In my Ultimate Blueprint to Start Your Own Web Agency, I talk a lot about customer acquisition and a lot of different methods you can use. I think it’s important as a business owner and a marketer that we don’t get hung up on what method is better than another method because the truth is, every method and every technique has a purpose and can reach people that other methods and techniques can’t.
Today I’m going to talk about the Quadruple Threat.
What Is the Quadruple Threat?
It’s the combination of a couple different methods you can use that all compliment each other for maximum conversions.
This does involve the use of Profit Renegade, (you can see it in action here) but it isn’t required, it just makes the entire process easier and automated. It used to be called Mobile Renegade, so don’t be confused, they recently rebranded into profit renegade for some reason but the demo still shows what it can do.
Back to the focal point…
The Quadruple Threat contains 4 different methods:
- Cold Calling
- Cold Emailing
- Direct Mailing
- and Facebook Ads
They all work very well together and makes for an awesome marketing campaign for such a minimal investment.
The Quadruple Threat In Action!
Step 1: Harvesting Business Information
This is the initial step, and this is what you need to do anyway whether you’re doing any one of these things aside from FB ads. You have a lot of options available. You can use infofree and similar services, you can use software that will scrape business information from yellowpages, yellowbook and similar directories (ie Profit Renegade), or you can do it manually if you don’t have money to invest.
I’ve been using Profit Renegade for years, and it’s one of the ways I built up my business, I’m also an affiliate so there may be a little bit of a bias there but in my opinion it’s the most stable software available for this sort of thing. It also gets you the business name, phone number, email, and address.
Also, I have used Infofree and other lead services. The problem with them is that they don’t always work with the quadruple threat. Having an email address is extremely important when it comes to implementing this. Infofree, last time I used them did include some email addresses but you couldn’t extract it in the csv file so it made it a bit of a pain.
I’ve also done this manually, but it’s a pain in the ass. Whether this makes sense for you, depends on whether you have more time than money or more money than time.
Tip: Whether you’re scraping automatically, purchasing info or doing it manually, you’ll want to stick with one industry at a time, it’s much easier to create a higher converting campaign than if you scraped just randomly scattered businesses.
Step 2: Implementing Your Quadruple Threat Campaign
This is where things get tricky. Before you start implementing you want to have 1,000 emails, along with 1,000 phone numbers, addresses, etc.
Direct Mailing – This is usually the beginning phase of the quadruple threat. Yes, mailing costs money but this is marketing and assuming you have some sort of budget in place, this is where you want to start.
You have 1,000 leads, I’ve had success sending postcards and generating between 1-2% conversion rate.
In the USA, you can send 1,000 postcards for $350. Printing 1,000 postcards should cost you around $50-60. You can lower your postage cost with a bulk mailing permit but you may not be ready for that just yet, better to try this out first then worry about lowering your cost to increase your profitability.
The reason I like to implement this before anything else is because it’s the table setter. Even if your leads throw the postcard away, chances are it will at least get them thinking about what you’re offering, or at least put your business name in their head, which helps the campaign later on.
More times than not though, you end up generating incoming calls from the postcards which directly end up being sales. Think about it… even with just 1 sale from the postcards, you can have a decent ROI assuming your pricing is right.
Email Marketing – This is the second thing I implement, usually about a week and a half after I’d send postcards.
Since you’re approaching all this as a campaign, you usually aren’t going to be mailing, calling or emailing a HUGE number of leads, you’re going to keep it manageable. This is especially true with email marketing.
While I am a big fan of cold email marketing for lead generation in general, you want to keep your main cold email list separate from your campaign list. This way you can effectively track the campaign as well as send customized emails for your campaign instead of a broad email to every email in your database.
Usually I recommend MailChimp for your cold emailing, and in this case I DEFINITELY recommend it since if you keep your campaigns small, you will technically fit into their free plan up to 2,000 email addresses and 12,000 emails a month.
Once you email your first campaign, you will want to continue emailing in a sequence, different messages each week once a week for 8 weeks total.
Cold Calling – Cold calling to generate business doesn’t have to be difficult. I know it’s something a lot of people don’t like to do but cold calling as part of the quadruple threat is a bit different, it’s no longer as cold of a call.
These are people that have already heard from you, through direct mail and email. You calling is not going to be that big of a deal, right?
You don’t need to construct a complex script, you’re calling with a purpose. You’re following up with them from the email and postcard you’ve sent them. There’s no reason to be nervous or develop anxiety.
If you’re REALLY against cold calling, you can cut it out and still have a triple threat but the cold calling part of this reminds the people that have put off calling you, this is where you’re going to sweep up some additional sales.
You should start the cold calling section of the campaign a day or two after you send the first email. If you call 100 a day you will get through the list in 2 business weeks, and will pick up an additional 2-3 sales at the minimum even if you totally suck over the phone.
You don’t need a super complicated script… keeping it simple is effective. “Hey, this is so and so from “Company Name”, do you have a minute”? You’re not going to see that in sales books, but it works. It gives you an opening to discuss who you are, what you do, and gauge interest. They either become a lead, or they don’t. K.I.S.S.
