TTP Micro Episode: Low Cost, High ROI, Immediate Leads You've Been Sleeping On

Summary

To The Point - Home Services Podcast

Episode: TTP Micro Episode: Low Cost, High ROI, Immediate Leads You've Been Sleeping On
Release Date: July 31, 2025
Host: RYNO Strategic Solutions
Guest: Chad Peterman & Zach Garside (Prolific Brand Design)

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Introduction

In this micro-episode of To The Point, host Chris from RYNO Strategic Solutions delves into the often-overlooked yet highly effective strategy of email marketing for home service businesses. Joined by Chad Peterman and Zach Garside from Prolific Brand Design, the discussion centers on unlocking immediate leads through low-cost, high-ROI email campaigns tailored for industries like HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing.

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Guest Background and Expertise

Chad Peterman shares his journey into email marketing, highlighting his tenure at Power Selling Pros and his pivotal internship at DigitalMarketer.com. Influenced by Ben Griffin's mastery of email as a seamless lead generator, Chad transitioned to developing his own email marketing strategies, which proved instrumental during the pandemic when traditional lead sources dwindled. Together with Zach Garside, who brings extensive experience from his time at Power Selling Pros, they founded Prolific Brand Design to revolutionize email marketing for service-based businesses.

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The Power of Email Marketing in Home Services

Chris emphasizes that email marketing remains a resilient and effective channel, contrary to the belief that it's obsolete. Chad concurs, stating, "Email is the cockroach of marketing. It will not die." (53:17). The trio discusses how email allows businesses to maintain top-of-mind awareness, build relationships, and generate consistent leads at a fraction of the cost of paid advertising.

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Common Pitfalls and Solutions

One of the primary challenges contractors face with email marketing is low open rates, often between 10-20%, primarily because emails land in spam or promotions folders. Chad explains, "Most businesses send emails from generic platforms like Mailchimp, which can harm deliverability because they share IP reputations with countless other senders" (16:50).

Solutions Offered:

1. Domain Authentication: Ensuring emails are sent from the business's own domain rather than generic platforms to improve credibility and deliverability.
2. Inbox Warm-Up: Gradually increasing email volume over 4-5 weeks to establish a positive sender reputation.
3. Segmentation: Targeting specific subsets of the email list (e.g., customers who received estimates 6-12 months ago) to achieve higher open rates (30-50%) and conversion rates (1-2%).

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Crafting Effective Email Campaigns

Chad and Zach emphasize the importance of personalized and relevant content. Key strategies include:

• Compelling Subject Lines: Using timely and relatable topics such as "This week's forecast" to entice recipients to open emails (27:04).

  "One of the best performing subject lines for a heating and cooling company... is 'This week's forecast'." (27:04)

• Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Encouraging recipients to reply directly to the email instead of directing them to external links or platforms.

  "The call to action I have found actually works the best is reply to this email." (14:45)

• Minimal Graphics: Maintaining a plain-text approach to avoid triggering spam filters, while still incorporating subtle branding elements like a logo.

  "The more colors, graphics and designs you have in an email, the more ruthlessly Gmail will analyze and try to make sure you're not sending pornography or something horrible in your emails." (42:22)

• Storytelling: Sharing real anecdotes and experiences to create a connection with the audience, making the emails feel like they come from a trusted friend.

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Measuring Success: Open Rates and Conversion Rates

Chad outlines the benchmarks for successful email campaigns:

• Open Rates: Aim for 30-50%. If below 30%, investigate potential spam issues.

  "Whether you have 2,000, 20,000 or 200,000 people on your list, you should aim for a 30 to 50% open rate all the time." (28:20)

• Conversion Rates: Target a 1-2% response rate, translating to actual business leads and sales.

  "On conversion rates, as a general rule, I think you should hope slash expect a 1 to 2% response rate on your email marketing on any given month." (28:20)

Chad emphasizes the importance of these metrics in assessing the effectiveness of email campaigns and ensuring a strong return on investment (ROI).

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Return on Investment (ROI) of Email Marketing

Chad breaks down ROI into three categories:

1. Monetary ROI: With an example of an average ticket of $800 and a $200 monthly platform cost, even one job from the email campaign covers the costs. Scaling to 100 jobs can yield $80,000 in revenue.

   "If your average ticket is $800... you only need one job, literally one job to pay your cost of email marketing... 100 jobs at $800 average ticket... $80,000." (31:08)

2. Brand ROI: Consistent presence in the inbox builds brand awareness and trust, ensuring that when customers need services, your business is top of mind.

3. Messaging Clarity ROI: Email marketing helps refine and clarify your messaging, allowing for repurposing content across various platforms based on immediate feedback.

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Technical Setup and Best Practices

Setting up an effective email marketing campaign involves:

• Domain Authentication: Implementing DNS records to prove ownership and improve deliverability.

  "We install DNS records... that is what we do to prove that you own your domain." (39:11)

• Inbox Warm-Up: Slowly increasing email volume to avoid triggering spam filters.

  "It was five weeks to do your list, which was bigger than the average contractors for sure." (40:15)

• Avoiding Overcomplicated Templates: Using simple, plain-text emails with minimal graphics to ensure high deliverability and readability.

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Practical Tactics and Examples

The guests share actionable tactics that contractors can implement immediately:

• Localized and Timely Content: Tailoring emails based on local weather events or seasonal needs to increase relevance and urgency.

  "One of the best performing subject lines for a heating and cooling company... is 'This week's forecast'." (27:04)

• Personalized Stories: Sharing real customer stories or on-site experiences to create authenticity and engage the reader.

  "This happened, which made me realize... we're running a $59 AC tune-up special." (46:02)

• Interactive CTAs: Encouraging direct replies rather than clicks to foster a more personal connection and immediate response.

  "Just reply with the word 'tune up' to claim a spot on our calendar." (14:25)

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Special Offers and Closing Remarks

Towards the end of the episode, Chad and Chris offer exclusive deals for listeners to implement Prolific’s email marketing services:

• Onboarding Fee Discount: 50% off the usual $1,500 onboarding fee.
• Monthly Management Services: Starting at $1,500 per month to manage and optimize email campaigns.

Chad concludes with a compelling statement on the indispensability of email marketing:

"If nothing else, I can't imagine why you would not want to have a way to send your customers an email or a text message anytime you want and know it's going to land in the inbox." (51:04)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Chad Peterman:

  • "Email is the cockroach of marketing. It will not die." (53:17)
  • "Whether you have 2,000, 20,000 or 200,000 people on your list, you should aim for a 30 to 50% open rate all the time." (28:20)
  • "The first thing we do with any of our clients is get out of the spam folder because it doesn't matter how good the messaging is or how good the offer is if no one sees it." (16:50)

• Chris (Host):

  • "It's such an easy, simple thing to make sure you're doing right." (36:10)
  • "Email is definitely not dead." (54:05)

• Zach Garside:

  • "I would use it." (Referring to ChatGPT sending emails) (34:38)

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Conclusion and Recommendations

This episode underscores the critical role of email marketing in driving leads and sustaining business growth for home service companies. By addressing common challenges and providing actionable solutions, Chad and Zach demonstrate how strategic email campaigns can offer substantial returns with minimal investment. Listeners are encouraged to leverage Prolific Brand Design's expertise to enhance their own email marketing efforts and unlock new avenues for customer engagement and revenue generation.

For those interested in implementing these strategies, contact Zach Garside at prolificbranddesign.com or visit their website for more information and to take advantage of the special offers mentioned.

