Direct mail has been the most consistent marketing tool for generating quality leads of homeowners interested in lawn and landscape services. Not only does direct mail put your sales message into targeted homes, the sales generated from our mailers are more likely to remain long-term customers. The initial cost of direct mail can be higher than some other advertising media and in order to effectively test a direct mail campaign you will generally need to mail at least 10,000 brochures. At a cost of 50 cents per piece (artwork, list, lettershop, printing, postage, freight combined), you can spend over $5,000.00. However, the ROI (return on investment) of direct mail is generally better than other sources because you can target specific homeowners most likely to buy your service.

Sample direct mail lawn care brochure

Direct Mail Components

The List – There is an old direct mail marketing proverb that reads: “If you mail the right offer to the right people, you can mail it on toilet paper and it will work.” While every component of direct mail is important - including the quality of the paper - this old adage does point out that selecting the right people to mail is paramount. The best offer – Free Lawn Service Forever, – with the best creative – A DVD produced by George Lucas of Industrial Light and Magic, - won’t generate lawn care leads if you mail to people who have no lawn.

Create you own prospect file – You probably already have such a file or at least started on one. Every customer and former customer and every estimate you’ve ever done should be in a data base. People do move over time and the name you have for that address will eventually be incorrect, but the house will generally be around longer than you are. Also you can be pretty sure that whoever lives in that home is a prospect. They have a lawn and somebody at that address either purchased or thought about purchasing your service in the past. Add additional addresses to the data base by capturing the addresses of neighbors and other homes and streets in the neighborhood. Finish one zip and then start on another. Drive up and down streets looking at lawns and homes and writing down street names and street numbers when you have a weather day that prohibits you from doing anything else. Use a Criss Cross or Haines directory to start with and add or delete addresses as you go. Again, the addresses will probably outlast you, so once you’ve keyed them all into a data base the only updates you’ll have to make are new homes.

Rent targeted SFDU (Single Family Dwelling Units) Lists – You can rent (or buy) lists from lots of sources and pay anywhere from almost nothing to more than a dollar a name. In purchasing lists, it’s almost always true that you get what you pay for. FREE lists are generally worth nothing. Most small companies rent SFDU lists targeted by Household Income or Home Value. This is fine as far as it goes and for smaller mailings may be the most cost-effective method. However, not all homeowners with similar home values and incomes are equal lawn care or landscape service prospects. Targeted Marketing. Yes Marketing has developed and uses statistical computer regression models that weigh multiple variables found to be predictive of homeowner buying behaviors in order to target prospects most likely to buy lawn and landscape services.

Rent New Resident Lists – Nowadays, new homeowners are not the ideal prospect they once were. However, this still can be a profitable list for you if enough new movers are available in your market to offset the minimum charges of mailing such a list. Yes Marketing can generally avoid minimum charges by selecting new residents for multiple companies at the same time

The Offer - Another old direct mail marketing proverb goes like this: “If you want people to respond to your mailing campaign, make them an offer only a moron could refuse.” You could mail an offer to every homeowner in your market with the offer “FREE LAWN CARE for ONE FULL YEAR.” Chances are good that you’d get a tremendous response. It would not be profitable, but you’d get a great response. Instead consider offers that are both compelling and can still be profitable like a FREE LIME treatment where you add product to an already scheduled visit, or FREE AERATION at the end of the year where no product costs are incurred.

The Creative – At Yes Marketing we test and retest everything whenever possible. We conduct focus groups to examine all aspects of different direct mail brochures and packages – some ours, some not – to see which photos capture the eyes of consumers; what headlines they are attracted to; which formats they pick up first. We develop and design brochures with all of this research in mind. We assume nothing. If it seems like a number of our stock brochures have pictures of kids and dogs on lawns, that’s because those were the photos that grabbed the attention most often of the homeowners we surveyed. Many of these photos we took and can’t be found or used through any other source. If it seems like we use a lot of lists and text with bullets in our copy, that’s because our research has shown it to be more readable and therefore read more often. If we encapsulate the main message in headlines and ask for the order on every page, it is because it works.

Sample of Previous Spring Mailers

Some other things to consider when using direct mail:

There are 2 times a year when direct mail has the best chance to work for lawn care providers: Spring and Fall.
Select zip codes and areas where you wish to increase your market share.
When using a self-mailer with a BRC you will need to secure a Business Reply Mail (BRM) permit from the United States Postal Service (USPS) prior to beginning art production. With this permit, you'll also receive a unique Zip + 4 for the BRM. The BRM is the postage paid post card, attached to the mailer that prospects can use to contact you for an estimate. Most people will contact you by phone or the internet instead of sending the card, but studies have shown that not having the BRM reduces response rates.
Once the copy and artwork is in place, you'll receive an Adobe PDF proof document of your mailer. When you receive this you'll have the opportunity to make changes / corrections.
Upon approval of the final artwork, your self-mailer, post card or envelope package will go to press along with other lawn care companies from across the US and Canada. You don't have to worry about a competitor's mailer showing up in the same mail box as your mailer. We only accept one client per one geographic area. In some large metropolitan areas, we may create a 2nd self mailer that is completely different in text and graphics but may be the same size.
After printing and binding is complete, the self-mailers are sent to the mailing house where the names and addresses are applied. It is then handed over to the USPS for distribution, and if the quantity is sufficient to create enough postage discounts to offset freight costs, we ship your mail directly to your local Bulk Mail Center (BMC) or Sectional Center Facility (SCF). It should take anywhere from 10 - 21 days for mail to be delivered to homes. (Average is about 12 days from acceptance by the USPS).