My personal opinion on door hangers and other leave behind marketing material is that they’re probably a waste of money if you’re shot gunning neighborhood with them that you haven’t worked in. Door hangers and cards work best when you target neighborhoods who have already seen your truck magnets, lettering, shirts, signs, or wrap. You’ve been at their neighbors house and they wanna keep up with the Johanssens.
I’m gonna type this out so when we direct people to the search bar for five arounds, 5 arounds, five a rounds, 5-arounds, five-arounds they can hopefully find it.
Door hangers work best when you target the 5 houses directly in front of the house you just washed, the house where your truck was parked, 5 houses to the right, and 5 houses to the left. Hopefully, you put a sign on a stake in the yard that simply reads HOUSE WASHING 816-555-5555 or CONCRETE CLEANING 816-555-5555 on it. +1 marketing bonus! Put one at the entrance of the subdivision just while you’re there. It typically takes 7 marketing “touches”, if I remember correctly, for someone to notice.
So where are we:
Touch #1 - Neighbor John pulls out of their driveway and sees you putting up your sign.
Touch #2 - curiosity gets the best of them and they look at the truck because you have big, clear to read, simple lettering, magnets, etc.
Touch #3 - They see the same sign at the entrance/exit of the neighborhood as they leave.
Touch #4 - They get home to a door hanger with the same company logo on it as your truck and shirts with a clear simple message.
Good news. 15 of the neighbors got a door hanger that tells them:
- What you’re offering them.
- How much money they’ll save thanks to…
- A deadline. An expiration date.
- Which of their neighbors beat them to doing something to spruce up their house.
One of those neighbors calls you. Neighbor Anne. Providence! Neighbor Anne hires you! You go back to the same neighborhood with the same truck, the same signs, same door hangers and you’re there before most folks go to work!
Touches 1-4 AGAIN! So you’re up to 8 touches potentially.
Guess who Neighbor Anne lives next to? Neighbor John! So he gets ANOTHER door hanger. Touch 9.
Neighbor John knows who the neighborhood service provider is, but doesn’t need you right away. He doesn’t care about saving $20. But next year rolls around and Neighbor John asks Neighbor Anne what she thought about the service.
Neighbor Anne already left you a Google review or a Facebook review because you have a review request process that’s as religious as brushing your teeth (hopefully), and through memory recall tells him how great you are almost word for word what she wrote in the review. Touch 10, and Neighbor John is giving you a call a year after he got the 1st door hanger.
Process starts again after you work for Neighbor John, but Neighbor Kim just moved into the house next door and you’ve added new eyes to your marketing!
Have a marketing process that is the same thing, every time, and like a sniper and you’ll find yourself in the same neighborhoods every year. And new ones. Cleaned 50 houses year one. Cleaned 30 houses in neighborhoods you’ve already worked in and 40 houses in new ones year 3. And so on.
Shotgunning door hangers and marketing material is wishing in one hand pooping in the other. Same goes with mailing post cards. The first round don’t expect a single call. Don’t expect calls until the 3rd or 4th or 5th round.
Spend the extra couple bucks on the 4.5 x 11 door hangers. Bigger. Clearer. Easy to read.
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