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Remember: Effective email marketing isn't just about sending messages—it's about crafting meaningful connections that convert into loyal customers. Don't let the simplicity of email be underestimated; harness its power to elevate your home services business today.

Transcript

[Chris]

Welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead, better, grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow, and let's get to the point.

[Chad]

This is to the Point a Rhino experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point.

[Chris]

Hey, what's up? To the Point listeners enjoy this micro episode with Prolific. Now, you heard earlier this week on the episode with Ishmael us talking about what Prolific brand design does beyond brand, and that's email marketing and they are exceptional at it. And Zach shares some actual tactics. So whether you use Prolific or not is irrelevant. In this episode though, he shares some fantastic ideas on how you can do this yourself or with them. But what you should expect, what should open rates be? What should conversion rates be, what should the return on investment be? What's the cost of this stuff? And he gives you a sweet little offer midway towards the end to if you want to give it a shot yourself. But this is an easy low cost way to bring in leads every single month. Enjoy this episode with Prolific and Zach Garside. Hey, what's up to the Point listeners, it's your boy, Chris. Another exciting podcast coming at you. I've got a guest in studio today, somebody I've gotten pretty familiar with over the last few months. But before we jump into that, Chad, man, I'm so bummed I didn't make it out there for our meeting, bro. I didn't get this. Sit side by side and we didn't get out on the water. Like none of those things happened. Pretty disappointing.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Zach Garside]

I think the only good thing was it rained because usually when you plan for rain, it doesn't rain. And then you're like, well, shit. But yeah, bummed that you couldn't make it out. That was kind of. We built it up on the last podcast. People would be like, oh my God, they saw each other. This is going to be great. No, we didn't.

[Chris]

I don't know that people actually thought that, but that's probably true. But just so everybody knows, it didn't happen. My flight got canceled. Plus it rained anyway, so you guys didn't go out and we just, we just had to do it virtually, which never is the same but I did still get in there. So yesterday was actually turned out pretty, pretty nice in the great state of Indiana. It's a nice little day.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, it's a nice day.

[Chris]

Okay, so this particular episode, just for all the listeners, I trust me, don't worry, I'm not going to let you down. I am going to start with some dad jokes. I don't know if these are better or worse than last week's. I actually think they're worse based on my standards. But I think Chad will appreciate them. But before I do that, I just want to say I have our guest, Zach Garsite on here too, who I actually was watching I guess maybe paying attention to the last few years and he was a power selling pros for a while. And I'll let you share some of your story here in a minute, Zach. But he, we brought him on board as the, well, he came on board, we brought in his email marketing business into Prolific, which some of you guys know that I became an owner in that and then brought on Zach to be the president of it. And we're like down the path. So I mean this episode isn't about that. The episode is about the why I even really, I wanted Zach to be a part of the business because of what he was doing. And what I was sleeping on was this email marketing stuff. And I mean it's just like you don't think about it, some of the grassroots stuff. And Chad and I, you and I have talked about this before but, but to actually see what he, what he was doing for the contractors and how well he was doing it and what the returns were and the cost per leads were so low. It's like, shit, man. We've been sleeping on email marketing. Not everybody, but I was. So I want to just talk through, I want him to actually share some, you know, some of the things that he's been doing and some of the early successes that we had. Some of the people he's working with, like actual things that the listeners can be like, oh shit, okay, I can at least take that back and even try it myself if they wanted. But before I do that, I don't want to let everybody down, more specifically Chad. So I'm going to jump into my dad joke. Zach, are you ready for these?

[Chad]

I'm ready.

[Chris]

And listen, I always tell everybody if you know the answer, do not be ashamed. It's actually, you know, a little notch on the belt if you'd know the answer. Okay, so Chad you ready?

[Zach Garside]

Go for it, my friend.

[Chris]

Baby breath.

[Zach Garside]

Yes.

[Chris]

Okay, so as we're going into, I think this episode. This episode airs, I think, a few weeks after recording it. Not quite deer season, but we're, you know, we'll be shortly going into deer season there in the Midwest. So I thought let's just throw in one. One little dad joke that involves some. Some. Some animals. That being a deer. Why did the deer go to the dentist? No deer went to the dentist, but they do. Why did the deer go to the dentist?

[Chad]

Oh, I think I have a guess.

[Zach Garside]

Tail whitening.

[Chris]

Tail white. Ooh, that's a good one. But. But no, it has.

[Chad]

It has buck teeth.

[Chris]

It has buck teeth.

[Chad]

Yes.

[Chris]

Hey, I mean, it wasn't. I mean, that was actually. It was a good lead in, right? You got it. Nice job. I got that job.

[Chad]

Yeah. That was awesome.

[Chris]

You really thought. You're a real thinker. You're real. You're a real thinker, Chad. Consolation prize, buddy. Nice job. Okay, staying along the. You know, the. The animal, you know, theme here. A cow. A cow has four, but a woman only has two. What am I? Cow has four, but a woman only has two. What am I?

[Chad]

I'm gonna pass on this one.

[Chris]

Yeah. Legs, Legs, legs.

[Chad]

I did think that at one point.

[Chris]

You would have said it. You'd have been like, legs. Because you could have, like, not passed on legs. So. You know when ain't nobody believe in your.

[Chad]

Right now.

[Chris]

Okay? It was legs. You guys are perverts, and I am ashamed, shamed of you. So we'll go ahead and finish with the third one. Now, I don't know if you remember this, Zach. You probably definitely don't, but Chad probably will a little bit. He probably actually had one of these. But have you got. Do you guys remember the Tickle Me Elmo dolls? You remember those Tickle Me Elmo dolls? They're like the late 90s. Yeah, when they originally came out. I never had one of those. But you did that. That tracks. That tracks. Chad probably did, too. I can see you and your brother playing with Tickle Me Elmo dolls right now. You and Tyler just, you know, tickling each other's Elmos. Okay, what does every Tickle Me Elmo get before it leaves the factory? Zach's really thinking, so those listening. Zach is really thinking, Chad, Chad, no thinking back to your Tickle Me on this. What does every Tickle Me Elmo get before it leaves the factory? Two testicles, two test tickles. Got it.

[Chad]

That's a good one.

[Chris]

No joke.

[Chad]

No I mean, no, that's not funny at all.

[Chris]

I mean, a little bit. You kind of like that one a little bit. It wasn't like hilarious, but it was like right there. Right? Okay, okay, Moving. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You said you had a dad joke to show.

[Chad]

I have one dad joke.

[Chris]

You have one dad joke.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So what I like about this is he did. Zach did not know we do dad. Dad jokes on this, which let us know he does not listen to the podcast. But you said you had one on the fly, and so I want to hear it. So I will, I will listen. I'm in. Let's go.

[Chad]

I'm afraid for the calendar. I'm scared for the calendar.

[Chris]

You're scared for the calendar?

[Chad]

Yeah, because its days are numbered.

[Chris]

Oh, Lord. No, no. Hit the other one. Yeah, come on.

[Chad]

That's a good one.

[Chris]

Yeah. That is not good. Okay, moving on to our listeners, I apologize for Zach's lame dad joke and we will. Maybe Chad can overcome it. He always comes up with one. I'm sure he's got some good ones in his back pocket.

[Chad]

Yeah, I can see your eyes on another screen. You're, you're, you're looking, you're searching right now.

[Chris]

You gotta stay up on that microphone.

[Chad]

Come closer.

