You guys should really look into EDDM mailings, I can't even go and put door hangers on for as cheap as I can mail things. Just dropped off 2,100 cards yesterday and the cost of postage was $309. I paid $160 for the printed cards (8" x 6.5"), so all of it for $470. It would cost more in labor (even if I payed a grunt) to walk the same neighborhoods and put doorhangers out (3-4 days)

 

Rather than open yet another thread, I'll post my question here:

Under excellent circumstances (great design, the right demographics, the right offer, right time of year etc.) what would a good response rate be for door hangers?

What kind of response rates have you guys gotten, and what were you advertising?

I did a mailer to the general public for my tree service last year and had a 1% response.
I did a mailer to my client list and got an 8% response (so far, only been 10 days).
I did business cards left on the door with a note on the back just after a major storm and got a 12% response rate and a 33% purchase rate (of those 12%, or a 4% purchase).

I am now doing door hangers and have only distributed 100 in the past two days. So far, nothing. I am distributing these to the same homes I did the mailer to so they might recognize me and have more confidence in the company. I hope I get some call backs from those 100, but definitely need to pass out more.

Again, what kind of number have you been getting?

 

When you do the mailings do you have to take your own contact list in? Or will they just mass address them to a certain area?

 

EDDM mailing is a simplified address mailing, it's not addressed to anyone other than POSTAL CUSTOMER, the carrier just puts 1 in every mailbox on a carrier route. It is the cheapest way to mail at 14.5 cents ea.

 

You can buy mailing lists or just have the post office send them to an entire zip code. I drove around and wrote down addresses of the 300 biggest, nicest houses in my area. I hand wrote To and From fields, and wrote "Our neighbors at..." because I didn't know their names.

 

Design ideas

Where I live the majority of homes are vacation homes so using the post office is not an option.

Any thought on this (very rough) idea:

 

Where I live the majority of homes are vacation homes so using the post office is not an option.

Any thought on this (very rough) idea:

Dan,

I would look at more specific mailings, such as using public records of the summer property to find the mailing address (their primary residence) and market to them about doing the work when they are not there so as not to inconvenience them. Include references who have had you do the work while they were gone. Sell them on the fact that you specialize in doing the work with no one present, and assure timely updates with pictures and emails. Sell them that they get all the joy of the kitchen remodel with none of the pain of not having a kitchen while they are vacationing, but when they show up for their summer break the kitchen looks beautiful and ready for use.

If you hang a door hanger and no one is there then how is that reaching them?

 

thanks Robert. I wish it was easy to reach the homeowners at their primary home.

The idea is that it will be there when they come up next. Searching for mailing addresses is extremely time consuming. I have gone through County assessor records when I have wanted to target specific homes and it is not easy.

 

thanks Robert. I wish it was easy to reach the homeowners at their primary home.

The idea is that it will be there when they come up next. Searching for mailing addresses is extremely time consuming. I have gone through County assessor records when I have wanted to target specific homes and it is not easy.

That's a bummer, our assessors website is very good and takes 30 secs to find the mailing address.

 

Thats a good point, I assume you kind of know when people start showing up and that's when you'll put them out. If left out too long it might blow away, fade, etc.

I don't know your market and how big/spread out it is so I'm just throwing things out there. I imagine that people own the places for an extended period of time? If so it might be worth the time to look up 250 homes and build a mailing list (if you have the time) once it's built it might not change much and you can keep mailing to them, they may not want to remodel this year, but maybe next.

 

I would get the double sided glossy ones so they would weather better.

I like your mailing list idea..I can see it growing and creating word-of-mouth. ("you need a contractor?, I just got a flyer from one, let me give it to you" )

 

I just figure you can really dominate if you can constantly stay in front of people even when they're not there. The more you do in the same areas the more you'll do in the same areas... We have a neighborhood that we do a LOT of work in, 1-2 month projects, we just demo'd a deck and it will be our 4th in a 1/2 radius in the last 6 months... We have done probably 20 in a 1 mile radius over the past few years, I think people might be tired of hearing of me and seeing my advertising but it works.

 

If you are mailing, or want to do doorhangers on only specific houses, you can get a mailing service to pull you a specific list based on whatever parameters you decide upon. For example, these 6 neighborhoods, home value over $200,000 and household income over $75,000 and houses over 20 years old.

