Jack Jostes:
Is direct mail dead? Or is it alive and thriving? Find out why the vice president of a multimillion dollar landscape company is increasing his budget for direct mail postcards during a recession. And how he's using targeting to get in front of the hell yes customers he wants to respond.
Hey, everyone, Jack Jostes here and welcome to the Landscaper's Guide. This show is all about sales, marketing, leadership ideas. And right now I'm with one of my clients, Chris Holthouser, who's the Vice President and Director of Design at Outdoor Craftsmen in Boulder County, Colorado. And we happen to be in a really interesting location right now. We are at the former residence of the Founder of Outdoor Craftsmen, Scott Deemer.
For those of you watching, I'll show you some photos. But if you're listening, it's this beautiful landscape, there's a pond. Right now we're under this honeysuckle tree in the shade and we just finished doing a video shoot. We did a recruiting video and a sales video for Outdoor Craftsmen. And while we were packing up, Chris and I ... well, one, we started talking about elk, which is a great topic. And two, we were talking about seeing a slowdown potentially, or maybe a correction in the economy and how you're planning to market through it. So today, Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Chris Holthouser:
Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. So tell us a little bit, how long have you been in business? How big is Outdoor Craftsmen? What all do you guys do?
Chris Holthouser:
So we've been in business since 2004. So do the math, it's been a number of years. We are a full service, high-end residentially focused firm. We do very little commercial, but a little bit. We're primarily focused on high-end residential though. And we do design, construction, and maintenance.
Targeting Your Hell Yes Customer With Postcards
Jack Jostes:
And tell me about your postcard strategy. So we've worked together for about five years, actually. We've designed and developed your WordPress website, a few years after that we redesigned the homepage. We did a homepage refresh, we've done SEO, we're doing reviews. What about print? Tell us about print. And why is that part of your strategy?
Chris Holthouser:
We've always liked print because it's one of those things where you get to get in front of your target market at times when they may not even be looking for you. And it's a great way to keep top of mind awareness. We typically feature portfolio based artwork. So great photos of the work that we do, beautiful photos that people will recognize, it's always branded. But we like the strategy because we get to be very focused. So we can pick specific neighborhoods, specific target areas. It's kind of even creepy what you can find as far as demographics on your client base. So the list can be filtered as much as we want it to be. Historically, they tend to be very accurate. And we search, generally speaking, for home values. So we're looking for high end homes, depending on anybody's marketing strategy, you can filter by demographic easy.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I love that. You can target specific demographic information. Things like age of home is another one that for some contractors, the age of the home, and then also how long has this particular homeowner had it? Can lead to things where people might need to replace their deck or do exterior projects, in general. And same thing with commercial, I was talking with a snow and ice management company, they target square footage of the building. For them it was a 100,000 square foot building is their ideal customer because they're going to have this surrounding parking lot that needs to be cleared.
So, yeah, on the residential or the commercial side, I think direct mail has a lot of opportunity. And I personally love direct mail. I actually spend a lot on it. People listening probably have gotten postcards, we do a print newsletter. And I found ... what we were talking about is the multiple touches over time. So are you going to send out one postcard and get a ton of sales? Probably not. But if you mail to the same list over time, and then they see your vehicles and then they hear about you. And then when they Google you or look online and they're like, "Oh yeah, I think I've seen these people." It can really pay off over time.
Chris Holthouser:
It can. And we're a full-service company. So, we actually started many, many years ago doing direct mail to grow maintenance. And what we found was we were actually getting a lot of design build leads, not that many maintenance leads, surprisingly enough. But a lot of design build leads from the card that we were using. And I think part of it is because the way we design our cards drove people to come to us for construction, just had beautiful landscapes on it.
If you're looking at growing maintenance, you might look at it a little bit differently. Maybe a little bit different on the way that you set up the verbiage or the marketing message or what have you on the card. But we've found that you're absolutely right. You need to be super consistent when times are great and you have more leads than you can handle. It's better to have to have people wait or turn them away, than it is to have that phone stop ringing, so to speak.
Jack Jostes:
Right.
Staying Top Of Mind
Chris Holthouser:
So keeping the top of mind awareness is always important because we do find that we will send out thousands of postcards and you'll get a couple phone calls. I mean, that's a pretty typical response rate for us on the cards. And it's not like you send out 6,000 cards and get 500 phone calls. Just does not work that way, at least it hasn't for us. Maybe it's our market brand, how we use the cards, I'm not sure. The cards are very effective, they're one of our best forms of marketing. But it takes consistency. And we find that you'll get a couple leads for every card you get. So if we plan that we're going to do six or seven mailings in a year, we figure that's going to get us somewhere between 50 to 60 leads. But they tend to be decent leads, the conversion rates tend to be pretty high. And the leads that we get are good because they tend to be fairly targeted.
Jack Jostes:
How do you know that it's the postcard that's working? Are you including an offer or call to action that you're able to then track?
Chris Holthouser:
We ask. One thing we haven't started doing, but I think would be a great idea is to put a code on the card.
Jack Jostes:
A QR code?
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. Or like a number of some sort-
Jack Jostes:
Sure.
