Introduction
Our goal for these campaigns was to help Custom Installations reach as many customers and get on as many roofs as possible for inspection and eventually repairs or replacements. We mainly looked at customers who lived in Lake Forest, Illinois with Cedar Shake roofs who had been hit by a hailstorm on September 11, 2019.
Prep
We first received a prospective list from Sock from Interactive Hail Maps. A hailstorm had hit Lake Forest, Illinois on September 11, 2019, and we knew that the grace period for insurance was going to be coming up very shortly. Our focus for the leads were people that were affected by the hailstorm who also had Cedar Shake roofs.
Our next step was to write out a script for both our e-mail and text campaigns, with multiple follow ups, as we’ve learned that following up on e-mails and texts greatly improves the chances of winning a lead. We studied multiple copywriting experts to ensure that our copy was as proven as possible. We also wrote two slightly different introductory e-mails so we could draw some initial conclusions as to which one works better.
After ironing out the details of the text and e-mail script, we set up accounts in MailShake for e-mails and HighLevel for texts, focusing on the details of the set up to be sure that there were no errors in name, address, phone, or any other pertinent areas of information. Any errors while setting up these accounts could lead to our messages not being sent, received, or a litany of other problems.
Once we carefully set up each account, we were ready to get our campaigns launched. We imported the contacts that we had found through our leads research and set up the scripts with an allotted time between each message being sent to ensure that we weren’t bombarding potential clients with texts and e-mails. We also separated the text contacts from the e-mail contacts so that we wouldn’t be double dipping and possibly aggravating the contacts. Another way to make sure we weren’t annoying contacts was we set up the campaigns so that anyone that replied would be taken out of the campaign and placed into a different part of the funnel.
While the campaign was running, we were closely monitoring the results every day, replying with answers to questions people had, forwarding on potential leads whenever they appeared, and ensuring that the campaigns were running without a hitch.
Results (Email)
| Sent | Outside | Open % | Bounced | Bounced % | Replied | Replied % | Lead Won | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 157 | 78 | 49.68% | 17 | 10.83% | 14 | 8.92% | 3 |
| #2 | 203 | 71 | 34.98% | 17 | 8.37% | 9 | 4.43% | 2 |
| Total | 360 | 149 | 41.39% | 34 | 9.44% | 23 | 6.39% | 5 |
There are some very interesting conclusions to draw from the e-mail campaign data. I think we first need to look at the slight variations between campaign 1 and campaign 2. In campaign 1, the subject line was “Quick question about {{address}}”, while in campaign 2, it was “Quick question for {{first name}}”. We also used a named example for Campaign 1, while in Campaign 2, we just said “helped your neighbor”.
I think the first interesting conclusion to draw is that the open rate for both campaigns is very high, with Campaign 1 at almost a 50% rate! It would appear that asking about the address instead of asking for someone in the subject line gives us a slightly more responsive result. I think this might be because a lot of companies use names to try and get your attention, so when your address is used instead, it might create a little bit more buzz.
It is also interesting to look at the reply rates for a named example vs an ambiguous neighbor example. Campaign 1 had an over 5% better reply rate than Campaign 2, and I think that’s at least partially to do with using an actual client’s name in the example. I believe that this creates a better overall reputation for Custom Installations, and if even one of the potential clients contacted our named example, we would have an even better chance at converting.
Lastly, these leads gives Custom Installations an even bigger foot in the door of the neighborhoods, and can allow for some possible guerilla marketing by having signs and trucks with the Custom Installations logo on them while performing the work. And, of course, the word-of-mouth after Custom performs a beautiful replacement or repair job will add an incredible value.
Results (Text)
Of the 578 total texts that were sent, we received 102 responses with a 14.91% bounce rate. This gives us a reply rate of 17.65%, or almost 1 in every 6 people we reached. And when you look further into the replies that we got, we can draw some more interesting conclusions. Of the replies that we got, 65/102, or 63.72%, said that we had incorrect information, whether that be address, name, or number. This is interesting because you would also expect that some of the ones who didn’t respond were also the wrong information.
Lastly, when we receive responses that the owner had recently replaced their roof, we can put them in a database to know when we should follow up with them again to see if their roof is ready for a repair or replacement. We can also, if there are a lot of recently replaced roofs, figure out if someone already has a hold on that neighborhood or if there was a storm recently that we weren’t aware of.
| Type of Response | Number of Responses |
|---|---|
| Recently Replaced | 5 |
| Stop / No | 20 |
| Wrong Info | 65 |
| Yes | 12 |
| Grand Total | 102 |
Even with the incorrect information, we had 11.76% of the people that responded respond in a positive manner. And if you eliminate the wrong information replies, then almost 33% of the people who replied said something along the lines of wanting to learn more or book an inspection. Of these 12 yeses, we booked an inspection with 8 of them. That comes out to 75% of the positive replies we received we were on their roof within the week.
Conclusion
I think a large part of the success for the campaigns was the deadline of a year to fix the roof from the 9/11/19 storm. This got people to act more quickly than they usually would because no one wants to spend unnecessary money on their roof if insurance will cover it. Another conclusion we can draw is that having a known person from the neighborhood as the example
