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EDDM Advertising Tips for Landscapers and Lawn-Care Business

Maybe, you’ve been trying to get more customers for your, landscaping or lawn care company with EDDM direct mail advertising for a while now. Or are just starting out with an Every Door Direct Mail advertising campaign.

You’ve seen other lawn care businesses do it. And it seems like they make it look so easy.

But for some reason, success keeps eluding you. Every time you send out a EDDM mailing, nothing happens and you end up wasting money.

 

Not this time.

 

Because this time you’re going to be armed with the same tips, tricks and secrets that professional direct mail marketers know.

So, give these tips a try and see if they don’t work for you too…

  • Tip #1 Get to know the, Every Door Direct Mail system. Before you use EDDM for your landscaping advertisement.
  • Tip #2 Learn how to use the EDDM routing tool. And Targeting Options
  • Tip #3 Learn how to make an offer, the customers can’t refuse.
  • Tip#4 Design to stay out of the trash can.
  • Tip #5 Call Tracking.
  • Tip #6 Bonus

Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is an affordable service for landscapers and lawn care businesses that want to target specific areas in their local marketing area, without requiring names and addresses on the mail pieces. With EDDM, you can:

  • Target a location or neighborhood using the EDDM Online Tool
  • Send mail to every address in a defined geographic area
  • Develop local, state or national campaigns
  • Mail postcards, service menus, flyers and coupons to drive traffic to your website landing pages
  • Prospect for new customer at reduced preparation costs from regular marketing mail
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EDDM System

EDDM is a good way for landscapers to mail to every home in a specific area or zip code at a discounted postage rate. The mail piece has to be a very specific size and has to follow exact EDDM USPS guidelines to format the mail piece, pull the mailing list, prep the mailing and deliver it to the post office. The USPS has made all of these instructions in a way that small business owners can understand, in an effort to make sending out direct mail easier.

Even though you can do it yourself, it is still time consuming and there are EDDM printers, advertising agencies and mail houses who can do all of the leg work for you. This saving you, additional money and time over doing it yourself.

 

EDDM Benefits: Postage Savings

The actual postage savings with EDDM marketing is about 4 cents over postcard first class rate, and about 8 cents over standard letter rate. The nice thing about EDDM postcards is that you can mail a much larger piece which will grab attention in the mail box. You will want to quote the entire campaign with EDDM mail-pieces and then quote the entire campaign with a targeted list to get an exact price comparison of the difference in the costs of the complete campaign.

lawn care marketing and advertising company

EDDM Routing Tool & Targeting

You’ll want to look at who your ideal customer is.

 

Let’s take an example, a landscape company that caters to upper middle class (+$100,000), middle aged people. The people who actually buy from you are couples ages 30-50. You run a count of how many people age 30-50 there are in your targeted zip codes and come up with 2200. Next run an EDDM mailing list count for those same targeted zip codes, say you come up with 9000 total records.

 

So, if you use Every Door Direct Mail you will have to hit 9000 homes to reach the 2200 people that are actually your target market. Or, you can pay a few cents more per piece and only mail to those 2200 qualified people your overall cost is MUCH less.

 

Now look at another example of someone who should use EDDM. Let’s take a lawn care company who is targeting anyone in a 5-mile radius who makes more than $80k per year. You run a specific count with the income criteria and come up with 8,300 records. You run a US Post Office EDDM count and get 12,000 records. This business will most likely benefit from going with EDDM marketing since they are targeting almost everyone in their 5-mile radius.

 

Make sense?

 

For some landscapers it can get a little bit more complicated than the above examples because while they may be able to service everyone in their area, they may make more money off of targeting people with specific income levels, homeowners, genders etc. and all of this needs to be considered into their cost vs. return from their mailing.

 

Every Door Direct Mail Mailing Lists

Now it is time to pull your EDDM mailing list. There are two ways to do this. One is do it yourself through the USPS EDDM website. Or you can use an agency that handles everything for you. Most of the times your EDDM postcard printer can just pull it for you if you specify the zip codes that you want to target.

Focus your EDDM campaigns to areas that are more likely to convert.
Picking the right EDDM route
Get detailed targeting for your Every Door Direct Mail Campaigns

Making your EDDM Postcard Offer

Timing your EDDM offers

 

Timing is important with your offers.

The one-way Contractor Marketing Network figures out timing is by using Google Trends.  It lets us know when people are actually searching for a specific item, say mulching or mowing as an example.  With this information, you can plan to have your EDDM offer right in front of people when they are thinking about the service. Without worrying if you are too early or late with your mailings.

 

Another good thing about knowing when to send your offers is you can plan backwards for lead times on getting the mailings created, the delivery times and any other delays.

 

As a landscape marketing and advertising service we look at the data and deadline for all the important dates.

It is good to have everything sitting and ready to go a few weeks ahead of time.

 

Creating Good EDDM Advertisement:

You will want to make your advertisement message in line with a pain or a gain the prospective customer wants to get or eliminate.

 

For lawn care it could be to gain time by not having to worry about their lawn mowing and property care.

