Advertising & Marketing: Advertising Your Services?

There's a small gig I did on the side in college, and as part of a class, selling home inventory services (photography, etc.). We've discussed it on here in some form before, probably back in the old YGG 1.0 days. I'm interested in giving this another shot, as the work is simple, but can provide true value in face of a home disaster.

I'm thinking of ways of marketing said service to clients. Cold calling sucks, and as any retail store will tell you the best customer is the one that comes intentionally to buy something from you. Example: Renting a car. They are there for one reason: to rent a car.

I had thought of printing off 1,000 flyers at a nearby college computer lab (in small batches, of course!) and flyer-ing nearby malls in really nice areas (targeting higher median income areas). However, the thought of running around a parking lot sticking 1,000 pieces of paper under windshield wipers, trying to avoid parking lot police (it is illegal, right?) didn't really appeal to me. I thought of this only because I've had it done to me several times, and while it annoys me -- I do end up reading the business card stuck in my door. (Either way, what do you think of this idea?)

So I thought of sending out mass mailings... buying a mailing list of new homeowners, and distributing info that way. However, I can imagine this getting quite expensive, with no guaranteed return, and no customers coming to me rather than the other way around. On the other hand, I could start out small on the mailings, and see if I get any responses.

Any ideas? E-mail? Get a home appraiser license and sell the two services together?

I wouldn't waste the time and money on spamming windshields or mailboxes with flyers. They're one-way communication that have a bad enough rep as is.

Like letutor mentioned, parterning with insurance agents could be a good way to go.

A couple other targets that come to mind are real estate agents, interior designers, contractors, etc...

Pretty much anybody that is involved in the building, renovation, and selling of houses.

If you focus on partnering with groups and companies in each of those fields and give them a share of each lead they generate, in the end you'll have many more deals than you would with flyers or whatnot.

Here's the guys website. I think there is a lot of potential and need for this service. He wanted me to invest but I wasn't confident in him since I barely knew him.

Check out his site I think there is a lot of useful info there.

www.RJWestHomeInventory.com

Its probably off by a letter or two. A whois doesn't show that exact domain as registered.

Hmm... BestMailing.com, a previous Inc. 500 member, offers mailing services. For consumer listings, they are $70 per 1,000 listings for unlimited usage (not sure what unlimited vs. one time means). Minimum order is 2,000. Homeowner details is an additional $10/1,000.

PostcardMania's minimum purchase is 5,000 cards ($389).

So that's $80 per 1000 x 5 = $400

I am thinking of selling these services at $75 or 100 per job. Let's use $100 for ease of calculations.

Buy 5,000 addresses. $400.
Design postcard mailer through PostcardMania.com (another Inc 500 company): $150
PostcardMania sends out mailers: $0.24/each x 5,000 = $1,200

Total Cost of Campaign: $1,750 for 5,000 mailers sent out to guaranteed addresses (PCM automatically removes bad addresses. Again not perfect math because the original list may have some bad ones, 92% good rate though).

Now let's look at response rate and payoffs:
1% respond: 50 x 100 = $5000, that's if every person bought. Let's say 50% do = $2500
2% respond: 100 x $100 x .5 purchase rate = $5000
3% : $7,500
4% : $10,000, etc.

Interesting?

Versus...
Printing 1,000 flyers for free at local college.
+
Little bit of effort to flyer the local malls

Response rate: 1% = 10 x .5 x $100 = $500

K,

I've got the old emails from that guy that I told you about. I'll forward them to you and you can read through his ideas. He pretty much laid out his business over a couple of emails.

email me at aaron at letutor .com

Travis, I'll give the e-mails a shot. At least they're free.

How much would you compensate agents for closed sales from their leads?

Thanks,
Kevin

k,

I wouldn't even mention that you are an AllState customer or that you started a small side business.

