How Home Service Businesses Can Harness Direct Mail To Grow

In our era of digital domination, home service companies, such as Tree Services and Roofers are rediscovering the success of a traditional marketing approach: Direct mail. While marketing online offers extensive benefits, direct mail campaigns provide an additional personal touch that resonates deeply with your neighbors. Direct mail can be used as a stand-alone marketing piece or can be combined with digital to double the impact of your efforts.

Here’s how home service companies are seeing success with direct mail.

It Can Be Personalized Direct mail allows home service companies to engage with their local neighbors on a personal level. By sending a targeted mail piece, postcard, or flyer directly to a home, you create a tangible connection with that homeowner. By addressing the recipients by name, you can build trust and offer tailored promotions based on income, past purchases, or seasonal specials. 

It Helps Build Your Brand: Communication through direct mail helps home service companies build brand identity in their market. Regular updates about upcoming seasonal specials always keep your company top of mind, even if they don’t need your service right now. Eventually, they will need your services, and having that direct mail piece they kept on the fridge or counter will reinforce you’re the company they want to work with when the time comes.

Target Homeowners: Direct mail allows precise targeting of specific neighborhoods or mail routes. Home service companies can analyze data and take advantage of small business programs provided by the US Postal Service - in which you can do precise targeting like homeowners VS renters and high-income VS low-income areas. This allows you to better target the type of customer you want to work with and those who have the money to work with you. Identify areas with high potential for new business or areas where existing customers might benefit from additional outreach. This targeted approach maximizes efforts and ensures that promotional materials reach those most likely to respond.

Driving Immediate Action: Direct mail has a way of grabbing the viewers' attention with its eye-catching design (if done right). High-end visuals, tracking phone numbers, clear offers, and call-to-actions or QR codes can prompt recipients to visit the website, fill out a form, or take action immediately. If you drive them to your website from a postcard it's just another opportunity to capture their attention and or information to nurture them when they are ready to buy.. Whether it’s a seasonal offer or a discount, direct mail encourages immediate action. They can call you right from the mail piece, scan a QR code, or visit your website…it all depends on what you want them to do next.

Measurable Results: Direct mail campaigns provide measurable results that will tell you whether the marketing efforts are working. By tracking coupon redemptions, monitoring website traffic, following mail distribution, recording calls from the tracking phone number, or conducting customer surveys, you can gauge the impact of your past efforts and make better decisions for future campaigns.

Case Study: The Hotbed of Arborists:

Southeastern PA or what is otherwise known as the Delaware Valley. It’s a hotbed for tree service companies. The outlying suburban areas of Philadelphia & Wilmington DE provide a diverse canopy collection of deciduous and coniferous trees. Many tree services companies operate in the area, but only one stands out. Tremendous Tree Service used direct mail to not only increase the number of jobs each month but increase the profit per job per day as well. How? By concentrating their direct mail to high-income homeowners, that live in neighborhoods with a lot of trees. With direct mail, they were able to cluster the jobs in one high-income area, at one time…thus saving them time running between job sites, and saving gas with the equipment. More jobs were completed in a day and more profit was begotten from the jobs.

In the realm of home service businesses, the effectiveness of direct mail cannot be overstated. By fostering personal connections, building brand loyalty, and driving immediate action, direct mail campaigns prove vital in growing home services business, even in a saturated market. As digital strategies evolve, the timeless appeal of receiving a personalized piece of paper remains a powerful tool for home service companies looking to up their success.