2 Ways for Home Improvement Companies to Attract New Customers

2 Ways For Home Improvement Companies to Attract New Customers

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The reality for most home improvement companies is that they can’t rely on past customers for new projects, but must continually be marketing for new customers. The reality is that most homeowners only remodel, re-landscape or re-roof once in the ownership of their home. Word-of-mouth helps and can sometimes sustain your business, but more than likely the home improvement company needs to be continually finding new customers. Here are two ways: Saturation Mailings and In-Your-Neighborhood Mailings.

Saturation Mailings

With saturation mailings you target every homeowner in a given area or carrier route. The postal service breaks down zip codes into carrier routes with typically 200 to 400 names in a carrier route and 3,000 to 15,000 names in a zip code. With the saturation mailing list you can choose single-family homes only (no multi-dwelling units i.e., apartments). You can also choose the average income of the carrier routes. Most of addresses have the owner’s name, but some are simply addressed to “Our Neighbor At.” You can only mail Standard Class.

Why not use a more targeted list based on other demographics? The benefit is cost. The post office offers significant discounts for a saturation mailing and we pass those savings on to you. For a saturation mailing Printz.com will include the list for FREE and discount Standard Class Postage by 4 cents. So if you save 4 cents on postage and 5 cents on a targeted mailing list, the net benefit is 9 cents or $450 on a mailing of 5,000 postcards.

We recommend mailing at least 5,000 postcards to get a good response and to keep the cost per piece very low. As a landscaper or remodeler you will typically see a 0.25% response rate. So from a mailing of 5,000 postcards, you should get 10 to 15 leads and out of those you should close 3 to 5 new pieces of business!

In-Your-Neighborhood Mailings

With In-Your-Neighborhood mailings, you mail to the closest 500 or so homeowners to a current job site. The goal is to make the postcard relevant by letting the homeowner know exactly where you are working (“Near 2nd Avenue and Main Street”), the type of work you do, and a limited time offer. With the In-Your-Neighborhood mailings, we use the same saturation mailing list and cover that immediate area.

In-Your-Neighborhood mailings typically have much higher response rates. Keeping your postcard relevant is the key. Your text should speak about the neighborhood you are working in. The photos should ideally be of your current job site or of other similar jobs that you have completed. You can also tell a story through postcards by mailing a series of photos to the neighbors showing a “before” photo, an “under construction” photo, and the final “after” photo.

To create the In-Your-Neighborhood mailings, you can use the “Builder” option at www.Printz.com You can load your graphics right online and then personalize each time with your job location. Remember, the residential list is FREE. If you prefer to have us design your postcard and you are printing and mailing over 500 pieces your design is FREE.