Direct Mail Question? How often do you mail to the same neighborhood?

Marketing
1

I know there are dozens of threads and comments on direct mail and how effective it is. I am planning to mail my first campaign in early March and then weekly there after if I get better results from it, than what I was getting from my previous advertizing methods. My question is when you do direct mail do you mail to the same area or zip code more than once, and if so how often? Also what is the average % response you get from direct mail over other methods. Im asking for your personal results, not statistics. Thanks.

2

There are a couple zip codes I have mailed to 8 - 10 times a year… I will probably do the same this year.

3

So do I understand you to say that many areas you only mail to once, and others many times? what determines if you mail again to that same zip code or not?

4

As long as the fish are biting. Keep fishing. Why change ponds? Do your homework before you do a job. Put a yard sign in the yard, and stop by the post office and hit that carrier route. Every time you get a job, rinse and repeat until it’s not profitable anymore.

5

Makes perfect sense to me, I got that. What if you do a mailing and don’t get any bites or just one or two. Would you mail there again? I was taught that it sometimes take 4 to 5 times of someone seeing your name before they give you a call.

6

I’m probably the 1% here, but I really don’t care about the brand, I care about the offer. I can’t take my logo to the bank and deposit it. Branding is a by product to me.

7

Yep exactly…

Results dicate my decision… And I know by now what zip codes are going to produce really well… We hammer those hard.

8

Thanks so much for your help Chris, one more quick question. Do you mail in Jan and Feb, or wait till March?

9

Depend on what kind of fish your catching… I went home after i caught 5 like this…

Picture018.jpg598×800 52.3 KB

Picture018.jpg598×800 52.3 KB

10

Well we dont usually mail in the winter… we tried this January and it going so so…

11

Thanks for your help. Cant wait to meet you in NOLA.

12

I’m not sure if this helps, but we regularly mail targets over and over. But we don’t really do residential (residential is 8% of our work, route is 2%, the other 90% is building work). For years now our results are as follows: 2% of contacts (mailing, email, calls, website response, etc, and usually a combination of all) result in request for bid. We win 1 of every 20 jobs (5%) we bid.

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Steve how do you determine your targets?

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A target client’s safety program has to reflect the same priorities as us. Then, we look at the rest of their grounds maintenance, environmental services, etc. Do WE want to be seen on this property? If so, we’re probably a good fit for them, and them for us and our prices.

It’s usually 10 min on the web, and maybe a drive by. Then we’ll proceed with marketing. Even the worst residential job is over in a day. Building work could mean weeks of misery if you’re a bad match.

15

Don M…not sure I understand.what you mean by stopping by the.post office And
hitting the carrier.route???
Thanks…Jack
Erie Window.Cleaning

16

So you won’t do gutter cleaning mailers in the winter?

17

What do you mail to there commercial locations? A letter? A postcard?

18

the gutters for the most part here are 100% frozen solid December - Early March

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A brochure package, including a letter. Different ones for different industries or types of properties.

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Direct mail marketing is a way of reaching a target market directly. There are several different ways that direct marketing can be applied.