A mailing service will do the addressing, postage, mailing, etc., for you. Once you buy the mailinglist it's yours, or you can use it for "X" mailings.

Biggest thing is do it over and over and over and over.

As for response rate, the return Leeson1776 is getting is excellent. But it depends on your local market, what you are selling, etc.. If you do door hangers for "Pizza $6" you better get a heck of a lot higher return than "Kitchens $14K to $Whatever."

Easy to figure your breakeven and rate of return.

Total cost of marketing project / Gross margin per job average = # jobs to breakeven.

So if I do $1,000 for my marketing cost where I make $25 gross margin, I need 40 jobs to breakeven. (If my cost is 20 cents per hanger, I could hit 5,000 households. So I need 40 out of 5,000 to breakeven, or 8/10's of 1% return.)

If my cost is 45 cents, I hit 2,222 households. If my gross margin is $8,000 I need only one job, or less than 5/100's of one percent.

(And if your average job gives you $8,000 gross margin I will assure you your rate of return is going to be a lot less than if your average GM is $25.)

 

What are people thoughts on door hangers for trades that work inside the home. ex. Flooring.
Ive been considering placing door hangers, but kinda always thought it was more of an "outside trade" approach to advertising. ex. roofing

So whats the over all feeling on this? Creepy? Perfectly fine?

 

This has been discussed several times on here. Do a search and you will find some threads with good info.

 

Exactly KG007, discussion is now going to be bored because lot of suggestions already shared with sitdwnandhngon, so he needs to definitely contact with some online printing company to get door hangers asap.

 

Robert, I'm getting ready to order 5,000 postcards but don't want them sent out all at once. My target audience is pretty specific so I was wondering if I could take a mailing list with a bunch of postcards into the post office and have them mail them or if I'd have to address them myself first. Does the 4x6 card qualify for the cheaper postage? USPS says $.32 on their website. Thanks

 

Robert, I'm getting ready to order 5,000 postcards but don't want them sent out all at once. My target audience is pretty specific so I was wondering if I could take a mailing list with a bunch of postcards into the post office and have them mail them or if I'd have to address them myself first. Does the 4x6 card qualify for the cheaper postage? USPS says $.32 on their website. Thanks

You'll need to use a 6.5" x 8" card if you want to do the EDDM mailing ( carrier route) goto usps and look up the eddm mailing before you order, the minimum you can send is 200 but most carrier routes are 250-1000. I printed out Google maps of the areas I like to work in and highlighted the different routes so I could just glance at the map to know what routes go to which streets.

 

Ok, now that I'm home and can post a little easier, here is the link to eddm https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm You'll need to make an account and access the 'RETAIL' section (unless you are doing MORE than 5,000 in one day) Once you've done a few it becomes easy.

I recommend printing a TEST piece on regular paper and going to the PO that it will mail from and talking to someone first. You want to make sure they feel the design is compliant (proper indicia, size, placement, etc)

I can send a copy of the back of a card if anyone wants it (just email me through my website) it should get you started in the right direction.

 

Wow, good stuff. How do you know what the actual carrier routes are though?

 

If you make an account in the EDDM portal (it's free don't worry) you can log in and do a map view, once you play with it a few times it starts to make sense.

 

If you make an account in the EDDM portal (it's free don't worry) you can log in and do a map view, once you play with it a few times it starts to make sense.

I was playing with, doesn't allow map view as an option.

 

Try entering an address instead of using the city entry... I don't remember exactly I'll have to look it up on a real computer.

 

After you log on click 'by location' enter in a house number on a street you want to mail to, on the right hand side under 'view types' and select 'map' then click submit. Should pull up a map for you.

 

Or, you can engage a company whose business is doing mailings. Doesn't really matter where you are, they can typically work with clients all over the country. Your time is in specifying what you want done, have the postcards printed wherever you want, and let them handle it. The time savings is immense and the cost is about the same (or even cheaper in some cases) than if you do it yourself.

They can pull a mailing list for you using whatever addressess/demographics/ etc. you want. You don't have to re-invent the wheel yourself. So if you want 500 mailings to 2 subdivisions with HH income over $70K and are left-handed albinios, they have all the tools and will provide you the exact list. Much easier and faster than you trying to do it yourself.

The person I use can be reached at john.young@bgmailing.com if you want to e-mail him and say Graham Interiors suggested you contact him. Excellent people. Good luck.

