There are two things you will never hear a home services business owner disagree on:
- Customer retention being one of the most important keys to growing a successful home services business.
- Word of mouth referrals being the absolute best source of leads, providing a low customer acquisition cost and the highest close rate.
We know it’s an obvious statement that having a strong customer retention marketing plan proves critical to the success of any home services business. It’s impossible to build a successful home services company with a leaky bucket of customers, even when you are a Plumbing Company like Big B’s Plumbing (see what we did there)….?
Therefore, putting together a strong retention marketing plan should be a top priority for every business owner and/or marketing manager. With that said, we are going to let you in on a little direct mail retention marketing strategy secret that will take your retention marketing to the next level by also generating more customer referrals.
If it sounds too good to be true, don’t worry, it most certainly is not. It’s actually a very simple yet highly effective strategy that 99.9% of home services companies aren’t doing….YET.
Here’s how it’s done….. We use highly effective & unique direct mail plastic postcards to create value and maximize impact in the mailbox. The direct mail plastic postcard contains two very strategic special offers.
Offer 1; provides a special discount for your current happy customer and Offer 2; provides a discount geared towards your happy customers, friends, and family, just like this example below from Big B’s Plumbing.
By providing your happy customers with an easy and valuable way to help their friends and family save money on home services they may need, you exponentially increase the likelihood of being top of mind and having your happy customers share your special offer with their friends and family and ultimately generating more referrals.
So, how well did this strategy work for Big B’s Plumbing????
Big B’s Mailed a total of 8,637 direct mail plastic postcards. From the time the mailers were delivered in homes the week of 3/14-22 through the week of 9/14/2022 which is a 6-month period, Big B’s Plumbing Booked 69 jobs, 12 of which were brand new customers.
THE BEST PART OF THIS STRATEGY IS………….There is Absolutely nothing to lose by making one design/offer tweak adding a “Savings for a friend or family member” and increase the likelihood of referrals. That is the beauty and the simplicity as to how one minor tweak to your direct mail marketing can have a big impact on your results.
Of course there is no better validation of a direct mail marketing strategy than real results from our current customers that we see time and time again. However, what isn’t as transparent is how many homeowners would truly share this offer with their friends and family. We wanted to gain further insight to find out. Therefore, we launched a national consumer research campaign and asked 5,818 homeowners the following.
If you received the offer below in the mail, would you share these savings with a friend, family member or coworker?
As you can tell a resounding 75% said, YES, they would share this offer.
To view the full details as well as our other latest Home Services (HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical ) Consumer research click below to download “Cracking The Code” .
Josh Davis CRO