How often do you get in the face of past clients?

[Becker]

Dumping a direct mail thing I've been doing for years.

It has always brought in new bossiness, and kept me in the face of past clients, but the cost has made it less and less attractive over the years with more and more direct mail products coming on to the market place.


Should I mail my data base monthly, bi monthly, or should I mail those I saw 6 months ago each month?

With a huge increase in web sales I feel dumping the direct mail product is a good move and shift to a more direct mail product and push my passive referral program more.

With the low cost of full color post cards and postcard postage I can stay in contact with my client base much cheaper than bulk direct mail. Won't bring in new business other than referrals, but will keep my database active. In the end my ROI will be much better.



Any ways.. How often would you mail a past client?

Funny thing is I only thing this thoughts this time of the year.. I guess that is because I only have 12 jobs booked for the 1st week of the new year. Next week might be slower.


As for Spokane, can the IRS offer a tax credit for carpet cleaning?

 

[Mikey P]

Service Monster has studied it to hell and back and came up with a thank you card, 3 month, 6 month 9 month 12,18 and 24 month series of cards

 

[sam miller]

I personally mail 6 months and a year! just mailed out 400 cards!

 

[John Watson]

Even when we were doing monthly mailouts with postcards, we had a steady repete of 3,4, 5 and 10 year clients, Talking to the 5 & 10 yr they said yas they got our cards but just didn.t need our services at that time. Many have been removed from our mailing list due to moving and not leaving a forwarding address, move to another city and move back in area. Unless you have something that causes them to react now you are just chumming the waters.

We also have had them say thanks for sending the card, its the only way I know its time. It always looks clean to me you guys just make it look new again.. (Been sending them a card steady for years.. )

 

[Brian R]

Service Monster is the way to go when you want to snail mail your current clients. One click and done....$1.25 or so per client but well worth it.

I'll sometimes skip the thank you card and 3 month card because I've been capturing emails from everyone for that kind of thing.

But the 6 months through 24 months are huge and will bring back customers.

Plus, if you get some return mail, you can take them out of your system or update the address if the new one is given.


Keep It Simple Steamer.


And of course with Service Monster you get all the scheduling and tracking benefits....You can even import all your contacts from Quick Books Becker.

 

[Brian R]

Constant Contact works great with Service Monster as well...I just export all my email addresses from Service Monster and import them into Constant Contact so I maile thousands of clients at once.

I have my areas separated so I can email Sacramento one day and North Dallas the next etc etc etc.

It's sooooo inexpensive to do all this in the virtual world and most of your higher end clients that are under 100 years old use the computer more and more.


Not sure why ANY carpet cleaner wouldn't have Service Monster at this point.


Email me your name and phone number and I'll send you a link for a free month trial of Service Monster....If you sign up I get a free month.



Brian@prioritycleaner.com

 

[KevinD]

Service Monster has studied it to hell and back and came up with a thank you card, 3 month, 6 month 9 month 12,18 and 24 month series of cards

Same here except I dropped the 3 month.
Literally Zero return except keeping your name out there.

 

[dday]

Do you folks who send out postcards actually send out a card saying that it has been "6 months since your last cleaning ...," "it has been 12 months since your last cleaning ...," and "It has been 24 months since your last cleaning..."? Or do simply send out a card with a special offer at those intervals?

Thank You,

David

 

[Chris A]

we have a generic reminder card and we fill in the blanks for 6, 12 months, etc.

 

[Brian R]

SM lists how long it's been.

 

[hogjowl]

Get ServiceMonster. Use it.

And that's just the way it is.

 

[Connor]

Here's a perfect post card reminder, you should get a large intimidating woman that speaks ebonics an have her say,

Awww, heeeeeelllllllll naw, y'all ain't got yo carpets cleaned since last year, y'all some nasty @sses. Y'all better get that stuff cleaned, you know the baby be eating off that floor. Call Mikey P, at connorsewer he got that stuff that smells like shea cocoa butter and cherry. Word!

 

[Fred Homan]

Chris, That sounds like a postcard going to the ghetto.....
"High Risk Area"

 

[BradFenstermaker]

Don give the 30 day trial a run for Service Monster.

We have been with them since April. No big response from Mailings yet. Not enough time, but the scheduling and charts plus graphs is worth the $50 a mth.

Your data base can be seen as long as you have internet.

We merged our data from QB's. The startup is the only real big cost and its not bad.

Monday's look at a list they compile for mailing. Uncheck what you want then approve. Your mailings are done.

 

[Connor]

Chris, That sounds like a postcard going to the ghetto.....
"High Risk Area"

If it's good enough for Bawb,.............................................................then it's probably way below your own standards.

 

[Dapperdann]

Seem like alot people here have wood for Service Monster but I am just not feeling it. Having to pay $600+ a year for customer reminders is not cheap for a guy running one van. I am surprise there's not some type of software that can take care of customer reminders but I have not be able to find any.

 

[jcooper]

4 times a year, plus x-mas card.

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

What is your ROI? What do you generate for every dollar spent? As long as you are getting a return on the investment, do it as many times as it works for you?

Marketing is not an expense if it's generating calls... it's an investment. I love knowing that when I mail a batch out, that it's generating calls back.

Most Piranha Members mail a newsletter monthly. It's the #1 strategy for most of them for repeat and referral business.

Lisa

 

[Connor]

My carpet guy uses the piranha monthly newsletter.

 

[KevinL]

Has anyone ever used Jondons newsletter?

 

[jkowalski]

Here is some data from the ServiceMonster 8 step program cross all US customers. I have rounded the numbers obviously. The total average across all customers for all campaigns is over 800% and this is a program that you can do on your own if you can get the lists you need and can do the printing (or writing) on your own.

Thank You Card: “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tell a friend!”
Low ROI: 350% US Average

3 Month Education Card: “A list of our services, should you need them”
Surprisingly the 3 month is a great performer at 1000% ROI, once you get the copy right.

6 Month Touch-up Card: “I’ll be your superhero”
Again, surprisingly lower than expected with and average ROI of 650%

9 Month Reminder Card: “Just a Friendly reminder”
Sweet spot 1: ROI 1200%

12 Month Reminder Card: “Um, really need to do something here”
Sweet spot 2: ROI 1400%

15 Month Education Card: “A list of our services, should you need them”
Start the decline: 900% ROI

18 Month Reminder Card: “Yuck, that can’t be good.”
500% ROI

24 Month Miss You Card: “You haven’t written or called. We miss you!”
400% ROI

Past 24 months they should go into general low cost mailers. The chance of getting them back after 24 month (typically) is equal to that of a prospect. So the data has little intrinsic value.

Here is a blog post on the 8 Step.
http://servicemonster.wordpress.com/200 ... ple-steps/

~Joe

 

[Dmreed4311]

I have never sent out mailers but emails have been very effective as reminders and for specials iam running. I only email people who have used my services, the thing in my email that works well is I ask the customer to forward the email to anyone they think might need a carpet cleaning.