Towards the end of last week we put our home up for sale with a local estate agency. This week in the post I received a postcard from a transport company that specialises in removals. The card had details of their services and offered me a free estimate if I called or visited their website.
Libratrans deserve a pat on the back for actually implementing a direct mail campaign to a well defined target audience, that of people selling a home and moving and therefore most likely to need the services of a removal firm. The full colour postcard they sent is well designed and caught my attention straight away. Generally I find that in amongst all the other daily mail a postcard tends to stand out.
I think the call to action on the postcard is a bit weak, it simply says visit our website or call for a free estimate. Personally I’m never particularly impressed when I see a company say the offer free estimates; whoopee you are going to tell me your prices for no charge how good of you. I don’t think they’d get too far saying “call for an estimate; it will cost you €50”.
The website that Libratrans has lets them down - there were errors on the page when I viewed it in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, and the quotation request form that is pretty crucial to their operation would not load. It is kind of disappointing to think of all the leads that they must so nearly have generated but then lost by having a website that does not do the job for them.
What other things could Libratrans have done to make this campaign more effective? Perhps the campaign could have been strengthened by offering a free incentive for prospects to get in touch. On their website they currently offer a checklist to prospects of things to remember when packing up the contents of a house. The content of this checklist could be reworked into a report and offered for free when prospects fill out a form on the website.
Perhaps they could make the offer stronger still by offering something of use such as 3 free packing boxes or similar. This would help them qualify the leads from the postcard mail out a bit further and allow them to capture the names of prospects rather than just ‘The Home Owner’. This would help to build a relationship with the prospect, the cost of this would be minimal and I’d be willing to bet it would increase their conversion rate over and above just offering a free quote.
In general this irish direct mail campaign was effective and allows targeted leads to be generated. I’m nor sure where they got our contact details, maybe they keep an eye on the property websites for new listings. Or maybe their staff are encouraged to keep a note of any homes that they see for sale.
Whichever way they do it you can bet it is nicely systemised and produces a good return on the investment. Lets face it the cost of a postcard and postage would probably be less that €1 and the potential business could easily be €1000 per client. It is a shame that the rest of the sales conversion process they are using falls a bit short; however even with what they have I’m sure it puts them well ahead of their competition.
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