HOUSEHOLD repairs

THE GUTTERS NEED CLEANING, the trim needs painting and the sink is backed up. Who do you call? Sure, there’s lots of local “mom and pop” repair shops listed in the phone book — but no way to know who to trust.

To capitalize on the dearth of nationally branded home repair services, Owens Corning rolled out HOMExperts in the spring of 2000. But no matter how many stopped-up tubs there were in the launch markets of Boston, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Austin, TX, the direct mail cost per acquisition for the Toledo, OH-based company was, at about $530 each, exorbitant.

Thanks to refocused creative and better targeting, that dropped drastically, to $226, in the first two quarters of 2001. And direct mail acquisition rates continue to drop 5% to 10% per month.

“There’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel,” says Chuck Stein, vice president and general manager for Owens Corning HOMExperts.

To promote the service, the company had done direct mail and ROP print advertising with creative that was very traditionally masculine.

“It was what you’d expect,” says Stanton M. Lewin, managing director and principal of LKH&S, Chicago, one of the agencies that worked on the account. “Guys in trucks wearing uniforms, big toolboxes, references to hammers and nails.”

However, 75% of calls for the service were coming from women. When LKH&S took over the account in December 2000, it made targeting that audience a priority. Creative focused on a confident-looking woman in the foreground, with the repairman hard at work in the background.

A main theme of the campaign was “A man who comes when you call him,” says Lewin, who admits there was some concern on Owens Corning’s part that the ads might be perceived as sexist by women or off-putting to men. Focus groups convinced them to go forward with the concept.

“Women said ‘Yup, that’s me’ or ‘That’s my husband, he’s not doing that,’” he says. The opposite gender concentrated on other aspects of the ads. “The guys looked at the offer, the list of jobs and projects and maybe the pictures of the guy working. It was like they were looking at a different ad.”

The campaign also played up the Owens Corning (OC) brand name to foster credibility. The Pink Panther, OC’s traditional mascot, was also used, but his role was minimized. Lewin says there was concern that younger homeowners might not be as familiar with the character or his appeal, so it was chancy to rely on him too heavily.

“For us,” says Lewin, “the hero was the woman, having empowerment, getting her home just the way she wants it.”

Mailing Tests

The target audience is families with children and a household income of more than $100,000 annually, says Stein. Owens Corning has a house file of 8,000 users and some 24,000 inquirers. The average sale is about $1,100.

Starting in March 2001, LKH&S tested two mailing tactics for the Boston, Minneapolis and Indianapolis markets (Austin was dropped six months after the service was introduced). Lists for the mailings were drawn primarily from compiled files. One set of 32,000 households received only one mailing, which included a HOMExperts magnet that prospects would hopefully put on their refrigerator to remind them of the service in the future. The other group of 8,000 households received a series of four mailings, the first of which was the magnet self-mailer.

Newspaper inserts augmented the direct mail program. Lewin says while it was hard to gauge the overall impact of the magnet, follow-up research indicated that a “reasonably high percentage” did keep it.

Many of the ads were seasonal, focusing on needs such as putting up Christmas lights or cleaning gutters. The busiest season for HOMExperts is spring, says Lewin, when people start to “come out of hibernation” and think about getting their property in shape for summer.

Each mailing piece and newspaper insert featured a list of potential repairs done by HOMExperts. The call volume often fluctuated with the repairs listed, showing that people were actually reading the material in detail, notes Lewin.

Eight-Week Tail

HOMExperts’ current creative — by Doner Advertising in Southfield, MI — is focused on the capability and scope of services offered. Seasonally oriented direct mail campaigns are being done monthly. The company dropped about 350,000 acquisition pieces in May. The postcards, which offer a discount off services, tend to have a “tail” of eight weeks, with people holding on to the pieces until they have a need for the service.

The current creative focuses more on projects HOMExperts can do, with photos of people doing the repair work, says Stein. The relational approach used last year was “fairly effective,” but OC is studying whether something more project oriented might work better. Stein notes the average sale has risen to $1,100, compared with $650 last year.

In the first quarter of 2002, Stein says the company tested many things, including e-mail blasts to past customers (results were unpromising, but more targeted efforts are planned); television spots in Minneapolis; inserts in the Val-Pak and Pennysaver co-ops; and ROP ads (which didn’t perform anywhere near as well as newspaper inserts).

“We’re quantifying everything. The May campaign was probably 80% refined to what we want to do consistently, and in June we’ll be 95% [of the way there],” he says. “We don’t have all of the test data in — there were commitments we made in the testing process that we’re fulfilling. If I look at the May campaign, there’s probably 10% I wouldn’t have spent if I didn’t have to. But we were committed to it.”

Besides its three core markets, HOMExperts is also in Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Washington, and is expected to bow in other markets next year. While the company plans to develop a loyalty program, it isn’t doing much retention-based direct mail now. “People are coming back without the targeting,” Stein says. “Roughly 35% come back and use the service again within six months.”