won’t even consider you and 47% of consumers wouldn’t trust your business.

Apart from the trust factor, there are several other compelling reasons to have a professional-looking website with relevant content, the most significant being the ability to be easily discovered on search engines like Google. Also connecting with existing customers, etc.

About the Authors 

Josh Davis
Josh Davis is an executive marketer, strategist, content creator and sales leader with a long track record of successfully helping small and large businesses acquire and retain customers through his expertise in direct mail marketing.

With over a decade of direct mail experience, he understands the marketing needs of small businesses, franchise networks, and corporate entities alike. Josh is currently the Chief Revenue Officer for Best4mailing.

Crystal Williams
Founder + Marketing Strategist + Resident Lady In Charge

With well over 15 years of marketing and employee engagement experience under her belt, Crystal has an out-of-the-box way of thinking that draws attention to her marketing strategies and community involvement. Her always enthusiastic attitude makes it easy to get excited and rejuvenated to grow service companies to their fullest potential. She is a devoted wife to her husband Ray, and a mom of two boys, Ray & Carter and loves to rock a bold lipstick.

With a passion for the Service Industry, Crystal grew up in the heating and air conditioning world with her family’s HVAC (And recently Plumbing!) business in east Texas.  She thrives on helping family owned and operated businesses grow to their potential and create superior company cultures with engaged employees.

Crystal is a 2005 graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University with a degree is communications.  In 2018, Crystal was selected as Service World’s Woman of the Year and was recently given the honor of “Top 40 Under 40” by AHR News! Her latest exciting news is she is now a board member for Women in HVACR! She continues to be heavily involved in both McWilliams and Son Heating, Air Conditioning, and Plumbing and her home service specific advertising and marketing company, Lemon Seed Marketing! Lemon Seed is a wholistic approach to helping contractors create, implement, and track successful marketing plans for their businesses and really build your brand. You can hear Crystal’s latest marketing rantings on the Lemon Seed podcast, From the Yellow Chair.

The post How Your HVAC Website Influences Your Customers appeared first on Best4mailing.