Grass Roots Marketing

Lawn Doctor to debut 2001 mail campaign

Lawn Doctor Inc.’s latest direct mail prospecting effort features a new focus – brand development and differentiation. And for the first time, the landscaping and lawn care company is turning to an outside agency to generate its advertising.

Holmdel, NJ-based Lawn Doctor’s mailers now play off the firm’s name. One features an X-ray of a hand with green-colored thumb bones; another shows an EKG with green spikes representing a lawn gone wild. A third has a prescription bottle with a label advising the recipient to “Take regularly up to 6x/year for healthy lawns.”

The company chose Harrisburg, PA’s Neiman Group to run the effort because of its franchising and service expertise, according to Lawn Doctor marketing director Scott Frith.

Lawn Doctor asked its 400 franchises to roll out this campaign. The company presented each owner with a package of the new mailers, along with FSIs and retention pieces the firm produced in-house. Each piece can be customized with the location and telephone number of a specific franchise.

Last year, more than 60% of the franchises participated, sending 12 million pieces either as solo mailers or in shared packages such as those distributed by coupon mailer Advo. This year, after Lawn Doctor’s promotions and operations departments touted the concept at a number of different venues, the firm anticipates a 70% buy-in rate, with more than 16 million pieces going out in the spring.

Prospect names are drawn primarily from Experian, an information services company in Orange, CA. Criteria are mostly based on wealth and geographic area, although families with members who play golf tend to work out well as potential customers. “People who play the sport [often] have more disposable income,” Frith says.

Aside from the common creative efforts guaranteeing a uniform message for all franchise mailings, aggregating the offers lets the parent company offer quantity discounts – and some services, such as customization, that would not otherwise be available on short runs. The minimum order size for any given piece is 5,000 copies; last year participants took between 30,000 and 40,000 of each.

“Our job is to have our franchises build relationships with new customers and not worry about print runs or data,” says Frith. “If we’re not doing that, we’re not doing a good job.”