From the Client
Dana DeZiel
Owner
“I am writing to recommend Contractor 20/20 as a Marketing company to provide online marketing and website development. Their knowledge in these areas has greatly benefited our business with gaining internet visibility – which is very valuable in today’s market. Not only have they increased our online presence, they are incredibly responsive with my questions and whatever website changes or email blasts I want to do.” — Dana DeZiel, Owner
Project Overview
DeZiel Heating and AC provides excellent heating and air conditioning services in Buffalo, Minnesota. DeZiel HVAC decided to include email marketing as part of their advertising because they understand it is a great way to keep in touch with customers and boost results from prospect direct mail efforts. Every month, we send one or two emails to their customer base, their Service Partner Plan members, and a purchased list. The purpose of these emails is to promote a special service or product they are offering that correlates with the direct mail pieces they have been sending. In addition to increased sales, email marketing naturally increases name awareness as customers continually see the company name in their emails each month.
In the month of April we sent two emails. They included a tune up offer and a two-fur special (buy a furnace, get a free AC) to their non-service partner plan customers and purchased a promotional list.
Challenges/Issues
- Purchased promotions lists have low open rates
- Continuity of brand and message
- Tracking
Solutions
- Attractive email Subject line, best practices, targeted lists: There are plenty of challenges to overcome with a simple customer list, however, there are even more challenges to overcome with a purchase list. When using a purchased list, clients should expect higher bounce rates, higher unsubscribe numbers, and lower open rates for at least 6 months. These numbers will naturally impact reporting. In order to meet these challenges, the email subject line is very important, as the potential customer will need to make a decision, based on the subject line alone, regarding whether they will open the email, delete it, or report it as junk. Our subject line and pre headers were straightforward, and mentioned a time frame and savings to create urgency. We also included a branded color emoji to help it stand out from the rest of the emails. In addition to a strategic subject line, we had been comparing and contrasting open rates with the dates and times sent for previous emails. We strategically chose a specific day of the week and time that would lead to best open rates based on collected data. Lastly, the purchased list was not based solely on demographics. We had used the client’s customer list to narrow down the purchased list based on personality and habits. Therefore, the purchased list we were working with were composed of people who were more likely to be attracted to the clients branding and were email users. This helped improve the effectiveness of the purchased list.
- Brand continuity and attractiveness of design: DeZiel HVAC has great branding to work with. Their logo includes their mascot (a dog) and the vibrant colors purple and red. They are known for their fun and cheerful branding. Much of the imagery for the emails are taken directly from their direct mail pieces so that current customers will have the opportunity to see the same promotion more than once. However, we also always try to include different and whimsical images in the emails that will entice the customer to view the whole email. These images are often seasonal and involve dressing their mascot in different costumes. There are multiple calls to actions and opportunities to click on the email.
- Use of utm codes and phone numbers that allow us to track clicks to conversions: Tracking conversions from emails used to be hard. However, with the use of UTM codes and phone tracking numbers, we can now follow the customer’s journey to determine if the email was the springboard that led them to the website and a purchase.
