Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac said:
We're in a smaller ag related industry, so each state across the Southeast might have like 300 customers that could use our product. There are associations that have huge mailing lists, but they typically don't give those out and if they do they're typically on paper and not an easily transferrable file.

Farmers? Or something else? I'd call them, and ask them if they have anyway to target that customer directly. Maybe they could check zoning, or large plots of land, or maybe they have in the system that someone flagged themselves as your target customer. I'd work with them, and be creative. Tell them who your customer is, and ask them the data they can pull. You'd be surprised who they can target. You could also theoretically deliver digital ads to those customers, but I'm naive to that. I just know there are a number of companies out there offering it. One company said they'd charge me $1,500 to deliver four digital ads to every customer in my database. We never got that far. For whatever reason, in July, we couldn't close a customer to save our lives. Had a few sales meetings and we got back to our selling ways. July was weird, we are usually super busy that month. But we couldn't build a backlog until the end of it.

Also, it works wonders to have loyalty and new customer acquisition mailers automated and on a regular schedule. I have one set for the entire year. Every month I will target the higher HHI neighborhoods, and quarterly, I'll do a larger mailer to my customer base.

Control · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac said:
I'd like to do SEO, but I don't think my customers are out googling for better software.

People aren't going to google until they have a problem they need to solve. What problems would lead people to change to your product? or to start using a product like yours for the first time? Those problems are the things you want to SEO/SEM. Anything else is just pumping vanity metrics.

Tmac · Jan 13, 2022

Shonuff said:
Farmers? Or something else? I'd call them, and ask them if they have anyway to target that customer directly. Maybe they could check zoning, or large plots of land, or maybe they have in the system that someone flagged themselves as your target customer. I'd work with them, and be creative. Tell them your customer, and ask them the data they can pull.

Also, it works wonders to have loyalty mailers automated and on a regular schedule.

Forestry, so there aren't really any tangible criteria to target them.

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac said:
Forestry, so there aren't really any tangible criteria to target them.

You dismiss the idea lightly. What size property is your average customer? Maybe you could target them based on size. Also, you said 300 customers per state. Maybe you could target certain areas where people needing forestry would be more prevalent. I know in my area, there are areas where they'd be more apt to getting forestry done.

Maybe target property owners (versus rentals) where there is more than 5 acres, and in certain areas? We have more tools than ever to target niche customers.

I'm going to PM you my postcardmania rep's contact info. Would suggest you call him and pick his brain.

Tmac · Jan 13, 2022

Shonuff said:
You dismiss the idea lightly. What size property is your average customer? Maybe you could target them based on size. Also, you said 300 customers per state. Maybe you could target certain areas where people needing forestry would be more prevalent. I know in my area, there are areas where they'd be more apt to getting forestry done.

Maybe target property owners (versus rentals) where there is more than 5 acres, and in certain areas? We have more tools than ever to target niche customers.

I'm going to PM you my postcardmania rep's contact info. Would suggest you call him and pick his brain.

They aren't landowners. They harvest timber for landowners, so contacting the landowner wouldn't help us much. We could do some sort of throughput marketing where we sell ourselves on security to the landowner, who then pushes us onto the forestry company, but I think we'd waste a lot of money there.

I wasn't dismissing it lightly, there's legitimately no criteria to target them outside of associations. Most companies are sorted under agriculture on large lists (government, etc) anyways, so even that doesn't help much.

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac said:
They aren't landowners. They harvest timber for landowners, so contacting the landowner wouldn't help us much. We could do some sort of throughput marketing where we sell ourselves on security to the landowner, who then pushes us onto the forestry company, but I think we'd waste a lot of money there.

I wasn't dismissing it lightly, there's legitimately no criteria to target them outside of associations. Most companies are sorted under agriculture on large lists (government, etc) anyways, so even that doesn't help much.

OK, I vaguely remember now. Can you get a list of the company names, either through search, or the association, and then have a list of names to target, through direct mail?

I did send you my guy's name, it might be worth a call.

Tmac · Jan 13, 2022

Shonuff said:
OK, I vaguely remember now. Can you get a list of the company names, either through search, or the association, and then have a list of names to target, through direct mail?

I did send you my guy's name, it might be worth a call.

Actually, I think I could get this info.

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac said:
Actually, I think I could get this info.