[Chris]

Okay, you're pulling a Ken Goodrich on us. Ken always talks like this goes away from the microphone, then comes back and then goes away from the microphone. Okay, so let's actually get into the topic of this podcast like I was talking about now that we just wasted seven minutes. Everybody's lives. And again, this is like a little, we're not quite into, into fall, but this is just a little preparation, you know, for it. And you really. Even the, the tail end of summer here, because this is something that you could implement right away. And again, this is around like some grassroots stuff like email marketing. Okay, again, if. Don't shut this podcast off. If you do, you're gonna let yourself down because this is some like, simple, easy stuff that everybody can afford to do that you have, you have access to, but you're just not using or you're not doing it right, or you're sending out email marketing. It's going into the dreaded spam folder which nobody sees, right? That's like jail. Nobody wants to be there, but it's got a lot of low cost leads and just, it's very tactical. So the one thing I appreciated about, about Zach was he, he had worked at power selling pros for, for bit like, what, eight years or something?

[Chad]

Years.

[Chris]

Eight Years and then became CEO of it for, for a bit of, for a little bit of time and then stepped out and did your own business, which your, your simplified email marketing company for like what, the last year or so or whatever it was. And, and I had no idea you're doing that until I, I was trying to pay attention. I was like, what the hell is this guy doing now? And, and then when he was talking to me about like getting open rates, I'm like, well, what are like, what are good open rates for emails? And then more importantly, like, what are the conversion rates? Like, tell me the numbers, like, help me understand. He was telling me. Yeah, man, like my, you know, my customers are getting 30, 40, 50% open rates on email marketing. I'm thinking, prove it. Show me. Right? Cause I was like a little skeptical. I'm like, that seems like, well, what the hell are you writing to get them to open it? You know what I mean? Like as a subject line, if it says something that is like free XY free air conditioner or whatever it is, like, okay, well they might open and look at it. I'm just saying like, I want him to prove it to me. And then I just want to see like how are actually people responding to these things, like what are the conversions rates? Looks like because at the end of the day these people are trying to get leads from their email marketing. Like, that's why you do it, right? Yeah. So the open rate means nothing if there's no conversions.

[Chad]

Fair. That's completely true. Yeah.

[Chris]

So I just want to build. I thought, well, now that we're a few months in and I've seen, you know, you bring on some more of our big players. Like I know you're gonna work with the old chatty, chatty P. And we got Gaynor, you got doing.

[Chad]

Yeah, we're working with eco plumbers, electricians and H vac technicians. I mean I think we have 40.

[Chris]

Clients at this Bruner. You got Bruner down in Florida. I know we're gonna meet with Goodrich and those guys with the Kinder. So like we have a lot of things going here. So. So you've made me a believer. And so now I just want to take this and like share it.

[Chad]

Right.

[Chris]

But maybe let's just go ahead and start with just a 30,000 foot view of your background because I pretty much shared it, you know, what you've done, but maybe just how you got into this. And then, and then I'm going to go immediately into, I want these guys to leave this podcast, knowing what they should be looking for or holding their. Whoever's doing their email marketing accountable for with open rates as well as conversion rates. Like, what's the. What's the gap that they should be looking forward to compare? Is it going good or not going good? So I'll second that part of it. But go ahead and kick off the 30,000 foot view of Zag Garsai.

[Chad]

Yeah, I appreciate it. First of all, you guys are awesome. This started in 2018, actually, when I was still at Power Selling Pros. I did an internship for digitalmarketer.com and they have a sales team, they have a content team, they have people doing SEO, they have people doing customer success. There's this one guy there, his name is Ben Griffin, and he was the most interesting person at the company to me, because while everybody's frantically chasing leads and sales, Ben would sit down at his computer, write an email, hit send, and then money would appear. And I thought it was like witchcraft. He looks so relaxed over there doing his. And he might not feel the same way if he heard me telling the story, but I thought it was totally mystical to me. So I was like, what do you. How do you do this? And they built this huge email list. They got really good at copywriting and messaging, and they could just generate leads and sales essentially on command. They turned their email list into, like their own personal ATM machine. So I went back, I started doing that for Power Selling Pros. That was a huge lead source for us during the pandemic when, you know, events and trade shows all went away for a while. And then when I left, I wasn't sure what to do next. Then Megan likes. She said, hey, you should try some email campaigns for our company. Jeff likes clean windows, and at the time, they were trying to sell Christmas light installation. So I was like, yeah, sure, let's give it a go. So I generate this Christmas light campaign for them.

[Chris]

Wait, you were doing Christmas light campaigns?

[Chad]

That was the first campaign I ever did was Christmas lights.

[Chris]

Chad, you notice in the signs here, the universe is speaking to us.

[Chad]

Did you do Christmas lights?

[Chris]

Oh, he doesn't.

[Chad]

Not yet.

[Chris]

He doesn't.

[Chad]

That was the first campaign I ever did. And within, like, a couple of days of running that campaign, her CSR team was completely overwhelmed with leads. I mean, they were. They were just completely swamped with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. It just kept climbing. The number of people who were replying to these emails wanting to get a quote for Christmas lights. I was like, huh? I didn't even expect it to work that well, right? I was like, yeah, they have a, they have a good size email list and let's give this a go. And it started working really, really well. She introduced me to another company and we basically figured out how to take the email list, get the emails out of the spam folder, get a ton of eyeballs on them, and then get people to not only call or schedule, but to reply to the email, which is kind of one of our, like, secret sauces, if you will. You know, everybody kind of puts email in the bottom of an email. They'll put a phone number or they'll put a schedule online.

[Chris]

Link some call to action.

[Chad]

Yeah, and those are good. But the call to action I have found actually works the best is reply to this email. And when people are checking their email, right, they might be at the grocery store bored, procrastinating. Work on the toilet, for heaven's sakes. Like, they're, they're not always in a position to make a phone call.

[Chris]

Some do, some do, but you can always tell when the echo is there in the shitter.

[Chad]

But when I say reply with the word tune up, if you want to claim one of these spots on our calendar for AC tune ups, for example, next thing you know, CSR team is fielding 30, 40, 50, 100 replies from people who are like, oh, yeah, give me a tune up, give me a tune up. Let me get that estimate. Let me take you up on this offer. So one thing led to another. After working with Megan's company, we started working with other window cleaners, H vac companies, a lot of garage door businesses, surprisingly. And we figured out how to use email to sell services that people only buy once or twice a year.

[Chris]

That's great. And so you're like, hey, I got something here.

[Chad]

Yeah, yeah. It became kind of a crazy. Like, I didn't intend to do that as a business. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was just exploring. But before you know it, I had, you know, I was basically freelancing for 15 clients. I think I accidentally started a business.

[Chris]

Wife, three kids, one on the way.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah. Zach, why don't you. Can you go a little bit deeper into this? Because if I'm sitting there, obviously I've talked to you, and so I kind of get what, what you're getting, but what you're able to do. And this isn't just like, oh, yeah, I mean, we've heard these things before. Yeah, I just run a Facebook ad and I just get all these leads. Like there's a little bit more to it. Like so maybe just give listeners maybe just like some. And it can be high level. Like the couple of things that, like, here's what people typically do, here's how we do it a little bit different. You mentioned the one about like, you know, how to make it easy for them to reply, like, what are some of the other things that people should be thinking about that have, have dismissed email marketing? Like it doesn't work. I can't make it work. It's, it's silly. But you're somehow making it work. So there, there's gotta be a reason why it's working and not working for others.

[Chad]

Well, the first thing that any, any business, especially home service business, has to look at is are your emails even making it to the inbox? That's thing number one, two and three for us.

[Chris]

Most people just assume it is.

