Pinpoint Your Ideal Customer
You understand the value of direct mail and you’re preparing to set the criteria for your postcard target market. What’s the best way to narrow down your target market and mail to your ideal leads? We’ll walk you through the process and give you tips on reaching leads that are well worth your time and effort.
Unlike other moving lead sources that include all types of movers like renters or small moves, our leads are made up of homeowners with an established household that are preparing to move into their 2nd home (or 3rd, 4th, more). The ideal demographics are already built into the lead source; age, income, and household size.
With built-in ideal demographics, you can even further target your campaign with our criteria.
PLACE & PROXIMITY
Before you choose your geographic area, ask yourself these questions:
- Where do your past customers live?
- Are there neighborhoods where you tend to win more business?
- Are there areas you want to avoid? Maybe a neighborhood tends to be multi-family or industrial and won’t generate the type of lead?
- Is one criteria option (radius, zip code, county) better at covering your ideal area while avoiding the areas you don’t want?
With the answers to the above questions in mind, review our targeting options and choose the method for your ideal geographical area. You can also use our count tool to get a visual of your selected area.
Mile Radius Around an Address
- This is the option used by most movers. It is a perfect way to reach leads that are closest to your business and usually covers the ideal area.
- You can use your business address or choose to base the radius on an address in the middle of an area you want to pinpoint such as a local school, city hall, or post office.
- To get a visual of your radius, check out our count tool. You can enter in your address and a miles radius to fine tune how far-reaching you’d like your leads to be.
- Do not use this option if you are close to a state line or border.
List of Zip Codes
- Zip Codes can be used when you want to cover specific areas especially if the other two options include areas that you wish to exclude.
- Not sure which zip codes to use? See this resource for zipcode options.
List of Counties
- Listing counties is a good option when you are trying to cover a wide area and stay within a specific state without having to enter every zip code in the large area.
BONUS: Check out our recent Pre-Mover's Survey for more details on defining ideal leads.
Proximity Matters
- The Closer, the better. After years of testing, results have shown that homeowners tend to respond to movers that are closer to their location. Movers that are more than 30 miles from their home are less likely to be called because the homeowner doesn’t want to pay for your commute to their house.
- Get the closest leads first. You can select to receive leads in order of proximity when choosing mile radius option for criteria. For example, if you chose leads within a 50-mile radius of your city and you budgeted for 100 leads a week but there are 1,000 within your radius, you’ll be given 100 closest leads to the center of your radius first.
GAGE INTEREST AND IDENTIFY LIKENESS TO PAY FOR SERVICES
Which homeowners are most likely to be interested in the services you offer?
Do you provide labor only and do you have trucks? Do you only have mid-sized trucks so you can’t handle really large household moves? Or are you a full-service mover that can help from everything from packing, to storage, to moves that require full-size trucks? Each of these levels of service fit different types of homeowners.
Homeowners with large households are less likely to hire a labor only mover and homeowners with smaller households often prefer to pack their own boxes and may not be interested in a full-service mover. Which of these movers do your services cater to?
You can use home price to identify likeness to pay for services.
Since the asking price of the home is a strong indicator of the homeowner's income level. The income levels of households are an indication of the ability to pay for various level of services. Using the asking price of the home you can target the needs of the homeowners.
Some businesses are more likely to win customers in mid-range homes ($250,000- $700,00), so it doesn't make sense to include the high-end list price homes. Some prefer to set a higher minimum price without a maximum price in order to target multi-million dollar homes.
Tip: High-end homes are attractive to movers because these tend to be the most profitable moves. But these types of homes stay on the market much longer and can take a full year to become a moving job. Make sure you are balancing your leads between move sizes that will give you consistent response with a mixture of expensive homes with a slower response.
NUMBER OF LEADS
The last setting on your list criteria is the number of leads you want to receive each week. For most, this is based on your budget.
We are often asked how many postcards need to be sent to get a response. On average, direct mail generates a 1-3% call rate. So, for every 100 postcards mailed, you should receive on average, 1-3 phone calls. The more postcards mailed = the more phone calls you can expect to receive. But even small mailings add up. If you mail 25 postcards per week, then it will take four weeks worth of mail to send 100 postcards and generate your 1-3 phone calls.
Did you know you can set up your account to receive the best leads first?
If you have a limit, you can also determine which leads you want to receive based on an order setting. For example, if we have 500 leads available in your criteria, and you only want to receive 100, which of the leads you would want? You can choose descending price, ascending price, or proximity to get the most attractive leads first.
By taking time to evaluate your ideal customer and customizing your criteria to target the best leads, you’ll increase your ROI.
If you want to know more about how you can use data to even better target your leads, check out Turn Big Data into New Business.
A steady flow of new listings and fresh leads will consistently replenish the top of your sales pipeline. We’d be happy to help set you up with your ideal pinpointed leads! Contact us today to start your service and start getting more calls! Email us at sales@fmadata.com or call (303) 443-0767.
Categories: Setting Up & Managing Postcard Campaigns