I’m often asked, “What’s the least-expensive source of leads? Home shows? Canvassing? My own Web site?”
Believe it or not, one of your least-expensive sources of leads actually costs you next to nothing. Yes, nothing. It’s your database of all of the homeowners you’ve talked to, some of whom became your customers, and many of which did not.
Reaching out to them to sell them something—or something more—is a gigantic opportunity that many home improvement companies fail to leverage. And with e-mail marketing, it’s never been easy to stay in touch with these homeowners.
But when discussing the e-mail opportunity with home improvement marketers, the next question I get is “What am I going to write about?” and “Who’s going to write it?”
Here’s the quick answer to the first question: Pick home improvement challenges. Write about the solutions. Voila. Of course, that can be easier said than done. You still need to come up a steady stream of home improvement problems to write about.
As for who will do the writing, this is a frightening proposition for many home improvement types. Just as many people are scared of public speaking, they are often equally frightened of committing anything to writing. Even for something as simple as an e-mail newsletter.
So, for those not feeling particularly blessed with the gift of the written word, I have come up with three alternatives:
1) Designate An Internal Member of Your Team. Find someone on your team who really wants to write your e-newsletter, and then rely on that individual.
On the other hand, the approach of “Everyone writes an article” just never works. That means do not share the responsibility of writing across multiple staffers—I have just never seen this approach pan out. Your staff has other responsibilities and, like you, they always seem to be just too busy to write up the requisite material on a deadline.
2) Hire a Professional Copywriter. This may seem expensive, but writers have never been less expensive than they are right now. Even so, hiring an outside resource is often beyond the small home improvement company, but it greatly simplifies the process.
A writer will help you write up half a dozen ideas every month, allowing you to remain focused on sales and operations.
That said, with both Approaches #1 and #2, you’ve still got to feed your writing resource with story ideas. That means coming up with the topics and coaching them through development and editing.
3) Subscribe To An E-Newsletter Service. R2R Associates writes copy specifically for home improvement companies to e-mail out to their database. They charge a small monthly fee for the service, write fresh content every month, and provide the material that makes for juicy newsletter reading.
You’ll also be able to tailor your material to your specific market, products, etc.
Moreover, these services are generally full-service. They can take charge of creating story ideas for you—relieving you of one more challenge to putting e-mail marketing to work.
Stick a compelling response offer into your e-newsletter (e.g. “15% Off – This Month Only”) and you’ve got yourself an instant new lead generation channel.
So don’t despair, cranking out an e-mail newsletter is easier than it seems—even if you don’t want to do it yourself!