 

KG007, Please stop clouding the conversation, this is to do with EDDM there is NO MAILING list required, no name list or anything, I've done 3 of these mailings and never used a list. You clearly don't know what you're talking about (when it comes to EDDM) so please just be quiet in regards to EDDM.

 

In other words, you still need to purchase mailing lists and have those listed on the cards as well?

 

You are going to have to have a mailing list regardless. Do you want to create it yourself, or let a professional in that field pull it for you?

Listen, we're mostly in the contracting business one way or the other. You can use your client list, and that's excellent, and have a mailing house send the mailings you prepare, or mail those yourself.

But where you might own a saw and hammer and tools specific to your trade, they have the means to give you a mailing list that has been screened any way you want, and they can "build" your mailing more efficiently and cheaply than you can. I've always had letters or postcards I printed or had printed, and sometimes even had them sealed and addressed, but a good mailing house can do ALL of that for you.

If I were sending 5,000 or 50,000 mailouts, I'd engage them to pretty much do it all, with maybe the exception of having the particular piece printed. I've never asked them to do design and printing, maybe they can even do so, I don't know.

For a couple hundred pieces going to a mailing list you already have maybe you do all or most yourself, such as a follow up to existing clients. If you are doing hundreds or thousands to new prospects, get a professional involved.

If I'm not mistaken, you could say "I want to send 5,000 postcards to people in these neighborhoods who are over 60, have HH income of $75K, with the house being over 20 years old, and them having owned it at least 10 years, and homeowner is retired. I'm having the postcards printed by XYZ company and have them sent to the mailing house who will address and mail them."

Once you buy the mailing list you own it, or you "lease" it and can use it for X-number of mailings. And you will typically get more results with doing repeated mailings, at least 3.

So let's say you want to do a test. Maybe you can get 6,000 post cards printed. Have the mailing house pull a 2,000 name list based on your criteria, have them address and mail it. Mail a card three times each maybe 2-3 weeks apart. Judge your return as to if it's worth it, or is it worth it RIGHT NOW. If the economy sucks where no one is doing much, maybe you try again in the summer if it feel like things have loosened up.

There are all kinds of thinking as to exactly what a mailing needs to look like, and that depends on what you do and the image you want to project. For example, they can do it in evelopes with or without a return address, and make them look hand addressed with a stamp on it. Or just do a postcard.

My point is, if you are going to do it in a continuing, organized way, talk to someone like John, whose e-mail I listed, and find out what they suggest. It will probably cost about the same, or less, than trying to do it yourself and a heck of a lot easier and faster.

Good luck.

 

EDDM cards are hand delivered by postal routes. They are not mailed so they dont have to be addressed meaning no lists have to be bought. Go to www.melissadata.com to get an over view of an area you want to send out to.

 

Actually, Robert, this thread was about designing a DOOR HANGER, not EDDM. So, right back at you, guy.

What it seems like the original post was about is how he can do some relatively low cost marketing. If he wants to do EDDM, door hangers, or paint himself polka dots and run around on street corners naked doesn't matter to me. I just hope that whatever he tries works and he's successful. If he wants to target a SPECIFIC demographic with direct mail, there are places out there that offer those services.

Good luck with each and every method you try.

P.S. You might also have read where I said "OR, you can engage a company whose business is doing mailings." About like you offered your opinion on EDDM, which, as I read on here, no one is discouraging.

 

OR you can read YOUR OWN line that says "You are going to have to have a mailing list regardless. Do you want to create it yourself, or let a professional in that field pull it for you?"
I am well aware of the thread title, however the question was being asked about EDDM and you keep wanting to talk about SPECIFIC mailing and saying that EDDM is run the same way when it's not.

 

I really wish doorhangers worked.
I spent $500 last year with no success.

 

Okay, last posting on the subject because it's boring everyone, including me. Don't know what your issue is Robert about defending EDDM like your a mother bear with a cub, maybe you personally invented it like Al Gore did the internet, but I actually haven't talked about it AT ALL. I mentioned another option if they want to go the direct mail route where you mail to a specific list (such as your client base), or a specific demographic, where there are companies who can help you do that at a pretty low cost.

Knock yourself out doing whatever you want, makes no difference to me. Haven't said one bad word about EDDM and everything I posted was about how someone can try direct mail to a targeted group. Whatever they do, and they can try fortyleven different techniques, I hope they find some things that works and share it with us.