As easy as feeding fish in a barrel

Are you familiar with the phrase “as easy as shooting fish in a barrel?” We’ve never quite cared for it. Even as amateur fishermen (and women) we think there are much more productive and less messy ways to bring home the catch. If we were to re-write it we might call it “feeding fish in a barrel.” By feeding them like any livestock, don’t you grow them so they can better feed you? And in such a way, this is a perfect analogy for neighborhood marketing.

Instead of shooting fish with one-and-done marketing campaigns and then moving on, neighborhood marketing is about establishing and leveraging your local presence. It’s about developing the relationships that will grow your business so that people are out there doing your selling for you while you sleep. It’s about feeding them consistent and direct marketing so that your brand grows over time. The only problem is, how do you make sure you’re targeting only people in that neighborhood?

Automated neighborhood postcard marketing

There’s no better way to get started with this than by postcard marketing. With technology is these days direct mail marketing allows you to create a campaign based on a radius, zip-code, or region that sends postcards to the homes or the businesses in that area and repeats itself multiple times. Once you set it, you can basically forget it. And multiple touches is important because it takes on average 7 “touches” or marketing messages for people know who you are.

And once you get this rolling, you’ll start to take advantage of all of the benefits of neighborhood direct mail marketing: you increase your chances of referrals, you boost your social-proof credibility, you send more personalized and effective messages, and you cut down on your overhead. Whew, that was a mouthful, so let us elaborate on each of these.

The true benefits of neighborhood-based postcard marketing:
  1. Increase your chance of referrals: If you’re out there trying to target the entire continental United States, odds are low that any two of your customers are going to know each other, discuss your service, and create what’s known in marketing as a “” Buzz requires an air of excitement around your product and service and it’s much easier to generate it in a more confined area amongst communities who talk frequently. In general, the smaller the better. If you target a single neighborhood, neighbors talk to neighbors and people who are happy about a service will share (or brag, if you will) and spread your name. By marketing to one neighborhood repeatedly, people will be asking each other, “Hey, haven’t you heard about Jane’s new shop?”
  1. It gives you built-in social proof. If you’ve done any reading on content marketing, you know that it’s important to advertise across many channels simultaneously. Campaigns that support each other reinforce your message and provide more “” If you complete a successful local job and can post a job site sign, you can run a postcard campaign that directs people to see your work as they drive by. They’ll intrinsically trust you because their neighbors already do, and that’s two touches. If another few people become customers as a result, you can run yet another campaign and create a virtuous cycle where people are buying from you because it appears that everyone else is.
  1. Get more specific and personalized: Broad marketing messages fail to engage people as individuals. If you use a generic postcard graphic of the typical American lawn for your landscaping service, it will probably work. But if you’ve chosen to market locally to just one neighborhood and you get permission to use the picture of an actual customer’s house, you suddenly make a deep and meaningful connection with people. Plus you can use personalized postcards with messages like, “Susie, we’re renovating 321 Main Street. Come see our work!”  They’ll recognize it, drive by it, and it will cement your business’ presence in a way that you can only achieve without neighborhood marketing.
  1. You’ll cut down your overhead. Logistics is the hidden killer of profitability. A sudden influx of new jobs can seem like a blessing until you realize that they’re scattered all over town and after paying for the supplies, gas, time, and materials, you’re just breaking even. Your business has effectively just become a non-profit for the week. However, by marketing to neighborhoods, you drastically increase the likelihood that your job sites are tightly grouped and you can take advantage of the economies of scale. What’s another job if your contractors are already in the neighborhood?
A barrel full of well-fed fish

And there you have it, the not-so secret benefits to neighborhood postcard marketing! They’re easy to create, quick to get out, and they’re running while you sleep so that you can focus on completing jobs and winning over more happy customers. Instead of shooting up your barrel with one-and-done marketing, you’re feeding your fish so that everyone grows together.

Done correctly, neighborhood marketing increases your odds of earning new business, gives your marketing more credibility, and cuts down on your overhead so that additional jobs actually translate into more profit.

What more could you ask for? Give ProspectsPlus a call today at 877-222-6010 and start marketing more effectively to your neighborhood!

And if you’re thinking that you’d love to take advantage of this but don’t have the time, Opportunity Knocks Marketing is a full-service agency that can be your postcard marketing expert and get it all done for you. It’s all of the benefits with none of the time commitment!

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