Fall Lawn Care Direct Mailer

Fall can be a very good opportunity to generate additional sales for lawn care companies. Direct mail can play an important and cost effective role in that sales effort. However, there are a few things to keep in mind.

• Fall campaigns are historically dependent upon weather. If lawns are brown and weedy because of drought, or they have been damaged by insects or disease, consumers will be looking for an answer and will be willing to switch or start with a new lawn care company in the fall. If lawns are green and beautiful, sales will be more difficult to get in the fall.

• Fall marketing is an investment in next year. The goal is to sell a few treatments this fall to take advantage of the fall growing season to get the lawn on its way to recovery. But mostly you want to sell next year’s program.

• Generally, you will need a special offer to make a fall direct mail campaign work.

If conditions are right for you to test a fall campaign, make sure you can follow up on leads generated immediately. Response rates may be lower than in the spring, but closing rates can be as high as 75% if you follow up on leads quickly and professionally. Very few of your competitors will be aggressively marketing in the fall.

Post Card – We are recommending a 4 color post card as the control piece for your fall mailing. Click on the image below to see a full size PDF version (requires the latest version of Adobe Acrobat, which may be downloaded on the link below). We have tested this post card in several markets over the last few years with consistently good results. (Past performance does not guarantee future success – sort of like the stock market.) This post card version has multiple cut-out coupons on the back panel (coupons are NOT die cut or perforated).

The coupons can be customized to fit your market or eliminated all together to give you more room to explain your offer and the benefits of starting their lawn on your program this fall.

All post cards are completely customized – including the 4-color – to fit your needs.

Printing Pricing – prices are as follows:

List Pricing – Names and addresses rent for one time use at $0.0415 each. There is a minimum list order charge of $500. This price includes selections by wealth rating (home value plus income) and zip code. Counts by wealth rating and zip code are FREE.

Mailing Pricing – Ink jet, sort and mail costs are $0.025 per address plus $175 set-up fee. This does not include postage or destination delivery charges.

Postage and Destination Delivery Pricing— Postage rates can vary from as low as $0.176 to $0.252 per piece standard mail and $0.312 to $0.36 per piece 1 st class mail. (4” * 6” post cards can qualify to mail for $0.191 to $0.26 per piece 1st class.) How the selected list sorts will determine the postage rate. Yes Marketing does everything possible to qualify your mailing for the lowest postage rates within the mail classification. Destination delivery charges are freight charges incurred to gain postal savings in postal entry discounts. No mail is trucked unless the freight charges are less than or equal to the postal savings.

Pricing – Overall: Generally, a 10,000 post card mailing should cost between $0.45 and $0.55 each.

Production notes: As in all direct mail campaigns, the timing for a fall mailing is critical. In most markets the ideal time for your mail to reach consumers in the fall is the week after labor day. Generally it takes at least 14 work days to print and ship your brochures from the time you approve the artwork. The same is true for list selections. To meet that schedule you will need to approve art and selections by August 13th.

Sample Fall Post Cards
100% Customizable Post Card

Click on the image below to see a full size PDF version (requires the latest version of Adobe Acrobat, which may be downloaded on the link below). As with all of our post cards, you can completely customize everything on the card including photographs. Just let us know what you would like to see.

5.5 x 8.5 Sample PostCard

4x6 Sample PostCard

Postage rates have changed. Please call for the latest postage rates and classes before making your decision on which size postcard you want to mail.

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR PRE-ORDER INFORMATION

Production Notes:

Timing is critical in the lawn care fall mailing. Fall mailers for both northern and southern lawn markets should be mailed no later than early September.

Mailing after the first week after Labor Day, response rates drop off substantially. We therefore cannot hold up the production run for any market that is not submitting materials on a timely basis.