Chris Holthouser:
Tied to the list. So that if somebody calls, we can ask them, "Hey, you got our card. Great. Could you tell me what numbers on the back of the card?" And that would allow us to sort of track cards specifically. Because I think what we find is that in the Spring we'll hit mailings every other month or maybe even monthly for a little bit. And we're getting calls and we know they're from postcards, because we're asking. But we're not sure which card worked the best. Because for us, sometimes the picture triggers an emotional response in somebody.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. The picture matters and then the headline and the call to action. And one of the things that we could do is build out what I would call a strategic page. So a strategic page on your website would be different from say an SEO page. So a lot of times we write out these long form pages, they're meant to rank in Google when people are Googling landscape maintenance, Eerie, or whatever city we're targeting. For direct mail or paid traffic, whether it's paid advertising or even email or text message traffic.
You can build out pages that have a really short URL at the end of them. So like outdoorcraftsmen.com/offer. I'm making this up right now, but it could be .com/offer. And that page would be more of a sales page that has an offer on it. And that's easier if I get a postcard and I get outdoorcraftsmen.com/offer or /special or /spring or whatever it is, that page then ... and most likely they're going to be looking on a smartphone. It can mobile optimized and really have a specific offer on there. And so some of the offers that I've found are called a secondary offer. So secondary offer ... so a primary offer would be something like call us, fill out our contact form, like pretty close to becoming a customer.
Building Authority With A Book
Whereas, Chris, I know that you wrote a book. Didn't you coauthor a book?
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. Yep.
Jack Jostes:
Did you forget?
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah, no, I was trying to think for a second. Which book is he talking about?
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, no-
Chris Holthouser:
But, yeah.
Jack Jostes:
What was the book that you wrote?
Chris Holthouser:
It was, Sustainable Landscape Partners Program.
Jack Jostes:
Okay. So it's about sustainable landscaping-
Chris Holthouser:
Correct.
Jack Jostes:
Right. So right now, and Governor Polis has all this stuff, I've actually kind of lost track of all the stuff was xeriscaping and a push towards low water usage, in general, in landscaping. There's going to become more demand for this, so that's a topic
Chris Holthouser:
Especially during a drought. That's a really good buzzword.
Jack Jostes:
During a drought. So you could do an offer that was like, Governor Polis announces X, get the complete guide to low water landscaping at outdoorcraftsmen.com/lowwater. And then when they get there, they need to opt in. They would type in their name and email address. And now you've captured a lead that you can then follow up with via email and nurture them along. So that way when your pipeline gets lower or best really with automation, you can just email them stuff or they start getting a monthly email.
So that's one of the things, that's my personal strategy with direct mail marketing is I always go for the secondary offer of like, maybe you're ready to buy now. Like, you'll figure out how to do that. But chances are, if I can offer you some value and get your name and email, now I have a lead that I can kind of nurture along for a long time. So, I think your book would be a good lead magnet. Meaning like, we're going to give it away, the ebook version, maybe it's a PDF. Or you could sell it, something like that.
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. It's an interesting concept, for sure. Yeah. It definitely builds credibility also.
Jack Jostes:
Right.
Chris Holthouser:
And I think that could be a very good or organic or sustainable maintenance program or maintenance way to sell maintenance. I could see that working particularly well for that. Yeah. Because that's something where our strategies worked fabulous for build projects and we do get leads on maintenance from that all the time. But we actually haven't been doing direct mail for maintenance just because the return on investment for the cost of what it takes to get the cards out relative to how many maintenance contracts we get, has always been a little on the low side. Versus in design build, it's made a ton of sense. But if we modify the card and maybe introduced some of those strategies on the maintenance card, I could see that working. People look for something a little bit different and respond to different messages when they're looking for maintenance versus-
Direct Mail Marketing Strategies
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And you could offer them ... you know a lot of information about maintenance and when to water. Like one of the most searched questions around landscape maintenance is like, how much should I water my lawn in Colorado? And you could create a watering guide like, are you over watering your lawn?
Chris Holthouser:
I think that'd be tremendous value for people, yeah.
Jack Jostes:
So then they could get to that page. We could have a form where they opt in and then on the thank you page, maybe you have a video where you're like, "Hey, it's Chris and you're probably over watering your lawn. And here's how you should really do it. And by the way, we can manage your landscape for you." So, those are-
Chris Holthouser:
I like it.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. I mean, so before we pressed record, we are talking about ... so that's the offer part of it. And then the follow up. So, giving somebody an offer they can say yes to, opting in and then following up. But it all starts with the list, because if we're sending direct mail to the wrong list-
Chris Holthouser:
It's a waste of money.
Jack Jostes:
It's a big waste of money. One of the people I've studied that I still study and I actually pay to get his newsletter every month because it's worth it, is Dan Kennedy. He talks about sending the right message to the right market with the right media. And so the right message is maintenance, the message needs to be different. But to the right market is the list.