[Chad]

You think, well people, when I talk to contractors, I'll say, hey, what are your open rates right now? How many people are seeing the email? And they'll generally say something like 10 to 20% is like the range I get most of the time. And they just assume, yeah, that's how it goes. But that never made sense to me because in my mind I'm thinking these are people who already know who you are, have some level of familiarity with you. How are only 15 to 20% of them opening your emails? So I started digging deeper. I brought this guy in named Andrew to help me test the domains of these clients. And we found, oh yeah, your emails are all in the spam folder like nobody's even seeing them. You're going to the spam folder or the promotions tab in Gmail. So the first thing we do with any of our clients is get out of the spam folder because it doesn't matter how good the messaging is or how good the offer is if no one sees it. And there's a lot of technical reasons for why the emails land in the spam folder. But it basically comes down to do you have email set up properly. Most people will go create an account with mailchimp or Constant Contact or Service Titan Marketing Pro, and then they'll just start sending emails. But if you ever notice when you do that, the email will say it comes from. And I encourage anybody who's listening to this like go check, go send a marketing email. Go check to see who the email comes from when you send it. It'll generally say something like Chad servicetitanmail IO or mailchimp IO. And that is problem number One, because now you're sending emails from mailchimp or service titans, it's called their ip, which is a fancy term for. It's basically like their satellites. And if you're doing that, guess how many other businesses are also doing that? A lot. There's probably 10.

[Chris]

So we're programmed to see that part. And you think, oh, this is a marketing. This is a spam. This is a.

[Chad]

We're programmed to see that and not recognize the name. Because Peterman Brother customers, Rhino customers don't, you know, they don't want to get an email on behalf of Rhino from mailchimp, for example. And on top of that, other companies that are doing the same thing, if they're not good at email, you now suffer because of their performance. Other companies that are sending from the same mailchimp ip, if they're using bad practices, if they're sending spammy messages, you're suffering now because of it. It would almost be like on SEO if you had to borrow the reputation of other H Vac companies in your area who are doing poor SEO. But with email, it's very common that that's the case. So we basically make it so companies are sending from their own actual domain. They're landing in the inbox. And then we turn our attention to audience segmentation. Because if you just send a blanket email to 100,000 subscribers in your database, you shouldn't be surprised when you're getting a 10, 15% open rate. But when you get really narrow and specific with it, like, let's send an email to people who got an estimate from us between 6 and 12 months ago and it's still open, then you can definitely expect a 40 to 60% open rate and a high response rate because it's highly targeted. The list is smaller. That makes sense.

[Chris]

Yep.

[Chad]

Because if you go from sending zero emails to 50,000 Gmail and Yahoo see you and they think this person's fishy. I don't like this. Where did this. This guy came out of nowhere and started sending 50,000 emails and then you're right back in spam jail.

[Chris]

Yeah, that makes total sense. And so, like, the emails that come from Chad are not coming from Chad at, you know, Peanut Brothers, dot whatever, like service titan, whatever.

[Chad]

It's actually showing what it's going to show your domain. So it'll show, I don't know what your, what the exact domain, petermanbrothers.com for example, but it's actually going to say it comes from that domain. And most businesses, when they send marketing Emails, it is not coming from their actual domain.

[Chris]

Wait, so our emails coming from Rhino, coming from my domain, coming from my.

[Chad]

You guys are. You guys have. I mean, you guys have a huge team at this point. You have tons of specialists, but is.

[Chris]

It coming from me or is it coming from somebody else on my team? I have no idea.

[Chad]

You have to ask your team. I don't know.

[Chris]

Okay, well, whatever. So anyways, it's coming from somebody on my team.

[Chad]

I've seen, I've seen. Your domain's good though. But yeah, okay. People, those are like little things, you know, people overlook. They just send something out and then if I look at my Gmail app, for example, you know, when I look at my emails, you see all the little profile pictures next to each email, right?

[Chris]

Yep.

[Chad]

People don't even think about that part. Like, what's showing up there when you send an email? Is it just some blank?

[Chris]

So just like all these little things that we ignore, we just think, oh, you create an email and you mass send it out and just cross our fingers.

[Chad]

Yeah, it looks like an ad. It screams I'm advertising basically every time someone sends it. But I want them to look like they come from a friend. Like, that's our whole. That's basically what the philosophy comes down to, is how do I make marketing emails from my local H vac company feel like they're coming from a friend.

[Chris]

Yeah. So I think the one thing that, about this and whenever I saw, I get. I was sleeping on, sleeping on email marketing. I see how well it's been doing. I see how well it's been doing for our customers and for ourselves. But now I get it because I'm like, oh, it does make sense. So you know, Chad offers, you know, installation, repair, drain cleaning, electric. Like he offers so many different services. So what you're saying is, well, you may have this massive database, but I'm gonna chunk, I'm gonna narrow it down to just the installs, just the repairs, just the drain cleaning, just the, Just the, just the.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And then you. Then you. So you're like hyper focused on one thing and then you continue to, you continue to modify that thing. Like as you're going like a B testing different things and just like you continuously are modifying it to increase open rates or conversion rates. Like, what do you.

[Chad]

The thing that I love about email is when you run ads, every additional ad costs more money. But with email and SMS for that matter, you pay one bill every month for whatever platform you're sending from.

[Chris]

That's what I Love about it.

[Chad]

And then you can send as many as you want.

[Chris]

Super affordable cost per lead, lower, like it's.

[Chad]

And you've already got the leads. Like, it's just about setting that relationship. I always tell people, if I had my own home service business, if I was doing, you know, window cleaning, every single visit, I would ask, hey, every week I send out a message with really cool offers. And the craziest thing I saw in a customer's home that week, are you cool if I send those messages to you? And before you know it, you've got 10,000 people, 20,000 people who you have a relationship with. You have their permission to send them something, and you have the ability to be you yourself. When you're sending these messages, it's not coming from some corporate mask. It's coming from you, the founder, a person who's sending emails, telling them stories, and then extending really great offers. And open rates aren't, you gotta have the conversion rate. But also, there's something to be said about the fact that if you have 50,000 people on your list and 25,000 open an email from you every week, that's pretty great brand awareness, too. Even if you're not getting one week, you get a huge response, a ton of leads, the next, you don't. It's like, well, I still think the brand awareness is really powerful too. Again, because of the low cost of the channel, that person might not be ready to book now, but when they are, I bet you're the only one they think of because you've been showing up consistently with value in their inbox.

[Chris]

Yeah, I mean, you're. Go ahead, Chad.

[Zach Garside]

I was just gonna say, I think the brand awareness piece is such a critical element, and it speaks to what Chris talks about a lot is, you know, building that story around your brand. Like, are you just ABC heating or is there a story around who you are, why you do it, you know, how important your customers are. And to me, just like you said, you know, yeah, they may see your TV commercial and your radio ad, but the min that they get an email, that's not just like, hey, buy this now. It's, yeah, telling a story. Or, hey, we were at this charity event or, you know, hey, here's our technician of the week. And people are like, oh, shoot, I had Bill out to my house. That's awesome. Just all of those things that, like, you know, I think your point about the open rate is just as important as the conversion rate because people are seeing you. Yeah. They may not need you.

[Chris]

Right.

[Zach Garside]

Then and there. But they will someday. And as long as you can stay in front of them and it's lower cost, then, you know, what do you have to lose.

[Chad]

Exactly. That's right.