They don't need to know that you are small or that it's a part time thing. Give them the feeling that you are a normal business looking to provide their customers with a useful service. Do that but don't loose the personal touch in the email. AND keep it short. Insurance agents won't read something that long. Give them a teaser and get them to respond via email or phone. then you can tell them more about what you do.

First I would not do a flat rate service. I would do it by square footage of the home. Someone who has a 5,000 sq ft home may take you 5 hrs and if you only get paid $100 your not going to make a lot of money. I would figure out a rate per square foot that is fair for the amount of work you have to do.

I would pay the insurance agent a flat rate commission for every referral they give you. $10 start small because that can really eat away at your profit margin.

I'm at work so I'll forward those emails to you later.

K,

That's better but I would clean it up and try and take out any unnecessary wording.

I would just put. Dear Insurance Agent.

Secondly name your business and make a website. Even if it's not the greatest it give you some form of credibility. Get a simple logo and put it on the letter you send and the website.

The goal of the service is to ease the claims process for both client and insurer by providing adequate photo, video, and written documentation of "the insureds property"

Instead of I wanted say I would like to speak with you
I would love to meet with you / I look forward to speaking to you.

That's some basic critique and is subject to personal preferences but I hope that helps.

Secondly. I would email this and not send letters because they are very unlikely to be opened.

K,

You don't have to use their name. I was just proposing removing the MR / Mrs part and just saying Dear Insurance Agent. I think that would suffice.

The logo looks fine. Could use some work but I think it will do the job.

Also, unfortunately, you can't include a logo in the messages you send via their website.

Eventually I'll move to having a website, but until I have a meeting setup, I'm not going to invest in it just yet. Too many other things on my plate.

I plan a similar letter to real estate agents.

Hmm... some of the real estate agents' websites include a note that says you are not to e-mail them for anything other than meeting your real estate needs. So no e-mailing re:products or services...

<3 Travis <3

Don't be overly concerned by that notice. Just email them anyway.

I like Travis's version but still think it's too wordy. I work in the insurance business currently and can tell you that you are only going to get a few seconds of their time. Cut content down.

Secondly a website only costs the amount of hosting. Just buy a domain $8 and throw up a word press template.

Only do one post. A basic this is what we do, and about page, and contact page.

If anything it gives them a chance to follow up on you and the maybe find you later after they delete your email.

Secondly, insurance agents don't give a damn about easing the claims process because they are not invovled in the slightest. All that is done by another team.

Agents are only resellers of the product and act as a contact point between the actual insurance company and the insured. Focus on the fact that you helping the insurance agent provide an additional service to their insureds that they can't get elsewhere and will help them sell and keep more policies.

They all work on commissions and renewal commissions. The continue to get a commission for every policy that continues to remain insured through them. That's what's going to get their attention.

Customize your copy a bit so your offering is on par with what Aaron said they care about. But I'd still keep it in the personalized format I threw up. I think you'll get a much better response.

Travis you need to start charging for your work and getting yourself out there. You do great work and I think others think so too.

Posted By: KMulligan

Hey if you want to work on the logo like you did for the Banner King thing, no problems with me :)

I'll try and squeeze some time in later today or tomorrow to clean it up for you.

Well that brings up a good question, as an entrepreneur without an office, what address information should I put down? Do I put down my home address? Do I put my Gmail address? (I've also got propertypix@gmail.com...)? What about titles? Owner?

Hmm... you like getpropertypix over property-pix?

K,

Your home address is fine. No is going to be visiting your "office" / Home so if you call it your office they will think it's your office.

Second. Get a domain name and use it's email. It will make a world of difference in the customers perception and trust of your biz.

You can use the title: Manager, Director, Owner. I use Director. It just depends of who you are dealing with. If you were a large company no one goes by owner, it's founder or ceo. However with a language school Director is more academic.

So go with what fits your industry and customers. They need to comfortable with your title. It makes a statement yet you need to be perceived as approachable if you are dealing directly with customers.

Tidaow