stowintegrity

This post is a description of a very successful direct mail program we run consistently. If you're contemplating a budget for direct mail, it's worth the read.
 
There's a lot to say about direct mail pieces, but some of the very best postcard mailings I've seen, are overshadowed by a micro-mailing program someone turned me onto years ago directed at acquiring new customers. The premise is simple, actually.
 
Of course, we all know that the quality of your list is paramount, but without reitterating some of the most common aspects or practices of a program like this, I'll tell you what I really liked: Once you have a quality list defined, buy only a small portion of the target. In this example, let's say that it's 250 addresses. Scrub it against your own customer database - for our purpose, there's no need to solicit to anyone who's been to your shop before. Assume you need to drop 50 addresses (good for you...they've already been to you before, and if you like...you can mail them folks something different later.) This brings your usable control group down to 200 addresses.
 
Now here's the exciting part - prepare 4 or 5 ad pieces (postcards work well for all but the final one). Create a marketing message that expresses who you are as a company, but DO NOT advertise any discount offers with fun little dotted lines around them. The point of the mailing is to introduce yourself to the prospects ONLY.
 
You're going to mail out 200 postcards to people who have never been to your shop. Tell them where you're at, what awards you've won, how much you care about your customers, maybe offer a list of the services you offer...but NO discounts or "special offers". Just introduce your shop, and ask them to consider visiting you for service. "Does your mechanic not seem to care as much anymore about keeping you happy? Give us a try!" Give the post office 3 days to make sure they reach the prospects, then add a solid business week to the timeline, and make sure your staff is asking how new customer heard about you, so you can tell who's responded to the postcards.
 
Let's say it was miserable. All that hard work, planning, and design work...netted you 3 responses. (Could've been 2 oil changes & a price shopper, doesn't matter). After a solid week goes by, send out your 2nd postcard to the same list, minus the ones who already responded to the first one. Mail out 197.
 
The 2nd card is kind of like the 1st one - You talk about how much your customers appreciate your hard work – maybe even include a testimonial with a picture of one of your customers. Emphasize the flexible scheduling, your staff’s training & certifications, & tell them what hours you’re available to service their needs. NO DISCOUNTS.
Wait 3 days for delivery, start tracking the response from the postcard again for a solid week, and tally them up. Maybe the 2nd mailing only netted you 1 more response. Maybe it was a brake job, though. Of course, your first postcards are still out there, too, so this week, maybe you got another one from the first round of cards. That’s only a total of 2 more…but it’s 5 altogether.
Subtract the responding addresses from the list, and (you guessed it) send out the 3rd card. This one is really special, though…it has the American flag on it, and your face, and you’re smiling. There’s a short comment from you about how much you’ve been looking forward to meeting them, but you haven’t seen them. Tell them you’d like to personally invite them to come in for a cup of coffee, a brief tour of your shop, and that you’d like them to tell you EXACTLY why their old mechanic has let them down. NO DISCOUNTS, and send it to the remaining 195 folks on the list. Wait 3 days…then track the results for at least one solid business week.
Now, a really cool thing will start to happen, and you have to try it to see for yourself, but people will start to respond! The right message sent to the right prospect, at the right time…and a direct mail program comes to life! I’ve seen the 3rd step of the program personally work to bring in a response of as high as 2% without offering an discounts or offers. Afterall – PRICE isn’t all they’re bargaining for, right? So if you’ll let me finish the story…a 2% response on 195 addresses is a whopping 4 responses! This one can be fun, though, because they want to talk to you about why they hate their old mechanic. Got time for that? Aren’t you going to tell those 4 people how horrible that is, and how YOUR shop works hard to prevent EXACTLY those kinds of issues? You’ll sell them more than an oil change, for sure.
So after 3 mailings, you’ve received a total of 9 responses. (I won’t speculate on the gross sales…there’s too many variables, and that is truly up to your sales staff to control) Now you only have 191 addresses left.
I’ll spare you the longer version of the remainder of the program, and just tell you to repeat the process of mailing/tracking for the last 2 pieces, but the nature of the pieces will change.
#4 – You use a headline on the postcard that says, “We really want the chance to show you how hard we’re willing to work for you!”, and then you can finally add a SOFT discount on the card. Either give away a congruent service like a tire rotation, with their oil change, or offer a soft dollar or % discount off another, common service. Brake work? 5% off. Fluid services? $10 off. Give them the call to action they’ve been waiting for. Whatever response rate you’ve been seeing on average for the first 3 mailings will DOUBLE on the 4th.
#5 – The rope-a-dope. Prepare a letter. Really – a personal letter, on stationery, with your company’s logo on it. Let the “Title” of the letter be something that pops, like, “Did we do something wrong?” Tell them in a paragraph or two about all the new faces you’ve been seeing, and let them know how much you want the chance to earn their business, and show them that what they’ve been reading about your company is true. Tell them that you’re SO ready to prove it to them that you’d like them to take advantage of you by redeeming a discounted oil change at your shop, and that you’re doing so only as a last ditch effort to meet them, shake their hands, and prove to them how hard you’re willing to work for them. Now, I use a $10 synthetic blend oil change (up to 5 qts. Includes filter, on most cars), and give them ONLY 30 DAYS to redeem it.
If you track new customers, and you track average repair order figures, and you’ve been tallying up what the 5 mailings have cost you out of pocket, by the time you have the 5th mailing out to them, you’ll smile as you realize that the return you’re getting on a direct mail program is 6-8 times higher than those reported as averages by the DMA.
I’ve seen total program responses of as high as 20-25%. (That’s 40 responses on your list of 200). You MUST remove people’s address who’ve responded, and keep track of sales, profits, etc., as well as keeping your schedule. 5 mailings in 6-8 weeks.
The beautiful thing is that once you’re “finished”, you’ll be managing your new customer followups like normal…and you can start with 200 more that meet your list requirements, and do it again.
Sorry about the long post. We’re currently managing a list of 300 at a time, and have 2 campaigns running concurrently. Our average response rate per campaign is 9-10%.
 
Just one man’s (really long) story.