By adding direct mail to your marketing strategy, your home improvement business will have no problem reaching, engaging with, and converting more homeowners.
Whether it’s emailing, texting, using Facebook Ads, or networking via social channels, digital marketing is an effective way to market your home improvement business and reach new customers. But in a world where everyone’s inboxes and screens are flooded with promotional content, getting your messaging to stand out can be difficult.
*Direct mail marketing enters the chat*
Even if you’re not familiar with direct mail marketing – trust us – you’re familiar with direct mail (unless you’ve lived totally off the grid your whole life). It comes in all shapes and sizes, including brochures, letters, postcards, catalogs and leaflets. By using direct mail to market your home improvement company, you can actually reach and convert more homeowners than with digital marketing alone. And yes, we have the facts to back that claim up:
- In 2019, a study done by the United States Postal Service (USPS) found that a whopping 60% of marketing respondents said combining digital and direct mail increased their ROI. [1]
- According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), the average email response rate (0.12%) doesn’t hold a candle to the average direct mail response rate (4.4%). [2]
- Research from USPS) shows that 81% of recipients read their mail daily [3], so whatever you send to homeowners will likely be seen.
The point is, combining direct mail with your other marketing strategies can make your efforts to engage with homeowners more effective. Plus, direct mail is pretty easy to execute for the most part. The three main steps for creating a successful direct mail campaign are as follows: 
- Choose the Audience
- When it comes to the audience, try sending direct mail pieces to your past customers and old leads that haven’t purchased yet before sending to anyone else.
- Create the Offer
- The quality of your offer can make or break your direct mail campaign, and it can really help to tie your offer to the main benefit of your product/service. For example: instead of saying, “Get free Low E Argon Glass with the purchase of 5 windows or more!” say, “Let’s lower your heating and cooling costs and save you a bundle with FREE Low E Argon Glass with the purchase of 5 windows or more!”
- Design the Packaging
- The packaging is your chance to showcase your brand, but keep in mind that the size of the direct mail piece you choose will affect how creative you can get. For example, you’ll be able to include more text and images in a brochure than you would on a postcard.
Become a direct mail marketing pro, with MarketSharp.
If you’re sold on the idea of direct mail, you’ll want to consider using MarketSharp, an industry-specific CRM system designed for home improvement businesses. With MarketSharp, you not only can store valuable lead and customer information in one single location, but also use features like MarketSharp Mail and SmartMail Plus to get started with direct mail.
MarketSharp Mail allows you to easily design and send out mailers from MarketSharp to generate leads, nurture existing prospects, or engage with previous customers. SmartMail Plus – on the other hand – enables you to drive leads from recently completed work by sending out mailers to homeowners that live nearby your other projects. Ultimately, both of these features will become your new best friends when you’re developing and executing direct mail marketing campaigns.
To learn more about to use direct mail marketing successfully, download our latest eBook on the topic!
[1] ” The Future of Direct Mail Is Here and It’s Dynamic.” United States Postal Service, 2019, (https://www.uspsdelivers.com/the-future-of-direct-mail-is-here-and-its-dynamic/).
2 “2018 Response Rate Report: Performance and Cost Metrics Across Direct Media.” ANA/DMA, 2018.
3 “A Marketer’s How-To (and Why-To) Guide to Using Direct Mail.” United States Postal Service, 2012, (www.usps.com/business/promotions/direct-mail-brochure.pdf).