Advertising today: Print is dead. Long live print.

Direct mail has a few things working against it. It’s relatively slow, comparatively expensive, and difficult (but not impossible) to track. It has one big positive: It’s effective. Even Neil Patel, SEO expert and owner of NP Digital agency, says direct-mail is effective for its: relatively high response rate (from 2 to 5%); ability to target local addresses; longevity (much better than email or social media); and branding power – especially helpful in conjunction with digital ads. 

With printed pieces, whether mailed like a postcard or hand-delivered like a door hanger or flyer, a company can target specific areas by neighborhood or zip code and can filter by income in some areas. You can even filter out specific addresses – like eliminating current customers from your delivery. 

Let’s look at four unique examples. 

1. TruGreen mailed me a promotional letter recently. The company probably mailed 1000s of these. Mine had all the production quality you’d expect from a $2 billion company. My favorite part was the line, “Glenn, 153 of your neighbors already have TruGreen lawns.” This hits a data point that we’ve proven in our own research – homeowners compete with their neighbors’ lawns. 

Overall: This well-produced piece checks all the traditional advertising boxes – strong branding, aggressive promotion, personalized message, “today” urgency, call to action, customer testimonial, bullet points and little emoji-like graphics. Still, I won’t call because this service is a DIY job for me, but Tru-Green couldn’t possibly know that.

2. All Outdoors MN, my local irrigation service, sent me a postcard. The complete opposite of the TruGreen piece, this one featured poor print quality in a 2-color mailer with no promo discount. This low-cost postcard was probably created in low quantities and delivered to select neighborhoods. The mailing was not controlled to filter out current clients. I know, because I am one. 

Overall: Despite the low-quality production and too-simple messaging, this card works as a reminder of a company I’ve used before. It backs up the sticker they stuck on my irrigation control box, but it’s in my face and on my kitchen counter when I need it. Plus, it was inexpensive to produce and deliver – all done online through Vistaprint.com, which quotes a rate of about $200 for 250 postcards printed and mailed. No marketing agency needed means lower cost and more time savings. 

3. I flipped through an assembled pile of printed promo pieces stuffed into my local weekly newspaper and found this 4-page Toro flyer from Tri-State Bobcat, a 4-location dealer near me. The cost was covered, at some level, by Toro (though Toro also charges dealers for contributions to the company’s national advertising pool). It’s a high-quality, brochure-like piece. But it was surrounded by ads for a local grocery store, pizza chain, window installer, and more – all easily recyclable. 

Overall: I nearly always send this type of advertising flyer directly into the recycling bin. This one survived as an example for this article. Manufacturer co-op advertising funds make this possible and affordable. The dealer most likely produced and delivered a large quantity of this ad piece. And they did so at the right time of year. Large distribution is required to make these mini brochures effective. 

4. J&J Property Pros shared with me its first postcard mailer promoting its unique blend of services: landscaping; home cleaning and pet care. J&J hired an agency to design the mailer and target its distribution to select zip codes and high-income homeowners in Dutchess County, N.Y., north of New York City. 

Overall: This attractive mailer matches the company’s branding and fits with the high-end look that is likely appealing to the target audience. Efficient design covers services offered, shows local connection and has QR code for ease of use and tracking. 

Conversations about marketing

OPE+ spoke with landscapers and dealers to learn more about their advertising practices today. 

Jason Troy, Troy Turf Co. landscaping said:

All my current customers have come from word-of-mouth marketing or networking. If you can network, meet people and have a conversation. I’m not currently in a networking group or my local chamber of commerce, but I network with local businesses. The face-to-face interaction with people goes a long way. 

I’ve tried using door knockers, which produced very few new clients. I’ve also tried using the yard signs and placed them around targeted neighborhoods. That produced zero new clients. But I don’t do a lot of residential work; it’s just become a low-price game in my area. 

My best way to find new clients is to just do a great job on every job. Go above and beyond and the word-of-mouth impact will find the best long-term clients. This has been a winning strategy for me. I am also in the process of doing some SEO work with a local agency to improve my ranking on Google. And they say it could take 6 months. I know I can’t rely on referrals completely. 

Jenneka Temkin, J & J Property Pros said:

We are working on our first direct-mail strategy right now. For years, it was all word-of-mouth for us. Digital marketing is good, but it seems saturated. People are receptive to old school methods like post cards. We found a marketing agency that provides the addresses for our target radius, hitting select zip codes and income levels. We have a plan for a series of mailers that will highlight our unique service offerings – landscaping, housekeeping, pet care. 

These three pillars are unique to our area, and every business should communicate what makes it unique. The “local business” message is good to promote too. We are looking into Google ads as a supplement to this. For us, social media hasn’t produced the potential client mix we want. 

Our final strategy is a free option, kind of a guerilla campaign. We are putting up flyers in local stores. We can target where we want and which stores. And the local networking with other business owners is great for the growth of our business. 

We decided to budget 7 to 10 percent of our revenue for advertising this year. We will see where that gets us. Last year, we spent money on mowers and equipment. Now we have what we need there so we can put money toward marketing. 

Josh Flynn, Power Equipment Plus dealer said:

We have found almost no success with our own direct mail, and mild success with manufacturer co-op direct mail. It’s tough and so expensive. Especially when we want to connect with contractors and pro customers. Yes, it can help with homeowner outreach, but that’s not the majority of our market. 

One direct mail campaign that worked well was a personal note and a coffee gift card that I sent to pro buyers after a purchase. This introduced me to more business owners and I even followed it with in-person visits. But I couldn’t keep doing it because we just got too busy. And I didn’t want to automate this – I wanted it to be personal. 

Today, I’m working on more digital marketing. TR Digital agency is helping with SEO and Google analytics. Google ads seem to work best for us is when we get the keywords right. We spent money on programmatic banner ads but that had less impact. We experimented and learned that you need both ads and SEO. The banners worked only because we built the SEO that drove our name recognition. 

It’s really hard to measure the effectiveness when we don’t sell online. We have to ask, and that helps. But it’s still hard to know. I view this as maintenance. Social media, in my opinion, is not a primary way for us to find new customers. We would have to put a ton of time and work into it. It works to talk to the people we already know. Nobody is going to buy a $20K zero-turn because they saw us on Instagram.