[Chris]

Yeah. That top of mind awareness is a big deal. And I've always, like, I've always thought that that was even like back to the app conversation. Back in the day, Jeff was just. So I built those apps so that way the contractors could send push notifications once a month. Just said, oh, don't forget to change your filter. Like, even if they need to change it or not, the point was they gotta clear that thing. So you knew they were gonna see it. It's just top of mind awareness. And you're working in, like, I know you work with a lot of our customers in their service titan account, like for them, so you're working in the marketing pro side for them, but you also can work in these other platforms. What I wondered is, do you have, do you feel comfortable with the data that you have for seasonal? Like, so you have like a, okay, so Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, or whatever. You know, winter, spring, summer, fall. Do you have like some set campaigns? You're like, yep, I know exactly. You know, in September, I'm going to launch this effort for. In this region of the United States for this type of client. Like, we're roofing, right? So you're doing Redbird roofing stuff for us. Did you have like, plan. I'm assuming you do you have plans like, okay, yeah, I know exactly what I need to do. If you're H Vac, if you're plumbing, if electrical or whatever.

[Chad]

Yeah, yeah, we have, I mean, we have so many templates right now. I don't. I couldn't even begin to count how many hundreds of email templates I have for every situation. Andrew, who does a lot of the copywriting with me, basically what he and I will do is we send campaigns for our clients every single week. And so we sit down, number one, and we look at what's the offer, what's the thing that the contractor wants to sell right now, Number two, what segments are we going to send it to? And number three, what's going on in the area. So we'll literally look at the weather report in the area, we'll look at what's happening in the news, if there's some kind of forecast. One of the best performing subject lines for a heating and cooling company, for example, is this week's forecast as a subject line. That's it. All you gotta do is say from name says Chad Peterman, subject line says this week's forecast and you're 50% opener of people who want to check the forecast. And the top of the email is literally a screenshot of the forecast from Google Weather. And then the email is the call to action and what you're going to sell.

[Chris]

Hey, good news in the Midwest chat is you can say this week's forecast even if you're wrong, it don't matter because it always changes.

[Chad]

Correct. Yeah.

[Chris]

This week's forecast is going to be hot and cold and rainy.

[Chad]

And we're pretty responsive on like emergency weather events too. You know, in the south, what was it like? January, February. The south had some, maybe in March there was this big freeze that went through. It went through like Louisiana and Texas. And we were able to jump on that within about 24 hours. Put together some campaigns for people to get their furnaces looked at because of this emergency freeze warning that had been sent out all over and just be really timely on that. So.

[Chris]

And then you can book, so you could put like a booking link right into their, you know, dispatch or their.

[Chad]

Exactly.

[Chris]

Yeah. Okay, cool. So awesome. Yeah. Such a good call to action. So then, so then maybe just go ahead and give our listeners. You kind of, you kind of alluded to it a little bit, I think, on open rates, but what's a good benchmark for them too? So if somebody's currently, currently doing it and they want to go and take a look and say, okay, how am I comparing to what, you know, what it should be or could be? So maybe share open rates and conversion rate like, you know, like little. Yeah, just give me some like, you know, ballparks there on what you, on what you deem successful for prolific, regardless of list size.

[Chad]

So I've been throwing out a lot of numbers, but Whether you have 2,000, 20,000 or 200,000 people on your list, you should aim for a 30 to 50% open rate all the time. If it's below 30%, I don't panic, but I start to pay attention. Like, yeah, I don't want it to go below 25 to 20%. If it's below that, I think you're in the spam folder. So that's the open rate conversation. And then on conversion rates, as a general rule, I think you should hope slash, expect a 1 to 2% response rate on your email marketing on any given month. That obviously depends on your market, your email list, your brand. I mean, we've worked with brands and we'll be the first one to tell our clients, like, your list is not responsive. You know, you have. And I can usually tell depending on where they got it. If somebody says to me, yeah, we bought a list from so and so, red flags go up. In my mind. I'm like, this is gonna be trickier, right? Because you don't have a relationship with these people. They have no clue who you are. You're showing up completely unannounced, uninvited to the party. So I always put a little asterisk next to those results, depending on where you got your list and how strong your relationship is. But we've got a client in New Jersey right now that we just started doing this for and he has a great relationship with his list already. He's just a very personable founder and his company has an amazing reputation of service. So when we started doing email, their inbox was absolutely flooded with people replying, calling, scheduling appointments, wanting to get service because they were like, oh my gosh, Don, like, hey man, it's good to see, it's good to hear from you. So if you have that relationship and that strong brand before we come in, it really can, it can be pretty explosive when we do, especially your very first campaign. But regardless, 30 to 50% open rate, 1 to 2% response rate on any given month from your campaigns.

[Zach Garside]

Okay, do you do anything with like the, like the drip campaigns? Like, hey, we sent it out and then we're gonna follow up and then follow up. And what's your kind of view on that?

[Chad]

Yeah, I like to figure out what are all the touch points in the customer journey. So we'll set up campaigns for everything from pre visit, like setting expectations. When you got a technician going out to do an estimate, post visit, follow up, open estimate, follow up. Six months later, like let's do a tune up, follow up. Did they not sign up for a membership? Let's put them in a year long drip campaign that tries to get them to sign up for the membership. So with every business we're trying to identify what are the touch points in their customer journey. How can we leverage automation to just automatically send these follow up messages and then, yeah, we just set them up to run on autopilot.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, makes sense.

[Chris]

So then we do all this to get a nice return on investment. Right, that's the game. What's the ROI of email?

[Chad]

I like to break the ROI into three different categories. First, obviously is how much money you're getting back and you look at the platform costs, any platform you spend money on is going to. It's going to depend on how big your list is. But if your average ticket is $800, for example, and you're spending $200 a month on your email service provider, you only need one job, literally one job to pay your cost of email marketing. And if you have a list of 10,000 people going off my 1 to 2% rule, what's 1 to 2% of 10,100. 200. Right. I'm a copywriter. I'm not a math guy. What's 100 times 800? 8,000? 80,000.

[Chris]

100 times 800?

[Chad]

100 jobs at $800 average ticket. Clearly, Chris and I don't run the numbers of our businesses. 80,000. $80,000.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's what I said.

[Zach Garside]

I'll send you, I'll send you a calculator.

[Chris]

That's what I said. I said 8,000.

[Chad]

I'm holding my phone too, with my hand, and I'm not even 8,000.

[Chris]

80,000. Yeah, it sounded like you said, clean your fucking ears.

[Chad]

I mean, that'd be a pretty, you know, that's how I like to do the math on that.

[Chris]

Prove me wrong. You're going to listen real clear. Chad's never listened to an episode since after we record him, he's going to listen to this one and then he's going to send it to me and try to call me out.

[Zach Garside]

I mean, it sounds better now, but the first time he said it, I was, I was. I didn't hear that. Yeah, maybe, but I mumble too, so maybe that's true.

[Chris]

I don't know. Anyway, carry on.

[Chad]

Yeah, yeah, so that's the, That's. I encourage every client to do that math. When they ask me the ROI question, I'm like, well, let's, let's do the math on your email list. How many people are on that list? What's your average ticket? What would be best case scenario for you? And then we try to optimize campaigns to figure out how we can achieve that number. The second type of ROI is the brand roi, right? Being there constantly every single week in the inbox, providing value and entertainment. Like, I haven't talked a lot about what we do with the message messaging, but there's entertainment value to our emails. We're not just throwing ads out there. So there's the brand roi, the actual investment roi, and then the third ROI is the clarity of messaging. Because without question, especially today with AI contractors, I feel like struggle to come up with a really, really compelling message on a consistent basis. And so you fall back on like saying the same thing over and over again. But I think marketing is figuring out how to say the same thing without, without saying the same thing. And email allows you to do that. Where you're coming up with now, if we have an email that hits, you can now repurpose that into ads, blog posts, social media posts, social media advertising. I mean, there's so many different things you can do because email is by far the fastest feedback channel for your messaging and offers to figure out what works. If your list responds really well, well then the market's probably going to respond really well. So you can repurpose that into ads. Whereas when you're doing ads, it takes a little bit longer to get some feedback on whether your offers work.

