Post Cards

Anyone ever tried post cards and gotten any decent results? I'm after repairs so I'm thinking maybe it could work for that but just don't have any experience with it.

It's $350 instead of $2,500. :dry:

While I'm already in the areas and don't have a bunch of other places to go is when I would do it. So a little extra gas and time is all I would be looking at. May end up with $500 in 5000 cards counting gas. That's 10 cents each. It will take longer for sure but I get to find out what I get out of the 5000 attempts fairly cheap.

That's alot of driving and getting in/out of truck.

However it is pretty pinpointed and you should do much better than 1-2% return. A charming southern boy like you ought to slay 'em Chuck.

But don't tell GAK. He wants to take over the world :laugh:

I'm starting to think my idea above would be too expensive. At least for just starting out with the method.

HDM, The last thing I want is to market for hail damage. In fact my cards would clearly state that "I am NOT interested in your home owner's insurance in any way! That I am simply offering repairs, preventative maintenance and inspections.

I have an offer of 5,000 4.25 x 6 inch post cards for $350. That's 7 cents apiece. I think to begin with, I will just order those and pass them out myself as I'm driving around in the areas where I work. Targeting roofs and neighborhoods around 10 years old where I know the occupants are the owners in the vast majority. I'm only looking to add a few extra jobs, not to take over the market.

AdamsRoofTech

Thank you! If I'm reading this correctly, I believe you're asking if we mail to businesses? The answer is absolutely, we mail to both homes and businesses.

-Ryan

HailDamageMarketing Said: Hey Guys! My name is Ryan with Hail Damage Marketing. We just started advertising with Vickie and the Roofers Coffee Shop and we absolutely believe that Direct Mail postcards work, thats our business! However, success with Direct Mail is all about getting your product or service in front of the right eyeballs. You also have to have a strong headline and a strong creative to go along with it.

We send out Millions of Direct Mail postcards every year. We are based out of Omaha, Nebraska, and last year we had some terrible hail come through here, affecting over 60,000 residents, of which just over 40,000 were owner occupied. Many of the postcard mailings that were dropped in this area not only targeted the owner occupied homeowner, but a lot of them were also dropped to the undesirables such as the renters and the leasers. With 25 years in the print business and 15 years in the list building business we have a very good understanding of what a successful Direct Mail campaign comes down to.

We can target owner occupied homeowners or only homes of a certain value or higher. Quite simply, we eliminate the waste, which in turn creates a better ROI for the roofing contractors. If you have any questions, please respond to the post, visit our website at http://haildamagemarketing.com/ or email us at info@haildamagemarketing.com.

Thanks so much, and were excited to be a part of this forum!

Welcome!

Do you do businesses?

Hey Guys! My name is Ryan with Hail Damage Marketing. We just started advertising with Vickie and the Roofers Coffee Shop and we absolutely believe that Direct Mail postcards work, that's our business! However, success with Direct Mail is all about getting your product or service in front of the right eyeballs. You also have to have a strong headline and a strong creative to go along with it.

We send out Millions of Direct Mail postcards every year. We are based out of Omaha, Nebraska, and last year we had some terrible hail come through here, affecting over 60,000 residents, of which just over 40,000 were owner occupied. Many of the postcard mailings that were dropped in this area not only targeted the owner occupied homeowner, but a lot of them were also dropped to the undesirables such as the renters and the leasers. With 25 years in the print business and 15 years in the list building business we have a very good understanding of what a successful Direct Mail campaign comes down to.

We can target owner occupied homeowners or only homes of a certain value or higher. Quite simply, we eliminate the waste, which in turn creates a better ROI for the roofing contractors. If you have any questions, please respond to the post, visit our website at http://haildamagemarketing.com/ or email us at info@haildamagemarketing.com.

Thanks so much, and we're excited to be a part of this forum!

For a few years now I've been making my own postcards and it's given me a lot more flexibility.

I have a semi-professional grade HP Color Laserjet CP4026 printer that prints on both sides (duplex) and has very high quality. Not print shop quality, but very close. I have an industrial paper cutter that will cut 100 pieces of cardstock at a time. I print 2-up on 8.5" x 11" postcard cardstock bought at Office Depot, then cut in half.

Before I cut them I use Word Mail Merge to print the address labels on them. I get the address labels from a couple of sources including directmail.com

The nice thing is, if I hear there was wind damage on 34th street in Lubbock, Tx last night, I can create a mailing list for business on just that street, design a postcard specifically for the purpose, and have them in the mail in 3 hours.

The downside is that the runs are small and thus I have to stick a $.47 stamp on each, but the quick turn around and specifics or the target is worth the cost.

Be careful not to blow the budget all at once. Set it up for multiple tries.......especially for the commercial clients. They may need hit more often.

With commercial, you are sometimes just waiting for the other guy not to show up to get your chance. Stay in front of them

Hmmmmm! I may try it. I would target certain zip codes where I know the bulk of my work comes from mailing them out to an entire zip code. Go ahead and design the cards and have them made but wait until a decent rain is in the forecast to do like GSD said and mail them out a couple days in advance of that. Basically targeting by location and weather since those are the people that hire and after decent rains is when they hire. The goal of the post cards would be to send them to my website where they basically pre-qualify themselves.

Sounds like it's worth a try. Let us know how it worked. But don't tell Tom. :laugh:

Send them to property managers, that way you have a chance of doing more than a single job for a new customer.

Also, don't get too wordy - use 1 heading to grab their attention then a few more lines of info.

Shoot for 2% response and to sell half of those.

I used to use them when I just started my repairs. its works pretty good. but I did it my way to make sure I spent as little as possible and got the most for my money.

I would start out by making my own mail list, getting names and addys from the internet. I would try to get about 10 places a day, be it schools, factories, churches, apartments, etc.

then I would prelabel the cards and prestamp them.

then 2 days before a strom hits, I would drop them in the mail.

storm hits, leaks everywhere, the people get my card in the mail.....WOW !!! they couldn't believe it.

works every time.

a lot of the customers I have now was because of my cards.

lots of work getting everything ready, but timing is EVERYTHING !!

How many roofs leak or have other issues? Around here a LOT. But most aren't aware of the "issues" YET.

Just checking into them. I don't know if I will try it or not. Weather forecast says winds of up to 70 mph for tomorrow night. If that happens I won't need the extra leads anymore for a while. lol

They would cost 37 cents apiece to create and mail out. All done by the postcard company. From what I understand people that use them get about one lead on average per 100 cards sent out. So thats $37 per lead. I sell about 2 of 3. So I guess you can jack that up to the 50 bucks you mentioned. That would be per job though rather than per call.

Just mail them out for Repairs only and see what happens. How many roofs leak or have other issues? 1%? 10%?

If you send enough out you should get an accurate sampling back.

So What will 10,000 cards cost? $5000? Takes a lot of repairs to make that back, not like replacing a roof

1% of 10,000 is 100 calls = $50 per call......take the FREE Estimate out of the equation. Charge $50 to show up

Let me know how it works out. Secretly. Forget about them other Bums in here. It's me and you Chuckee! :laugh: :laugh: