What is the "RRN Program?"
Mail Shark’s “RRN Program” combines three of the most effective home services marketing strategies used to acquire & retain more customers; Radius, Retention and New Homeowner mailings, delivered by the most effective direct mail marketing pieces including: postcard magnets, plastic mailers, rebate checks, & oversized postcards.
Radius
One of the best ways to find new customers is by targeting the same neighborhoods as your recent customers. Our radius mailings target the closest homes around your most recent installs using unique and highly effective Postcard Magnets coupled with personalized content, to grab your prospect’s attention, differentiate your marketing and increase response rates. In addition to radius mailings, we highly recommend adding prospect carrier route mailings to your marketing plan. Prospect carrier route mailings reach beyond your current installs, to cost effectively and strategically target additional neighborhoods you would like to gain more customers in.
Retention
Retaining your current customers is critical to growing your business. Your current customers have already purchased from you, and they will likely purchase from you again if they remember you. Our retention mailing program is the perfect solution to accomplish top-of-mind brand awareness. We target your current customer base using highly effective one-of-a-kind Plastic Postcards with strategic offers backed by consumer research. We also offer personalized rebate checks and oversized postcards to deliver the highest impact.
New Homeowners
New homeowners that have just moved into your area have not likely established a business relationship with a home services provider that offers your services. These prospects are low hanging fruit and much easier to convert than prospects who already have long standing relationships with other vendors. We target these new homeowners in your trade area with Oversized Postcards to help you acquire them as a new customer before they choose a competitor.
Radius
Postcard Magnets
Magnets are perfect for
& Much More
Retention
(Plastic Postcards, Rebate Checks, Oversized Postcards)Plastic Postcards
Rebate Checks
New Homeowner
Postcards
FAQs
- What type of mailings do you offer?
Below is a list of the types of mailings we offer. We recommend giving us a call to determine which option is best for your home services business.
Full-Service Mailing Options
We Design, Print & Mail for you.New Customer Acquisition Mailings
1. Target New Customers by Carrier Route (Further Breakdown of a Zip Code)
The route that your postal worker takes each day to deliver the mail is called a carrier route. Targeting prospects by carrier route allows you to get very specific about the areas you would like to target without having to target an entire zip code.
Carrier route mailings are the most cost effective and recommended strategy for most home services business.
In addition, carrier route mailings provide additional capabilities to remove certain types of addresses. For example, with our full-service mailing option, most importantly, we can remove apartments from your mailing. This is critical for most home services business as individuals who rent will most likely not need your services.
We are also able to identify and remove other potential less than desirable addresses most home service businesses do not want to target, such as trailers, college addresses, seasonal addresses, etc.
Finally, we apply key demographics to each carrier route, such as median income, median year homes were built, etc. to further strategically help you select the most viable routes to target.
A carrier route is simply a further breakdown of a zip code and is the route that each USPS employees take each day to deliver the mail. Targeting areas by carrier route allows you to get much more specific about the areas you are targeting as opposed to targeting everyone in an entire zip code. Carrier route mailings are also the least expensive option to send out mail.
2. Target New Customers by Profile.
With a targeted Profile mailing, we work with you to create your ideal customer profile. We then find and purchase a list of only those individuals that meet these specific criteria.
Database Customer Retention / Loyalty Mailings
Database mailings target your list of current or previous customers. Whether you want to target your current customers with a retention or loyalty mailing, or you want to target your lapsed/lost customers in hopes of reactivating them, we have you covered.
All we need from you is the list of the customers you want to target from your database, in an Excel or CSV format, separated by first name, last name, address, city, state, and zip.
We will then run your database through our postal software to ensure all addresses in your database are valid and deliverable.
In addition, for a nominal cost, we can run your database through the NCOA (National Change of Address) System. This process compares the names and addresses of the customers in your database to the NCOA database of approximately 160 million changes of addresses going back 48 months.
This process ensures the customers in your database have not changed their address. The benefit to you is the cost savings of potentially sending mailers to customers that have moved out of the area and will never need your services again.
Business to Business Mailings
Targeting businesses is done by identifying and selecting the businesses you would like to target by their SIC code. An SIC Code (Standard Industrial Classification Code) is a four-digit code that categorizes the industries that companies are in based on their business activities.
This allows you to dial in and identify only the specific types of businesses you want to target. From there, you can begin refining your search by utilizing a wide range of additional criteria, such as company size, revenue. etc.
That said, we do not typically recommend that home service businesses offering commercial services should execute business-to-business mailings. Although we can help you target the exact businesses you want, it does not mean that these businesses own their building. They may be leasing and therefore, would never have the need for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, or landscaping services, etc. that would be handled by the landlord. Because of this unknown element, it poses a challenge for this type of mailing.
If you would still like to explore doing a business-to-business mailing, it Is best to get in contact with one of our direct mail marketing experts.