 

For a landscaper it could be to make the readers home the envy of the neighborhood with a front yard make over or a colorful blooming tree.

 

Knowing your buyers wants, needs and pain points are important to have a successful EDDM marketing campaign.

You Should Read: Landscaping Advertising 

Designing Your Lawncare EDDM Postcard

There are 9 parts of a successful EDDM marketing campaign.  Each one needs to be used and has a purpose.

 

  1. Headline

Start the postcard with a simple, yet bold opening statement. It doesn’t need to be very long but needs to attract attention.

 

  1. Message

Establish why people should choose you over your competition. Have a clear understanding of WHY you are sending out this mailer and WHAT you hope to accomplish. There has to be more than “I want more business.” That is the ultimate goal but try to dig deeper.

  • Do you want to introduce yourself to the neighborhood?
  • Do you want to bring awareness of a problem?
  • Maybe you want people to know that you work with residential and corporate clients.
  • Maybe there is a specific product that you would like to sell more of.

Whatever the goal is, don’t be afraid to let people know what it is, who it is for, and why they should take the action you want.

 

  1. Coupons or Discounts

People love a good deal. If you can offer a coupon or discount, people may be more responsive. I also recommend putting an expiration date on the coupon. Even if this is a discount that you always offer, make the coupon expire a couple of weeks after they will have received it.

Adding a sense of urgency makes people act now, rather than putting the postcard to the side, thinking “I’ll get around to it.” Because we all know… we don’t get around to it!

 

  1. Call to Action

Call to action! It’s so simple but so important. Tell people what to do next. “Book your appointment today!” Or “Visit our website.” Or “Don’t delay, limited supply!

 

  1. Contact Information

How do you want people to contact you? Do you want them to call you direct? (MAKE SURE SOMEONE IS ANSWERING the PHONE) Do you want them to visit your website? Whichever you decide, make sure that it is clear and the main focal point of the postcard.

People don’t want to have to go searching for your phone number. I also recommend putting it on both sides of the postcard.

 

  1. Photos & Images

Most people are very visual. Besides a nice headline, you need a beautiful picture that is attention-grabbing. Usually, the front should have something substantial that serves as a focal point, while the back can be smaller and less significant. Make sure your images are simple, not overly cluttered, and most importantly a high-resolution image.

If it looks blurry on your computer, it will look even worse when printed. There are tons of stock photography sites out there, with millions of images to choose from. If you don’t want to hire a photographer, don’t be afraid to purchase an image.

Also, make sure you know the demographics you’ll be wanting to reach. If the neighborhood you are mailing to mainly consists of retired couples, you don’t necessarily want to show a photo of a young family. The recipient may not think that the mailer will pertain to them.

 

Bonus tip: Try for an image of what the service does for the customer. Example: If you sell patio paver services, show someone enjoying their patio.

 

  1. Logo

Make sure your logo is clearly shown on both sides and will help establish your brand recognition and reiterate who you are.

 

  1. Testimonials

Testimonials, a short bio, awards received, or any other information that makes you relatable and shows credibility is also a nice touch. If you decide to add this information, make sure to keep it short and to the point.  A Google Rating works if you don’t want to clutter up the design. Something like 23 Fiver Star reviews, etc.

 

  1. White Space

Don’t be afraid of white space!

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Keeping your message clear and direct is much more important than filling the page with every bit of information you can think of about your company. If you want people to know more, direct them to your website or a landing page.

Lawncare postcard design

EDDM Postcard Sizes

EDDM approved postcards have very specific rules about the size of the mailing. While many different sized pieces can qualify, there are very specific guidelines to figure out the sizes of those EDDM templates.

You can visit here for the popular sizes of EDDM mailings.

 

EDDM Postcard Indicia Requirements

Think of indicia as the replacement for the stamp and address you would normally find on any mail piece.  You can download the indicia for use on your Retail EDDM postcards. 

You can read more about the USPS changes here.

Learn How to Generate Leads on Demand

Call Tracking for Your EDDM Campaigns

Tracking Your EDDM Mailing Response

This is a very critical part of all marketing campaigns and one that is over looked.

 

Finally, if you rely on phone calls as your response, you will want to include a call tracking phone number on your mail piece to see how much response you get from your piece. This way you can track how many leads and sales you get and see what your return on investment is.

 

Call tracking apps and software

#Bonus Tip

If you are going to be mailing out say 5,000 mailings it is better to mail to 1,000 people 5X then to mail to 5,000 people once.  The laws of marketing are touch points. You want at least 3, but 5 or more is better.

To help you may want to have a call to action that leads people to a landing page, that has a lead magnet on it. This way you can capture their email address for another way to reach people with an email marketing campaign.

 

Hope this info helps you make a more educated decision on EDDM. Let me know if you have any questions!

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Article Name
EDDM Advertising Tips for Landscapers and Lawn-Care Business
Description
Get more lawn care and landscaping customers from your EDDM advertising postcards with these simple, yet proven tips. Stop wasting your money, learn how to….
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Contractor Marketing Network