If I had to launch in a brand new city tomorrow with $1,000, I know exactly what I would do. Postcards.
Most pest control companies aren’t doing them because they don’t know how to do them right. But once you figure this out, the upside is massive. I’ve seen businesses spend millions of dollars a year on postcards and bring in 10 to 20 times that in revenue from this one strategy alone. So I know for sure that it works. Let me walk you through everything.
First, postcards build route density. They’re hyperfocused. You get really detailed on the exact neighborhoods you want to be in, and in this industry, route density is what wins. Think about Google Ads when you’re building a company from scratch. They work well, but your clients end up scattered all over the city. With Every Door Direct Mail campaigns, you get extremely targeted down to specific zip codes and mail routes. And in pest control or lawn care, route is king.
The other big benefit is that most people have moved online. It’s way easier to just run digital ads, so fewer companies are showing up in the mailbox. They stopped doing the things that actually worked to grow a business back in the day. That’s an opportunity.
And what I really like about postcards is that they’re high converting. When someone reads your postcard, sees the offer, and picks up the phone to call you, that’s high intent. You’re going to close 60% or more of every single call and lead that comes through.
Know Your Customer Avatar
With postcards, you can actually go out and buy targeted mailing lists. But first you have to know who your customer avatar is. Let’s say your customer base is 60% or more women. And maybe you notice that every time you service a home, they’re in specific neighborhoods. In your area, it might be homes valued between $300,000 and $700,000. The homes below $300,000, maybe those customers just can’t quite afford it, and you see more cancellations. But the homes at $800,000 or $900,000 or a million, maybe those customers are too high-demanding. So you find that sweet spot.
Let’s stick with that example, $300,000 to $700,000. Now think about your favorite customers. One top customer, you really liked working with them. They said yes every single time. You start putting the pieces together. They lived in a $400,000 or $500,000 home. They drove a Porsche. They bought everything. They were inside this specific neighborhood.
You can literally go buy a list from a company like InfoUSA with those exact demographics. Female, specific home value range, specific neighborhood. Now you have a highly targeted mailing list of the people you actually want to send to on a consistent basis.
7 Things Every Postcard Needs
Design matters. I’ve seen thousands of postcards, and some of them have tiny font, no call to action, no phone number. Here’s what every single postcard should have.
1. A big, bold headline. It’s like any form of marketing. You get one to three seconds before that thing ends up in the garbage. Think about it from the prospect’s perspective. They go to the mailbox, pull everything out, and start tossing stuff. You have three seconds to catch their attention.
2. Quality images. Don’t use stock photos. Get real photos of your team. Have a team member stand in front of the trucks. Families do well. Teams do well. Maybe a customer photo. Just make sure they’re real and high quality.
3. An irresistible offer. Half off your first initial service. A free termite inspection. A free rodent bait box setup. A free foundation exclusion. Think about all the different offers you could put on there that make it really compelling for the customer to call in.
4. A strong call to action. People are so used to being told what to do. You literally have to tell them on the postcard what to do next. They read your headline, they read your offer. Now they just need to know the next step. Scan this QR code. Call this phone number. Go to this landing page. And here’s a key point: make sure you’re using a call tracking number. Don’t just put your cell phone or business landline on there. You want to track every single lead and know exactly where it came from. Use a different phone number for every postcard campaign. If you’re sending them to a landing page, use a separate landing page for each campaign too.
5. Contact information. Have your website, phone number, and maybe some social profiles on there. People need a way to reach you.
6. Reviews and social proof. Always put a couple five-star reviews on there with the person’s first name, last initial, and the city they’re in. So let’s say you went out and did a mouse job and the customer left you a great review about how you got rid of all their mice. Put that review on the postcard, credit it to the customer, and include the city they live in. One review for sure, if not several, on every single postcard.
7. Consistent branding. One of the biggest mistakes I see is every postcard looking a little bit different. The brand’s not quite the same from one campaign to the next, so you never build up that brand awareness. Make sure your postcards look the same across the board. From your website to your truck wraps to your postcards, the customer should see the same brand everywhere.
How to Find Your Target Demographic
There are a few ways to find this information. Google and Facebook both have really detailed audience data. If you’re running ads on either platform, it’s going to tell you your target demographic, who’s clicking on your links the most, who’s purchasing the most. That’s one good way to find it.
If you already have an established client base, look at your existing customers. What neighborhoods are they in? What’s the average income level? It takes a little time to go through it step by step, but tools like USPS Every Door Direct Mail and InfoUSA will show you the demographics for each area. You’ll start to see patterns.
If you have a CRM, you already know what neighborhoods your clients are in. Go to the Census Bureau, pull up the data, and see what the average income is for that zip code or neighborhood. It’ll show you everything, and you can get really precise on who your customer avatar is and who you’re going to send these mailers to.
