Marketing Practices

Creative direct mail marketing can capture customers’ attention with catchy electrical logo ideas, unusual electrical company names and interesting electrical advertising. Including an incentive or coupon to inspire action never hurts either.

Hire an agency for electrical marketing services to help you create the most professional-looking electrician advertising, so customers remember your company the next time they need electrical services. Brainstorm creative incentives or campaigns to get new customers to call.

Here’s how to create and send campaigns your customers will actually look forward to receiving. 

Step 1: Craft your message.

• Know your objective. Ask yourself what your goal is. Whether you want to inform customers about a service special or encourage them to replace older equipment, you need to have a clear objective.

• Tell your customers what to do. Don’t assume customers will know what they need to do. If you want them to call for HVAC maintenance or have their older home’s electrical wiring inspected, your call-to-action should make that clear.

• Keep it short. Don’t bury your message in too many words. Keep your copy short and fluff-free, especially if you’re doing postcard marketing where space is limited.

• Sell the benefits. For example, instead of focusing on a new water heater’s bells and whistles, focus on how it keeps customers from running out of hot water and lowers their energy bills, which is more appealing.

Step 2: Use eye-catching design details.

• Source high-quality images. If possible, use your own photos instead of stock photos, as they look more authentic and less staged. Make sure your images are high-resolution, so they don’t look blurry in your mailings. 

• Choose easy-to-read fonts. Avoid using font colors in your copy that blend in with background colors or are too small for customers (particularly older ones) to read. 

• Use a reputable printing service. Bleeding colors and streak marks look unprofessional, so look for a printing service that produces high-quality materials and is willing to provide samples of their work.

Step 3:  Build your audience.

• Start small. Sending blanket campaigns without testing smaller audiences first can lead to wasted marketing dollars. Send small campaigns first and then measure those results, so you can identify whom to target with larger campaigns down the road.

• Segment your lists. Look for ways to fine-tune your audience. Try grouping customers who have open unsold estimates or customers with expiring memberships. Tools like Marketing Pro make this easy by letting you build targeted audiences with just a few clicks. 

• Keep it relevant. Ensure your mailings are relevant to your customers’ needs or to certain traits, like the age of their home, geographic location or current maintenance schedule. 

Pro Tip: Boost your direct mail response rates by practicing good contact list hygiene. Go through your contact list yearly and merge duplicate contacts, as well as review your unengaged contacts. Marketing to customers who have a history of never responding costs you both unnecessary time and money.

Step 4: Schedule your campaigns wisely.

• Be timely. A mailing sent at the right time has the greatest probability of success. For example, try an automated campaign to send customers who’ve received an estimate and haven’t responded after a certain period of time.

• Leverage holidays. Seasonal holidays such as Memorial Day and Labor Day work well for maintenance reminder campaigns. You can also create campaigns around more fun, unorthodox holidays that are likely to get attention.

• Be consistent. Stick to a consistent mailing schedule. Consistency establishes your brand in your customers’ minds and makes them more likely to remember and trust you. 

Step 5: Track your results. 

• Use coupon codes. If your campaigns advertise discounts, include unique coupon codes customers can provide your CSR upon booking. This can help you gauge your response rate.

• Assign tracking phone numbers. When choosing a tracking number, go with a local area code. Consumers generally trust local businesses more than national chains, so having a local area code reinforces that trust from your customers. 

• Create a landing page. Include a link to a unique landing page on your website in your direct mailings. This works well for campaigns that ask customers to sign up for newsletters or discount emails. 

You should keep track of the following key performance indicators (KPIs) that help you measure direct mail campaign performance. 

Response Rate = Responses ÷ Sent mailings

Conversion Rate = Bookings/signups ÷ Responses

Cost per Acquisition = Campaign cost ÷ Bookings/signups

Return on Investment = (Revenue - Campaign cost) ÷ Campaign cost

Pro Tip: Instead of trying to manually determine your KPIs, use ServiceTitan Marketing Pro’s analytics dashboard to view metrics in one place and see exactly how your direct mail campaigns are performing.