What Makes a Good Direct-Mail Offer?

An offer is the specific reason on the card to act now: the thing a household gets for calling this month rather than someday. A good one is specific, worth something real, has a deadline, is easy to redeem, and is sized to the value of the job. Everything else on the card, the logo, the photo, the list of services, exists to make the offer believable.

The offer is the part of a mailing the advertiser fully controls, and when a first mailing is quiet it is the first place to look.

What does every working offer have?

Every offer that works is specific, worth something, dated, easy to redeem and in proportion to the job. Miss one of the five and the household has been given a reason to wait.

• Specific.“Free gutter cleaning with any roof repair” is an offer. “Great service at great prices” is a slogan.
• Worth something real. The household knows roughly what things cost. Ten percent off a cleaning reads as a rounding error; a first clean at half price reads as a reason to try.
• A deadline. A printed date a few weeks after the card lands. Without one the card goes in the drawer for later, and later is where offers go to die.
• Easy to redeem. Mention this card, scan this code, call this number. If redeeming it takes a form or an account, most people will not.
• Matched to the job value. A free inspection costs a roofer an hour and can lead to a job worth thousands. The same hour given away by a barber is most of the ticket. Size the offer to what a customer is worth over a year, not to the first visit.

What offers work for each type of business?

The right offer depends on what the first purchase is worth and how often the customer comes back, so the same idea does not carry from a roofer to a restaurant.

Home services

For HVAC, roofing, plumbing and pest, a free inspection or estimate usually beats a dollar amount off a job, because it asks for a smaller commitment. A free look tells the household what they need and puts you in the house. Dollars off work better once the job is defined, such as a set amount off a system replacement, and a seasonal tune-up at a fixed price suits anything with a spring and fall rhythm. A first-service price, one flat number for the first visit, suits recurring work like lawn care and cleaning.

Restaurants and food

A buy-one-get-one brings two people through the door and costs you one meal; a percentage off a bill costs about the same and reads smaller. A dollar amount off a minimum spend protects the average check. The offers that do most for a restaurant are tied to a slow night: a reason to try you on a Tuesday, when the tables were going to be empty anyway. Listing the same deal on LowCoDeals, the sister deals site, gives the household a second place to find it after the card is gone.

Dentists, practices and wellness

A new-patient offer, such as a first exam and cleaning at a set price or a fixed price for a first consultation, lowers the cost of trying a new provider. Keep it about the visit, the price and the convenience, never about an outcome: the offer is the visit, not the result.

Retail

An event or a threshold offer beats a blanket discount for a shop. An event, a weekend sale with a date, gives people a reason to come on those days. A threshold, a set amount off above a set spend or a gift with a larger purchase, rewards the customer without marking down the whole store. A blanket percentage off everything trains the neighborhood to wait for the next card.

New businesses

An opening offer with a hard end date, because the neighborhood has never heard of you and needs a reason to come in while you are still new. A first-month price, a free upgrade on the first visit, or a small free item for anyone who brings the card all work. The end date does more of the work than the discount.

Dollar off or percent off?

Use whichever is the bigger number, and prefer dollars when the customer does not yet know the price. That is the whole rule, and the arithmetic is easy to check.

On a low ticket the percentage is the bigger number. Twenty-five percent off a forty-dollar dinner is ten dollars, and “twenty-five percent” reads bigger than “ten dollars” even though they are the same thing. Restaurants, salons and shops usually do better with a percentage, or with a free item, which sidesteps the question.

On a high ticket the dollar figure is the bigger number. Five hundred dollars off a roof might be a single-digit percentage of the job, and “five hundred dollars” reads like a real discount where “eight percent” reads like an afterthought. Dollars are also concrete in a way a percentage of an unknown quote is not, which is why home services and anything estimated on site should lean to a dollar figure or a fixed price.

Deadlines, codes and tracking

Put a date on the offer and give the card its own code, so the deadline creates the call and the code tells you the card caused it. A deadline a few weeks after the mailing is long enough for the kept card to work and short enough that the household does not put it off. Honor it, and move it forward on the next mailing so a repeat card is always current.

The code is the part most small businesses skip. A word to mention, a QR code to a page only the card links to, or a phone extension nobody else is given, means every redemption is a call you can attribute. Without it you are guessing which channel worked. The measurement guide goes through the options; the calculatorturns a customer’s value into the redemptions the mailing needs.

Which offers should you avoid?

Avoid the offers that ask for nothing, the ones that ask for too much at once, and the ones you could not honor if they worked. Each wastes a spot that cost the same as a good one.

• “Call for a free quote” with nothing else. Every competitor quotes for free. It describes how the trade works rather than giving a reason to call you.
• Three offers on one spot.A discount, a free add-on and a referral bonus on a 3x2 spot means none of them is readable at arm’s length and none can be tracked. One offer, one deadline, one way in.
• Discounting a premium brand. A boutique in Mount Pleasant or a high-end builder that leads with a percentage off has told the neighborhood the price was negotiable. Offer something added, a consultation, a gift, an event, rather than something off.
• An offer you cannot honor if it works.A free service call to 5,000 homes is fine for a company with the crews to answer it and ruinous for one person with a van. Decide what you would do if a hundred households took you up on it, and pick an offer whose answer is “gladly”. Brief whoever answers the phone before the drop.

An offer also works harder on the second and third card than on the first. A single mailing is a test; the same offer with a moving deadline across a run is a campaign, the subject of how many times to advertise to the same neighborhood. Before either, check the offer against whether direct mail suits your business at all.