2 Direct mail strategies for contractors

Discussing Direct Mail Strategies 

Today, we will discuss two unique ways for home service companies to use direct mail to generate more business.

1. Sending direct mail postcards to people who have visited your website.

This is using Retargeting as you might do with Google or Facebook ads but with old-fashioned direct mail, which can still be very effective today.

How it works…

You create a postcard campaign message directed at those who visited certain pages on your website.

If you’re a plumber, maybe it’s for people who visited your water filtration and softener pages.

If you’re a solar installer, maybe it’s for people who hit your pages about leasing vs. buying.

If you’re a roof, maybe it’s people who visited your site about available roofing materials.

About half of the visitors to your website can be identified through their IP address and have their name and mailing address available.

You select which pages on your site will trigger the mailing of a postcard.

A postcard is then automatically mailed to every visitor of the pages you selected if their IP address also provides their name and address is available.

A relatively small number of postcards are being mailed out every day.

That postcard could provide them additional info, or a special offer, and a place to get it.

You can direct them to call your office, call and listen to a pre-recorded message, or visit a special page on your website.

The options are nearly limitless.

We use a company called Modern Postcard to do this for our clients. There are several others.

I hope to have someone from Modern Postcard come on as a guest in the future and describe this process in more detail.

And that leads us to a second very powerful way to use direct mail.

2. To Create a “Consumers Guide to [your industry or service].

A shout-out goes to marketing master Joe Polish on this one. He developed this system for his old carpet cleaning company.

It’s a brilliant lead gen system, evergreen, low-cost, and can address buyers at any stage in their journey.

We like it and are currently developing these campaigns and systems for some of our clients.

Let me walk you through it.

First, you create a “Consumers Guide to [your industry or service].”

For example: A consumer’s guide to choosing the skilled & trusted plumber.

• A consumer’s guide to water softeners
• A consumer’s guide to bathroom remodels
• A consumer’s guide to new roofing materials
• A consumer’s guide to solar financing

You get the drift right…

Your consumer’s guide will be made into a 24/7 pre-recorded message that anyone can call, toll-free, at any time.

• No hassles
• No salespeople
• No email needed
• No website surfing
• No reading

They get the info they want, when they want it, as a 24/7 pre-recorded audio recording by telephone.

And audio is very popular today.

Your consumer’s guide is designed to inform, entertain, and generate leads in a few different ways.

With a proper system, at the end of the recorded message, the listener can be prompted to press keypad numbers for different options:

For example:

• press 1 to learn more about [related subject]
• press 2 to request a [an offer made in the recording]
• press 3 to speak with someone on our team
• Etc.

You may want a copywriter writing this copy for you. You can hire them on Upwork, Linked In, and elsewhere.

You need a cloud-based telephone messaging system to do all of this, and we’re setting our clients upon the company Joe Polish uses, which is iTeleCenter. The link below; always assumes it’s an affiliate link.

And lastly, you’ll need a postcard printing and mailing company.

This can be a very powerful marketing tool for lead generation.

This tool can let you zero in on your best, high-margin jobs while also giving prospects and no-hassle way to learn solutions to their needs or desires while putting them directly into your ecosystem.

Joe Polish has an audiobook that discusses this in more length called Piranha Marketing, which has a few other great ideas in it.

Alright, I hope that helped some of you. Thanks for sharing your time and attention with us today.

Good luck out there, and create a great day!