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. And so the interesting question with that always is, do you filter more? Or do you cast a bigger net? And then when people start calling, then you filter. And in the experience I've had so far, often that's budget driven. So if you drop 8,000 postcards and your phone rings a thousand times, that would be like an insane amount of work to deal with. And that's kind of an indicator that you might need to filter more, be a little more aggressive on the list. Not cast as big of a net. Unless you wanted that thousand leads and they were all like good ones, then that's actually maybe fabulous. But kind of depends on what you're after.
But for us, we've dialed back the filtering. We tend to not filter by a whole lot anymore, other than home value and location. So we do want to be in the right geographic areas around our office. If the market starts to soften, then geographically, we're going to widen that. So we're going to send out more, we're going to spend more money and send out more cards to generate more leads.
And it's the one drawback to marketing when the market starts to get softened is you need to do it more, you need to be a little more consistent, a little more aggressive. It can be very easy to cut your marketing budget when times start to get a little tighter. In my experience, you should be doing the opposite, especially with direct mail. Direct mail, it's really like buying leads. If you want more leads, you just need to spend more on postcards and you need to send out more to a larger ... sometimes you saturate a market. So if we're sending out cards to every home in Boulder and we find that we're not generating enough leads with that, that might mean that we need to be expanding.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. And that's one of the things that I do like about paid media, direct mail being one of them. Is that you can increase your spend or you can increase or decrease the filtering. I love SEO. SEO has always been a key part of my strategy for my clients. And when there are fewer searches happening, which is what's happening now. I really think you need to shift and spend money on things like direct mail. So, that's an interesting perspective. And then you were sharing, because of leads right now, you're actually planning to spend more money than you had anticipated.
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. Yeah, we'll probably spend anywhere from five to 8,000 more on postcards this year than we had anticipated needing. Yeah. And that's going to mostly be by doing broader mailings. It's interesting because there are so many demographics you can filter by. You can filter by homeowner's income, for example. But I've found that's a tricky filter because sometimes people with the most money don't necessarily have that on record.
Jack Jostes:
Right.
Chris Holthouser:
So you can weed out some potentially-
Jack Jostes:
You can weed out too much.
Chris Holthouser:
Good clients. Yeah.
Jack Jostes:
So one way to deal with the qualification part of it is you can send people on that strategic page. One thing that we do is multi-step forms. So step one is we want to get your name and email. And then step two, we could ask additional questions like, to get the print book shipped to you for free, answer these next questions. And you could ask additional qualifying questions there. And that way the people who are really qualified will give you all of the information/ or I don't know, give people a questionnaire or charge for an appointment. I know you guys don't charge for appointments, for some of my audience, they do and it makes sense.
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah. Yep. Another interesting filter could be lot square footage. Because if you're trying to focus on growing maintenance and mowing is the thing you do. You might want to search for high end homes on fairly large lots. You may not want to be wasting valuable marketing dollars on dropping cards on small homes in downtown Boulder or small lots in Eerie, for example. Those can be great leads for us, sometimes we do our best work in small spaces. But from a maintenance perspective, you might look for something a little bit different.
Jack Jostes:
One thing I'm curious about as we're talking, is do you feel like your current customers know that you offer maintenance?
Chris Holthouser:
That's actually a really, really good question. I would say the current clients do, for sure. We always make a point to market that to them, tell them about it when they call. I'm always amazed, actually at how many people call us for a build project and don't realize we do maintenance. It's interesting.
Jack Jostes:
Because one idea I have is like maybe the low hanging fruit here is to do a mailer to your existing clients. And you could have some sort of existing client special such as-
Chris Holthouser:
That's an interesting idea.
Jack Jostes:
You could offer them a landscape evaluation, and you have all this data. Like when did you complete their project? Has it been more than three years? Like, "Dear Outdoor Craftsmen Client, it's been more than three years, we're offering a complimentary landscape evaluation exclusively for clients."
Chris Holthouser:
That is an interesting concept. We classify that generally as enhancement work, somebody did a project-
Jack Jostes:
Sure.
Chris Holthouser:
But maybe they have always wanted that swimming pool or there's phases that happen. It's not uncommon that those folks may not be thinking about it and to get in front of them and start talking to them, it's a good idea.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. Well Chris, hey, thanks so much for coming on the show. I know you've got a run because you ... what are you doing after this? Do you have a client meeting or what?
Chris Holthouser:
All sorts. Yeah, I have to go check on a project and we're looking at plants, need to get some plant orders ready for tomorrow. Then it's walking a client through a project we just finished up, yeah, busy afternoon.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show and talking about sales and marketing. For people listening, check out Chris's website, outdoorcraftsmen.com. And if people want to connect with you, where's a good way to reach you?
Chris Holthouser:
Yeah, they can reach me, probably the best way is email Chris@outdoorcraftsmen.com.
Jack Jostes:
Cool.
All right, everyone. Thanks so much for checking out today's podcast. If you'd like some more resources on how to grow your business during this weird time, I'd love to send you some beef jerky to eat. Yeah, I'll mail you some beef jerky and one of my landscapers marketing field guides. You can see how we do direct mail at Rambling Jackson. Just go to landscapersguide.com/toolbox or click the link in the description and I'll send you some beef jerky and some helpful content.
My name's Jack Jostes and I look forward to talking to you next week on the Landscaper's Guide.