For years, Door Hangers, preprinted and kept in service trucks, have been a useful aid in growing a business. Could this old-fashioned trick still work? Does it have value in our internet-driven world? You have to realize that different people may find their pest control company in different ways. Some people look in phone books, some people look on the web, and then some people lean toward their neighbor’s choices. It is this last group you are reaching out to with door hangers. The effectiveness of your door hanger campaign revolves around how well your design reminds potential customers that you are already their neighbor’s choice. Gently leverage that, and your door hangers will pay you back more than any other marketing approach. For the money, door hangers can’t be beat.
The traditional approach has your technician hanging 1 or 2 adjacent houses with door hangers at each service location. A technician that wants to grow their routes can make a real impact by placing these door hangers on homes around the neighborhoods of each of their service locations.
When you are servicing an existing PreSched, door hangers help by adding new customers to your existing routes. Suddenly you are making several stops in one small area without extra time and travel expense. Anytime you have several services in one tight area, your profits bloom. This is why we always promote door hangers. The increase the profits of any existing route.
But they can also be used start new routes in new areas you want to move into. When putting out door hangers around one-time or emergency service customers, you are optentially opening new route areas. Regardless, the ultimate effect is to grow your route volume with little or no mileage cost. This alone makes door hangers one of the best low-cost promotional efforts.
Effective door hangers have several common features. Here are three suggestions: 1) appeal their “neighbor’s choice”. 2) Keep them simple, You only have, perhaps, 3 seconds to make your plea. 3) Make a special offer for their first service that they can’t refuse: “25% off” for a ‘get acquainted discount’, or similar approaches. To enhance your efforts, you also should list your top five services, to let them know a bit more about your business. Also, be sure to have a place on the door hanger for your technician to write their name for a personal connection.
Most software allows you to track ‘how’ you got a given customer. These are sometimes called, ‘Sources’. In well designed systems you can track not only the new customers, but their accumulating payments. Create a new ‘Source’ for each door hanging tech. For example “Door Hangers, Frank, 2015” or “Door Hangers, George, 2015”. As new customers call in to take you up on your offer, ask them what name was on their hanger. That way you can set the Source ID on that new customer for the tech who put out the Door Hanger. Then you can track all the payments downstream for each Source. By offering your technician a commission for new volume, they will have a vested interest in using the door hangers to grow your business.
Door Hangers, though a classic technique, still are an effective value . Be sure to include this strategy in your marketing every year.