Facebook Ads – This is probably my favorite part of the quadruple threat and something you can also implement individually. For the sake of making this a brief tutorial and guideline, I’m going to assume you already understand how facebook ads work.
You also may have to do additional research on the use of the power editor.
Enough of that though, lets get into the juicy part of all this.
You’re going to need to use the power editor with facebook ads and create a custom audience. With the list your scraped with Profit Renegade, or the list you have made manually, you will want to use either emails or phone numbers as the unique identifier.
You need to create 2 separate custom audiences.
1.) The first set is the custom audience based on the email address you harvested. Around 40-50% of the emails you harvest will be associated with a facebook account.
2.) The next set will be phone numbers that you have scraped or harvested. These usually get very little in the terms of account association. Some industries work better than others, for example, dentists will be awful for matching phone numbers, but roofers, landscapers, lawn care companies may be around 20-30%.
Having custom audiences will allow you to target the businesses you’ve been marketing to with the postcards, emails, and cold calls. This allows them to see you everywhere, in their mail box, in their inbox, hear your voice on the phone and even on social media.
Setting up an ad with some sort of free offer or lead magnet will lead to better results.
You should start your FB ad campaign about a week after your postcards are sent. Your cost per click will be low and this won’t be a very large expense at all. You’re probably going to spend $50 per sale you get and that’s on the high end of things.
Remember step 1, target one industry at a time if you want better conversions. An ad specific to a roofer will outperform an ad just for web design or SEO. If you don’t go industry specific, then you will want to at least have them hit a specific local area.
Final Thoughts
This is the perfect campaign setup that allows you proper diversification in your marketing along with increased conversions.
People respond well to different forms of marketing. Maybe they don’t want to be bothered on the phone, maybe they don’t read their email, but maybe they do see the postcard and get on social media. This covers angles on all sides and allows you to have awesome campaign conversions.
When you’re not very good at one single method, other methods are there to pick up the slack.
Your marketing strategy should have a compound, and complimenting effect across different mediums. This accomplishes that!
Let me know your thoughts below in the comments, I’d love to see them!
I’m not an affiliate of Mobile Renegade and think it’s awesome. So, you ain’t biased, bro!
Good article, too.
Hey Dan, I can’t lie… I’m a very biased person LOL. But yeah, I’ve been using it for a LOOONG time. Automation for the win! Thanks for the comment.
You must invest in a lot of gold the way you keep giving it away for free.
The Facebook ads custom audience thing is genius.
Haha, thanks for the comment. Yeah FB ads can be a game changer with the custom audiences.
I’ve tried postcards, but had a horrible conversion rate on em. I got my leads from Infogroup, and the list was for new home owners. My postcard had a statement about home key changes and had a coupon on the back. I’m still not sure why I only got 2 calls out of 500 postcards.
Do you have any advice on what to actually say to your prospects via mailers?
Hey Rich, thanks for the comment. You made a good point and I would like to cover the topic of direct mailing more in depth in the future. With postcards, you have to determine which size would be best, I’ve always had success with 4×6 but I guess it ultimately comes down to your list, and your copy. Also, 500 isn’t enough, you need to send 1,000, and in your case, it wouldn’t make sense getting leads from infogroup when you can target neighborhoods with EDDM at a much cheaper rate.
Based on your description, a coupon and a statement about home key changes… doesn’t sound like you really are excited about your marketing message! lol. Find out how you can motivate them.
Yeah well, I admit I wasn’t excited about my marketing message. I get excited by the money I make after they call! I need to figure out what buttons to push to make them call though.
Thanks for the heads up about EDDM, which I never heard of.
https://www.usps.com/business/pdf/every-door-direct-mail-user-guide.pdf
I did a piece a while back for commercial locks, but it could be used with residential. There are Good, Better, and Best locks. 5, 6, and 7 Pin. So if you ask the question.. “When was the last time you changed your locks?” You can then start asking some qualifier questions.. have you ever loaned your key to a contractor? Did you change the locks when you moved in? – how many spare sets did the previous owner have? Have you ever lost a set of keys? Your families security is priceless. Peace of mind starts at $ for good and $ for Best – call us today for a free quote.
Awesome, thanks a bunch Paul! It’s good to see how someone else is advertising the same service.
Quick question about mail chimp. It’s asking me to put a reminder for how I got email subscribers on my list. What do you recommend putting here? Does it really matter?
Hey Mav. Mailchimp doesn’t read it, so you can really put whatever you want. If you’re segmenting your list by industry, I’d recommend making it specific to them. “Marketing newsletter for roofing contractors.” is good enough.
Ok great. Thanks for the help!
I have tried a kick ton of audience testing with FB.. but Phone Numbers? that’s just crazy! That right there was worth the price of admission! LOL Bully – YOUR A BOSS!
Phone numbers bro… it’s pretty awesome. Definitely should try it out.