What’s The Message? The demographics in a neighborhood or “cluster” tend to be similar. Radius marketing enables you to target your message to homeowners of similar type. “If a guy has window problems,” Harshaw says, “it’s likely because the house is outdated, which means others in the neighborhood are, too.” His mailings emphasize work being done for “your neighbor,” and, he adds, “We make it very specific and not just, ‘Hey, you ought to buy windows.’”
Harshaw advises contractors to ask themselves about the strategic message they are sending. “We want to make sure we’re hitting the major hot buttons, talking about the relevant issues on those homeowner cards. We talk about the reasons why they are adding windows, or why they’re putting in a sunroom or gutter protection.”
A “double offer” in the mailing often boosts effectiveness, he adds. These mailers will reach many people who weren’t thinking about buying your product and who may not feel ready to pick up the phone to get the incentive, such as a discount or gift card, that’s being offered. However, by adding a second offer — the offer to send product information — the contractor can begin a dialogue with a whole new group of area consumers and start to educate them about his products and company, Harshaw says.
Multi-Steps Produce Results Marketers and contractors proficient in proximity marketing agree: A combination of marketing tools that leaves multiple impressions on the homeowner produces the best results.
“The mistake most people make with proximity marketing is that they think the mailing piece will do everything for them,” Grosso says. “They should follow up by canvassing or doing telemarketing behind it.”
In the same vein, one mailing won’t be nearly as effective as a series. “One direct mail piece doesn’t do the job in a way that will make it cost effective,” Musch says. On the other hand, he points out, “Multiple, sequential mailings have proven to be a good method.” The first one or two may not be “consciously acknowledged” by the recipient, Musch says. But a third tends to add its weight to the residual effect of the first two and might move the prospect to act. Canvassing or, less frequently these days, calling behind the mailers, adds the finishing touch that can crank up response.
Timing Counts The time that your radius marketing reaches the prospect can be critical, both in relation to the job being done and to the other elements of the marketing program. Three-piece direct mail works for longer jobs. You can mail after the contract is signed, during the job, and a third time afterward, with a strong message about a satisfied customer. For shorter jobs, a two-piece mailing is more practical.
Coordinating the mailing with the follow-up used to be hit or miss when the company was calling manually, Fairbanks says. “If we needed appointments that day, that was our focus and not the follow-up.” Now he uses a service that delivers an automated, prerecorded message from him. Calls are scheduled between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when most people aren’t home. “It goes on their answering machine and a certain percentage think I actually called them,” Fairbanks adds.
Holtzhauer puts these radius marketing principles into practice with every job his company does. In 2005, the program accounted for approximately $1 million of his $7.53 million net sale volume.
He mails to about 150 households each time. “We’ve found that’s a good number for us. We can canvass it in a timely fashion and our telemarketers can call the small percentage of people we have numbers for,” he says. “Followed up properly, it gets a far better response.”
Holtzhauer sends a “Pardon Our Dust” postcard 2½ weeks before a job begins as “an awareness note.” Then a “Neighborhood News” mailer goes out while the job is in progress. When the job’s complete, a third mailing tells neighbors that the installation is finished, and that it’s a good time to get an estimate.
His goal is, “at least one job off every job we sell,” and Holtzhauer thinks he can do better than that by improving coordination between marketing and installation, shaving a couple of percentage points off the marketing cost at the same time.