[Chris]

Yeah, but Zach, can I just use ChatGPT and do it myself and not pay you 1500 bucks a month to manage this thing for me?

[Chad]

I'd love to see chatgpt send the emails for you. I think that would be fantastic. If it could make your audience segments and send your email, I would be using it.

[Chris]

I just, I don't know if you show Chad, because I know that you have like, you have started to build your own little, you know, chatg or your own AI tool that you continuously take these successful campaigns, you plug them in so it keeps learning from itself to get better and better, to perform better and better and better, but yet you still have to take those and then, you know, manage them properly and like roll them out and test them. So it's so inexpensive. Like I, you know, you, you for now, prolific isn't. We don't charge enough for 1500 bucks a month for what you're putting into it. At some point in time's gonna have to, we have to increase the price for it. But for now it's so cheap to do that. 1500 bucks to have somebody go and take care of all the stuff to get, you know, those kind of open rates and it turn into jobs is to me is like a no brainer. That's why I really want to do this podcast is because it's so inexpensive. It's so inexpensive to do and you can run this sucker year round. It works. It works well. So that's why I just want to know like the day when what sold me on the everything was when you showed me the open rates, I was like, cool, I'm paying attention. 30, 40, 50%. Literally everybody that text texted me, Chad included, whenever I found that out, I was like, dude, what are your open rates and they're all like, oh, 10, 15, 20, 10. This guy's getting 30, 40. I'm like, yeah, dude, just have show you, like, pull it in and show you. But it's. There's a lot of work that you've done behind it and just continuously, like, throwing this thing into the. Into the platform. It's constantly learning. You're just ahead of the game on your integration of utilizing AI into making these things perform better.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And you keep adding it to it.

[Chad]

Yeah, we add. Whenever something works, you know, we're training it. We're trying to figure out how to make our jobs as easy as possible so we can help as many contractors as possible.

[Chris]

And keep them out of the spam.

[Chad]

And keep them out of spam folder. Keep your land in the inbox.

[Chris]

Okay, so then the. The are. Are the majority of people. I know you work with the garage as well. I think I'm on if I'm allowed to say that or not. I think I am.

[Chad]

I have no idea if you're allowed to say that or not.

[Chris]

Well, if not, we'll just cut that part out. You can just bleep that part out. But are you working mostly in Service Titan accounts or House Call Pros or whatever? Are most of your clients working in their FSMs?

[Chad]

I think we're about half right now, half in Service Titan, half not in Service Titan. The ones who are not using Service Titan are. I still might be using it as their CRM, but they're not using Marketing Pro. But Marketing Pro is getting some cool updates. They're making some cool stuff that's going to make our job a lot easier soon. And I don't know if I'm allowed to say this either, but we know how to use Marketing Pro 2.0 already, so we're ahead of the curve on it.

[Chris]

Well, yeah. Well, it's not, like, secret that we have a great integration with Rhino Service item. So, yeah, one thing that everybody always asks, and this comes along with anything that they're implementing in their businesses. Set up. How. How cumbersome. How difficult is set up when you're. So somebody's like, hey, cool, like to bring this on board, but guess what, it's summer. I don't have time for you, Zach, but I would really love to do this or at least get it set up for August, September, whatever.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

What's. Because there are some hiccups and there's some, like, roadblocks in setup, so. So maybe let's talk. Let's talk through what they are. But the, the solution for them that. That can simplify this.

[Chad]

Yeah, the first part is definitely the part where you can find the most roadblocks, which is getting out of the spam folder. Because we've got to prove to Gmail and Yahoo that you are actually the person that owns your website. When you say, hey, we're about to send emails from prolific brand design.com for example, and Gmail and Yahoo are saying, prove you own that domain. How do we know you actually do? And most businesses in general never take that step. They never prove to the email platforms that you actually own your website. Because if you think about, there's literally nothing stopping me today from going and creating a Mailchimp account and saying, yeah, I'm cristianoinoss.com. there's nothing stopping me from doing that unless you have authenticated your domain with those platforms. So that's the first thing we do. It's definitely the most technical. All it is, though, is we set up an email platform that's reputable. I keep referencing mailchimp, Constant Contact and Service Titan Marketing Pro, because those are the three we use most often. Pick a platform and then we install DNS records. I don't want anybody to get too caught up on, like, the technicalities of it. Basically, we go into the settings, we get this little line of code and we put it on the place where your website's hosted. And that is what we do to prove that you own your domain.

[Chris]

Well, the contractor wants to know is, are you doing that for them? Because they don't know what they want. We're doing it for them.

[Chad]

We're doing it for them. As long as you connect us to the right person at your company that has access to it, that has access to your domain, we do it for them. And once that's set up, now we have a good platform. Now we've proven that you actually own your domain. The next thing is let's warm up your inbox, because again, if we go from sending zero emails to 10, 20, 50,000 at once, you're going to go back to the span.

[Chris]

How long is that little cycle to warm up your inbox?

[Chad]

It depends on the list size, but at most four weeks, five weeks to warm up your list.

[Chris]

So you're just kind of like increasing.

[Chad]

Yeah, you take the whole list, you break it up into small segments.

[Chris]

Chad, how big is your. How free? You have a massive membership list.

[Zach Garside]

It's big. Members alone, we have 29,000. Yeah, but your list, that's just nipples. Yeah. Customer list is Probably, I mean, at this point in time, maybe hundreds of thousands.

[Chad]

Yeah, I've seen your list and yours took five weeks.

[Chris]

Okay?

[Chad]

It was five weeks to do your list, which was bigger than the average contractors for sure. The average company. It's like two weeks, three weeks at most to warm it up. And then once that's done, you now have a great platform set up. You've proven that you own your domain. Your inbox has been warmed up to start sending emails and now you can start sending and you're going to be very confident that they land in the inbox and it's just a matter of getting the messaging and the offer right.

[Zach Garside]

Do you ever got to get that hot inbox? Got to get that hot inbox?

[Chad]

Your inbox has got to be roasting. It's got to be hot.

[Chris]

The hot inbox.

[Chad]

I should be able to cook a steak on that inbox.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That one got.

[Chad]

That was his, that was his dad joke. That was his.

[Chris]

Jeez.

[Zach Garside]

Here we go.

[Chris]

Thanks, Chad. Really appreciate good luck. Your participation.

[Zach Garside]

Little Thursday afternoon humor, here we are.

[Chris]

Do you, do you ever put in like video or graphics or anything like that into these emails?

[Chad]

A little bit, but not, not terribly often. And the reason why is because the more imagery you put in an email, the more spam filters it has to go through. Oh, if I put, if you do an HTML. This is why I never, ever, ever, ever use the pre designed email templates in any platform. I never do it because first of all, ever, ever.

[Chris]

Okay, that's. How did I say don't have a hot inbox, Chad?

[Chad]

That's right. Because the reason why is the people who designed the templates have never had to use email to make money before if they work for the platform. So when I go into mailchimp and there's all these email templates to choose from, it's tempting to say, oh, so easy, I'm going to use this template. But it's got all these colors and graphics and designs. And the more colors, graphics and designs you have in an email, the more ruthlessly Gmail will analyze and try to make sure you're not sending pornography or something horrible in your emails. So I don't even do, I don't even touch it. I put a logo at the top and then it's all plain text after that.