New Mover Mailings
The new residents moving into your area will be in need of many home services. These new movers represent the ideal prospective customers because they do not already have established relationships with other local home services providers.
Our new mover program targets these new residents once a month in an effort to get them to utilize your services before they go to a competitor.
There are no minimums and no cancellations costs. Give us a call and we will tell you the average number of new residents moving into your local market on a monthly basis.
Do It Yourself Option – EDDM Retail
EDDM Retail is a do-it-yourself program that the United States Postal Service created to make it easier for business owners to target prospective customers, by carrier route, with direct mail marketing, by physically taking the mailers to the post office yourself.
There are several guidelines and requirements that must be met in order to be able to execute an EDDM Retail mailer. Below is a short list of what you will be responsible for.
1. You are responsible for ordering the print material that meets the EDDM size and indicia requirements and having it delivered to you.
(We can help you with this)2. You are responsible for bundling the mailers per EDDM guidelines.
(We can help you with this)3. You are responsible for going onto the USPS website, choosing the carrier routes you would like to mail and printing the corresponding postal documentation/paperwork that must accompany each bundle of mail.
(We can help you with this)4. You are responsible for delivering the mail to each local post office that is responsible for the areas you are targeting.
5. You are responsible for paying postage at the time of delivery to the post office.
In addition, there are several other important items you should be aware of with EDDM Retail.
1. One of the biggest drawbacks to utilizing the EDDM Retail program for a home services business is that you cannot remove any apartments, trailers, college addresses, and/or any other undesirable types of addresses.
Unlike our Full-Service option that comes with a mailing list and physical addresses, giving us the flexibility to remove these unwanted addresses.
2. You cannot remove your current customers from an EDDM Retail mailing
We recommend giving us a call to discuss all the options to determine which will be the best fit for your business
- Do I have to do an annual program?
Absolutely not. You can pick and choose the number of mailings you want do, whether that is 1 or 12.
- Over how many weeks can I spread my mailings and payments?
You can spread your mailings and payments over up to 10 weeks. If that doesn’t meet your goals, there are other options. Simply give us a call to discuss.
- Do I have to mail Radius, Prospect Carrier Route Mailings, Retention & New Movers Together?
No, you absolutely do not. The “RRN Program” + prospect carrier route mailings collectively is a power house marketing strategy that we highly recommend for most home services businesses. However, you do not have to mail Radius, Prospect Carrier Route Mailings, Retention and New Homeowners together. You can simply choose any of the types of mailings that you want to do as an a la carte option.
- Do I choose templates for my designs?
No, we do not use templates for your design. Although we do have a preferred layout and suggested content, offers, etc. depending upon what type of mailer you are doing, we feel that it is important to customize each of our client’s artwork to ensure brand consistency across all marketing platforms. In preparation for your design, we do highly recommend using real pictures and images of your trucks, staff, etc. to personalize your marketing.
- How Do I Choose the Best Areas to Target?
In most cases, we start by plotting your current customers on a map in order to identify where your current customer base is coming from. We can then leverage that data along with key demographics to strategically select current or new areas to target.
The best place to start is by contacting us and consulting with one of our Direct Mail experts to determine which strategy is right for your business. Our team of direct mail experts will simplify and help guide you through this process.
- How can I track my response rates and ROI (Return On Investment)?
There are two methods that should be used in conjunction with each other to track your home services business direct mail response rates: Matchback reporting and call tracking.
Matchback reports:
Every time a new customer contacts you to schedule an appointment you will be acquiring their physical address.
A matchback report compares these new customer addresses to the mailing list of recipients that were targeted with your direct mail marketing. This comparison gives you a transparent picture of how many new customers you acquired from your direct mail marketing.
However, one blind spot of matchback reporting is that it only shows the prospects you have converted into a new customer. It does not provide visibility to the number of prospects that have responded to your direct mail marketing but did not convert into a customer.
This is a critical differentiation. If you have 50 people call from your direct mail piece, however, only 10 of them turn in to new customers, it will skew the analysis of your response rates and may appear that your marketing isn’t working as well as it is.
It’s also critical that you understand why a prospect calls but does not convert into an appointment. It could be quite a few reasons, such as poor customer service, scheduling issues, etc. Whatever the case may be, it is critical that you understand these reasons in order to be able to not only properly analyze the performance of your direct mail marketing but also to identify and address the reasons why these prospects did not convert. This brings us to the second method of tracking response rates: call tracking.
Call Tracking:
Call tracking works by utilizing a unique phone number that is only used on your direct mail marketing. Mail Shark can help acquire a call tracking number. Anyone who calls from this unique call tracking number is documented, and the call is recorded.
This provides another layer of tracking and allows you to listen to these calls as well for training and tracking purposes.
That said, one blind spot of call tracking is that any prospect who goes to Google or to your website and calls from the number on your website will not show up on your call tracking. Thus, call tracking is not 100% perfect but does provide an extra layer of tracking.