When and How to Send Them (This Is Where Most Companies Fail)
This is probably the question I get asked most, and it’s the section where most companies mess up.
In the lawn care industry, we used to call it “Home Depot days.” That one weekend where everyone suddenly goes to the big box store to get all their outside stuff. Just as the weeds start popping, just as the mosquitoes come out, just as the flies and other insects show up. Those are good pain points to start sending postcards.
But this can get very expensive if you don’t watch the weather. I’ve seen a company do a huge aeration campaign in the fall. They sent out something like 100,000 postcards through USPS, dropped them off, and the day they went out, an early winter storm hit. A foot of snow. They literally lost tens of thousands of dollars.
Same thing with rain and overcast. If the forecast is showing rain in a couple days, hold off. You want these landing on a nice, bright, sunny day. It all matters.
Frequency Is Everything
This is probably the single biggest mistake people make. They’ll go buy 10,000 postcards, blast them out across a bunch of neighborhoods one time, and then say, “Oh man, this didn’t work.” Or they’ll get less than half a percent response rate and give up.
That’s not how it works. I would rather take that same 10,000 postcards and narrow down to 3,000 people and hit those same 3,000 people five times a year. It’s going to take someone three to five exposures before they even notice the first time. Last I heard, it takes somewhere around 14 to 21 different touches before someone actually picks up the phone and calls.
Frequency is extremely important. Hit the same customers five to six times per year rather than blanketing 10,000 flyers all at once.
Three Ways to Send Postcards
When you’re first starting out and money is tight, the easiest thing is to put them in door slots yourself. Not a bad idea at all.
Second, hire help. A church group, a bunch of kids. I looked it up and it costs about 30 cents for USPS to deliver a postcard. You could offer kids 10 to 15 cents per piece and get it done a lot cheaper.
Third, use USPS Every Door Direct Mail. It’s not terribly hard. You go to the USPS Every Door Direct Mail site, pick the routes you want, look at zip codes, check demographics and income levels, and make sure you’re targeting single-family homes. Not renters. Average income above your threshold. Home values in your target range. Then you print off the labels they provide, stack your postcards in groups of 50 to 100, rubber band them up, and drop them off at the post office.
And the last option is to have a print company handle everything for you. A lot of them will offer to send them out for the entire year. You pay the company, give them the schedule, the zip codes, and they notify you when each batch goes out so you know when the spike in calls and leads is coming. I like this approach especially as you get bigger because there’s less tracking on your end and it just gets done on a consistent basis.
Why Most Postcards Fail
I’ve talked to hundreds of companies across the country that tried postcards and said they don’t work. Here’s why they failed.
No repetition. They send out one mailer to 10,000 people, get a few responses, and decide it doesn’t work. You have to hit the same customer three to six times per year. Make sure your branding is on point, your offer and headlines are strong. You can use a different offer each time, or use the same one five or six times a year. Either way, you’ll get a much better result than one single blast.
Poor targeting. They go into USPS and just blanket a bunch of routes without watching what they’re doing. They don’t know who to target, so they’re sending to everyone. If someone’s annual income is $29,000, they’re probably not going to buy your services. But if you find a route where the average income is $80,000 plus, the likelihood of them buying is way higher.
No tracking. They slap their cell phone number or business line on there and have no idea which postcard generated which lead. They can’t say, “Hey, that phone call came from that specific campaign.” You can’t track ROI without tracking numbers and dedicated landing pages. Every postcard will convert differently, and you need to know which ones are working.
Bad timing. Like that company that dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a campaign right before a snowstorm and got zero leads. Watch the weather. And make sure you’re sending at the right time of year. If it’s aeration season, send out aeration postcards. If it’s bat army worm season, send them out that week. Termite season, same thing.
No clear call to action. You have to walk each prospect through exactly what to do. Call this number. Visit this page. And make sure you have urgency and scarcity on there. Something like, “We’re only taking the next 15 homes in your neighborhood” or “This offer expires in 7 days.” And actually live by it.
No follow-up process. I’ve seen people send these out and have nobody in the office answering phones. Nobody monitoring the inbox. Leads come in and sit for days, and by then the customer has moved on. Make sure you’re answering every call and responding to emails as fast as you possibly can.
Unrealistic expectations. If you send out 10,000 postcards, you’re not going to get 5,000 calls. Expect less than a 1% response rate. But remember, these leads are high converting. If 10 people call, you can close six of them. And for some of you, each of those customers could be worth $25, $50, or $100 plus on a recurring basis. That’s why I love postcards.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully this helped demystify postcards for you. This is a really big strategy that we used to grow to 10 plus locations in a short period of time. If you’re looking for consistent, high-quality leads, postcards are a great way to get them and an easy way to scale your company. Just make sure your design, targeting, and timing are all dialed in, and you’re going to see a ton of success.