So then you could:

- send them mailers monthly
- target them digitally (postcardmania claims they target anyone you send a mailer to)
- add a FB pixel to your site, and then set up remarketing campaigns on FB/Insta/Google
- target decision makers on LinkedIn
- geotarget the buildings of the customer you are going after

Just remember, you get a higher ROI the more you stick with a campaign. Repetition is key. My ad plan is set for the year, based on 17 years of sales data. I advertise like crazy in the off peak times, and almost none in the peak times. I don't like turnover, it helps me to keep the guys getting solid checks.

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

I fully believe in targeting. This week, we've only had 8 customers call, and have sold just under 20k in service fees. We closed every ticket, I believe. Its always slower this time of year. Hell, when I bought the company, they were doing 25k the entire month of January.

We start our TV spots on the playoffs starting this weekend, we have our neighborhood and loyalty mailers being sent, I upped my spend on FB/Insta/youtube by double, and I added TV spots all day Tues and the AM of Wed next week. That should get the ball rolling.

I'll probably never drop the money to be on the SuperBowl, so playoffs is what it is.

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

Tmac, this may be what you are looking for. They claim they can mail your list, and then target them digitally at the same time. They may also be able to help with consulting. I may see what they can do for me digitally. Obviously, you are getting more headspace and frequency if you can send them mail AND target them digitally.

We are in a brave new world with all of the targeting, but I think this where you'll be able to reach niche customers.

What I'm worried about is where they would push the ads to.

Direct Mail + Google & Facebook Ads = Be Everywhere | PostcardMania

Turn your website visitors into customers - automatically!

www.postcardmania.com

Shonuff · Jan 13, 2022

I don't want to totally endorse postcardmania, because they did screw up an order of mine once pretty badly. There was a time when I took everyone in our area that made over 100k a month and had them on weekly rotation. In a four week month, I'd hit 25% of the market every week. They screwed it up. One customer handed me his 13 mailings in three months; he was only supposed to get three. They did give me a steep discount on the next order. And demand was fine. I've used them off and on for maybe 5 or 6 years. We used a company out of California, but when they got shut down, they shut down for months.

Tmac · Jan 13, 2022

Shonuff said:
One customer handed me his 13 mailings in three months

LOL! Also, he became a customer!

Tmac · Jan 17, 2022

Shonuff said:
Tmac, this may be what you are looking for. They claim they can mail your list, and then target them digitally at the same time. They may also be able to help with consulting. I may see what they can do for me digitally. Obviously, you are getting more headspace and frequency if you can send them mail AND target them digitally.

We are in a brave new world with all of the targeting, but I think this where you'll be able to reach niche customers.

What I'm worried about is where they would push the ads to.

Direct Mail + Google & Facebook Ads = Be Everywhere | PostcardMania

Turn your website visitors into customers - automatically!

www.postcardmania.com

I really don't like their up front sales process.

They asked me, literally, 15x for your info (2 more times right before we hung up). After the first 5x they asked I had to say, "Look. I don't know his info. He's on an internet forum. Do you want his username?". AND THEY STILL ASKED ME 10 MORE TIMES FOR YOUR INFO.

I talked to two different people and was told I'd be talking to a third. She quoted me at like $1400 a month for a campaign for nationwide, which I was fine with, and then pitched me on a smaller campaign $500 a month for four states, so whatever.

She read from like 2 pages of what the process would look like and all sorts of disclaimers and how to use their software... Why do they read from a script about how to use their software? Just send me an email and make sure I login or something. Whoever came up w their script is retarded. I was ready to give them my money and get started, but it literally took them 30 minutes. Only 10 of those minutes was us talking about my industry and who to target and getting that locked in. I even asked her for the names of a business to make sure she had the right people targetted and she ignored my questions.

I paid $3k up front and I guess I'll pay another $500 monthly. But, even after I paid I still didn't get an email or anything. She said it'd take 5 minutes, but it's been 15 min now and no email. She entered my email address wrong 3x before she got it right, which is concerning. So, I imagine I'll have to call them back AFTER I PAID $3k and try and get logged in. Yay.

So, WE'LL SEE HOW IT GOES!

[edit] Finally got the email to login.

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Adventures with Lyrical: Buying a Business (REPOST)

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole

Control

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Tmac

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Shonuff

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Tmac

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Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole

Tmac

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Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole

Shonuff

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Direct Mail + Google & Facebook Ads = Be Everywhere | PostcardMania

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole

Tmac

Adventurer

Tmac

Adventurer

Direct Mail + Google & Facebook Ads = Be Everywhere | PostcardMania