[Chris]

So I'm like 99% sure that with the to the point, emails that go out all have graphics in it. Is that right? Ryan has our thumbnails in it.

[Chad]

A thumbnail's fine. A Thumbnail's not like you're just trying to limit it. But I never do anything. It has a big frame around it. For example, I'm like. It screams advertising from the second someone opens it. You know, a friend doesn't send an email with a big picture, like, big frame.

[Chris]

Are you checking right now, Ryan? Hey, there we go. Yep, we're looking right now. Thumbnail is just basically.

[Chad]

That's not so bad. That's not so bad, Ryan.

[Chris]

But we're getting Zach's approval or disapproval right now live on the.

[Chad]

You got. You got to get rid of the social. Looks like it's disapproval, ladies and gentlemen. I don't know. I don't like putting the social media.

[Chris]

What are you doing to the points? Email marketing. Like, get your together.

[Chad]

I never.

[Chris]

By the way, Ryan Baker, happy bladed birthday buddy yesterday. So happy birthday to Ryan.

[Chad]

Happy birthday, man.

[Zach Garside]

Birthday, Ryan.

[Chris]

Ryan. How old? 34. Got it. Okay to be 34 again. Okay, moving on.

[Chad]

But I want to. Can I mention one thing? I just saw on that too, though.

[Chris]

Okay. So you're gonna talk shit about my email market. Currently, I'm a marketing campaign. It's okay. Just constructive criticism.

[Chad]

Constructive criticism. Because there's a. You have the bar of all the social icons, right? It's like follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, et cetera.

[Chris]

I know.

[Chad]

I don't put those on emails, okay. Because I've already got them right where I want them. I've got them in my email.

[Chris]

So you don't want them to click on something?

[Chad]

I don't want them going to someone else's platform. You know, I don't want them going to Instagram. The reason I use the other platforms is to get them into my ecosystem, into my world.

[Chris]

It actually makes total sense to me. Just made me think about bounce rate on website. Like, you get somebody into the website, you don't want them to click on something and exit. Right. You want them to stay in there and then take action.

[Chad]

That's right.

[Chris]

Same concept.

[Chad]

Yeah, exactly.

[Chris]

Makes total sense.

[Chad]

So.

[Chris]

Okay. All right. So sweet. Let's make sure we get Zach connected and have him take over the to the point email marketing campaign.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, I mean, Zach, is it fair to say that. That your email should almost look boring?

[Chad]

Should look like. Comes from a friend? The analogy I always use is. And I like to say that the from name is more important than the subject line. You know, you get your emails, you have, who's it from? What's the subject? The from name is the most important part because if there's trust there, if there's a relationship and good brand, they'll open it regardless of what the subject line says. If your mom sent you an email today and she forgot to put a subject, like it literally says no subject there, but it's your mom, Are you opening that email? Probably. I think I am. I think most people are probably going to open that email.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, I'll open it.

[Chris]

I will open it too.

[Chad]

So the from name matters more than the subject name, subject line. And then when you open the email, if you were sending a personal, heartfelt message to somebody you care about, you would not be tinkering with HTML, you would not be formatting all these. You, you might put pictures in, like, look, this picture of the kids at the fair the other day, right? But you're telling stories, you're sharing advice, wisdom, making it personal. Same approach, same thing.

[Chris]

We talking like, I'm adhd. I'm not reading two paragraphs. Okay, like, what's. But maybe most people aren't like me, right? But I do. I can't like anybody who texts me. Like when you text me a book, I can't hardly get through it. But you're not alone. So when you're writing these emails, what's your like theory? Is it, is this a certain word count? Is it like you break them up into keep it short and sweet?

[Chad]

Short and sweet most of the time. Unless it's like sometimes you write something and you know, it's undeniable that this is like really funny or interesting. And for example, when people go on Facebook and there's drama happening and you hit the comment section and there's like these wall, like the great wall of text, you know, all these comments and people can't help but read it if there's like enough drama and entertainment value to it. We don't do that that often. But there's a really simple framework I like. I learned it from a guy named Jay Acunzo. It's this happened, which made me realize. Which means that's the framework. So this happened. I went to the store yesterday and I was dropping beads of sweat on the floor because how hot it was in this place. It made me realize these folks probably haven't had their AC tuned up in a hot minute. How many homeowners in my area are feeling this way right now? Which means I've decided as a way to give back to the community after my event of suffering at the local grocery store. We're running a $59ac tune up special call now, click to schedule online or reply to this email to get service asap.

[Chris]

It's personalized. Yeah. Yeah.

[Chad]

So there's, like, this happened, which made me realize, which means imagine if your technicians reported to you every day the craziest thing they saw in a customer's home or the most extreme situation took a picture, and then that was your email. You just send that out to your customer list. Like, we were just doing a water heater flush. And look at the sediment in this. I mean, look at the inside of this water heater we saw the other day. You might not realize, but yours might look like this, too. If you want to make that problem go away. Click to schedule now. Like, that's. That's all you have to do once, you know, you're landing in the inbox. It's that simple.

[Chris]

We overcomplicate things.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Zach Garside]

Every day.

[Chris]

Yeah. I had the pleasure of waking up this morning, and Anna. I heard Anna yelling from the. From the bedroom. And I was clearing the kitchen, which, if you've been in my house before, you know, it's a really big far distance. So she had to have yelled loud enough. I was like, oh, God. Something. Something's wrong. Go back, go into the closet. And she says, splash, splash, splash. So she's stepping on the carpet, and it's splashing. So clearly we've had a leak. Right on the other side of her wall is. Is an air, A furnace. So I go outside, I open up the door, and there's water in the bottom of that thing about this much. So we had rain, a lot of rain, two days ago. So somehow that thing leaked. Now we're trying to figure out, you know, a leak, but if I'd have had somebody top of mine.

[Chad]

There you go.

[Chris]

I'd have known who to go to. Instead, we decided to find whoever can get here the fastest.

[Chad]

And that's a great story. Like, if I was a contractor and I heard that story and I fixed it, I'd use that story.

[Chris]

There you go.

[Chad]

I'd be like, this is. I'd take. I'd take a selfie with you in front of it. The job after we did it, I'd give it to my marketing manager and tell my marketing manager to write up a story and send it to the list. Easy.

[Chris]

Perfect. There you go, Chad. Just go take selfies with everybody. Go run an email marketing campaign. Free selfies with Chad.

[Zach Garside]

Right.

[Chad]

I think that could actually be a pretty good campaign. Thank you.

[Chris]

Yeah, but, you know, but Chad's definitely not doing.

[Chad]

Somebody reset with Somebody.

[Zach Garside]

Now, I did have a. I did have a grown man take a selfie with me at the Pacer game a couple of. When they were in the playoffs. And I was like, I don't think this is really happening. Luckily, Emily wasn't around to see it. I only notified her of the situation after the fact.

[Chad]

The situation.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Well, listen, just, you know, be grateful, Chad. Okay.

[Zach Garside]

I was. It was just a little weird. I know it's usually a kid. A kid, okay, that sounds good. But a middle aged man kind of.

[Chris]

Was it shoulder to shoulder or arm around?

[Zach Garside]

I can't remember.

[Chad]

I've erased it from my memory because.

[Chris]

He was uncomfortable from the start.

[Chad]

It was definitely arm around picture.

[Chris]

Okay, so to close this thing out, we're almost an hour into this thing already. What is it, what is it that I haven't asked? Like, I know that we had. I had some different questions I was going to ask. We kind of answered very, you know, a variation of them through all of the different questions. Is there anything that I missed or Chad missed that we should. That these guys need to know that we haven't addressed yet?

[Chad]

The biggest thing that I leave contractors with when we talk about this subject is, look, if nothing else, I can't imagine why you would not want to have a way to send your customers an email or a text message anytime you want and know it's going to land in the inbox. You might not be committed to sending emails every week or even every other week or building any kind of system around it, but at some point, business is going to slow down for you. It's inevitable. Everybody faces a slow time at some point. How great will it be for you when you know you can send an email to your list with full confidence it's going to land in the inbox and then get people to book jobs the very same day that that email.

[Chris]

Goes out and the cost is still.

[Chad]

Set in place and it's not going to cost you anything you're not already spending.

[Chris]

Right.

[Chad]

Like, even if you don't read your own email, like, come on, it's such an easy, simple thing to make sure you're doing right. Especially in a world where everybody's like, what's the best marketing strategy to fill my board tomorrow? Where are you guys finding the cheapest cost per lead? And my answer is, how big is the list of customers you currently have in your database? How many people do you have in your database? Can I open estimates last day to service greater than a year? Like, let's, let's Start there. Just get somebody to send some really great offers to those people right now. And then we can do the other stuff. But.

[Chris]

But if some.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, well, I think that there's a really good point. There is. Like, I can see people probably listening to this going, oh, God. Or probably not even listening to this point because, well, it's email marketing like that. I don't read my email, so surely no one else does. And it's like, you know, when we rolled out AI in our call center, we had people like, well, no one's going to want to talk to people. No one's going to want to talk to a robot and all this stuff like that. And I'm like, I would if it got me through faster. Yeah, there's probably people that don't. Well, we have live people that can talk as well. But I think you just got to be aware of what are all the channels that people do consume information. Yeah. Maybe you're not one. Or maybe you gave us the spam Gmail. So because you knew that you were going to get emails from us. Okay, well, we're only. You're only looking for 50%, so just throw them in the bucket of 50. That's not going to read it. That's fine. But there are a big segment of people who probably read their email and they do that and texting and phone calls and all of these things. And I think just being well rounded, where I feel like, you know, as we said, email has been one of those things where it's like, oh, my God, my inbox. This, that and the other. And it's like, well, there are still people who consume that information, so why wouldn't you want to touch those customers? Maybe they're not the biggest, like, pick up the phone people, but they'll easily hit schedule on a reply email.

[Chad]

Email is the cockroach of marketing. It will not die.

[Chris]

Oh, I was like, this went from.

[Chad]

A negative to a positive, realizing it's not die.

[Chris]

We're gonna need to rethink that.

[Chad]

I've been saying, I have the last line. I just come in and dunk on my whole thing. I'm like, you know what? No, no, no. I'm saying because it won't die. For 20 years, people have been like, emails dead. Email's dead. Email's dead. Email's dead, man. If you saw the numbers that I see, you would know. Email is definitely not dead. How? It's the. Whenever you create an account on anything, what do you have to do? You have to enter your Email address. You have to go verify that. The whole Internet revolves around email addresses. It's how you get access to literally anything. You might not check it yourself, but I promise you, the people in your market do. No question.

[Chris]

That was pretty good. The cockroach of marketing, that pause in between, that's killer, dude.

[Chad]

Yeah, thanks.

[Chris]

You've used that before.

[Chad]

Yeah, it's been a while, but I have used that before.

[Chris]

Yeah, that was good. Well, okay, so I think we leave those who have made it thus this far. Let's give them something. What can we give them to even make it? Like it? Now I really can't. Like now I really got to give it a try because you know, like what? I have no idea. Like what can we.

[Chad]

I have two things. You ready for this? First and foremost, have we talked about this before? I sent you a Slack message once.

[Chris]

Sounds great.

[Chad]

You did response.

[Chris]

Okay.

[Chad]

Right.

[Chris]

We're just gonna let it rip, like just whatever.

[Chad]

No, this is, this is.

[Chris]

I trust you. Just roll it out.

[Chad]

We have an email template. It's like the most frequently used template across all our clients and it's free. You can literally get this little copy paste, send it to your list, watch what happens to your open rate and dispatch port. All you got to do is go to.

[Chris]

I was thinking more of like what could we give them to come on board as a customer of Prolific and an offer off of that.

[Chad]

That's, that's good.

[Chris]

But do whatever you like. Good.

[Chad]

We could do both. Okay, you can get a free template or you count 50% off the onboarding fee.

[Chris]

There you go.

[Chad]

Yeah, we have a 1500.

[Chris]

Let me just share. Share what our share what the fees are then so that way they can have context.

[Chad]

Yeah, we have a fifteen hundred dollar onboarding fee. That's what gets us. That's what gets you. I should say set up. With inbox deliverability, your domain is going to be sizzling like a grill hot box. Chad's backyard. Your inbox is going to be all warmed up. Your list is going to be receiving your emails in the inbox. We're going to get you to a place where you can send emails and confidently out of the inbox. That's what the warm up setup process is for. It's $1,500 one time fee. We can do that for half offer to the point listeners and then it's 1,500amonth after that for us to manage all your email campaigns, audiences going forward.

[Chris]

Perfect. Whether you get one lead or a thousand leads. Five hundred bucks a Month.

[Chad]

That's right.

[Chris]

Sweet.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Good. All right, well, if you want to do hot. If you want a hot box, it can only cost 1500 bucks a month. I know we work with a couple of other private equity groups, too, where you have multiple brands, so those, you know, then we can negotiate rates at that point, as, you know, at scale or franchise or any franchise locations, but individual contractors, that's your price point. Like, super cheap.

[Chad]

That's right.

[Chris]

And it's month to month. Yeah, month to month. So you got no love.

[Chad]

Love us or leave us.

[Chris]

We should figure out a guarantee to get people. I know everybody's afraid of guarantees, but, like, you should give guarantees, and if you don't do it, they get their money back.

[Chad]

I guarantee at least one great dad joke every month.

[Chris]

That's probably not going to work.

[Chad]

Okay.

[Chris]

All right, well, listen, I don't know, Chad, if you have anything else to. I feel like we covered about as much as you can cover in email marketing.

[Zach Garside]

Yeah, I mean, I've. I've talked with Zach for, I think for half an hour. I know he's talking with our team. I've got a whole other page of Not. Of things that I forgot to do or need to do or stuff like that. So, you know, I just urge listeners to, you know, go act on this. This is kind of. To me, it was like, when you sent that text message, it was like, holy shit, this is something I think we forgot about. Like, let's get back doing this. So I think it's just. It's powerful. You know, we've talked so many times about, you know, leads getting more expensive and, you know, how do I get away from, you know, being, you know, held captive by Google and all of this stuff. And to me, this is a great way to do it. We're always talking about how do you reactivate your current list. They already know, like, and trust you, and they probably have issues or probably have things that they've been putting up with for, you know, weeks, months, because they just haven't had time. And then you're giving them the opportunity to go ahead and get, you know, whatever it is that they have taken care of.

[Chris]

There we go, man. Well, listen, Zach, appreciate you flying down here to do this. Did you only fly down here to do this in person?

[Chad]

That's right.

[Chris]

And to meet with me?

[Chad]

Yeah. Coach flew down here for this.

[Chris]

Thank you.

[Chad]

Thank you.

[Chris]

All right, well, listen, like Chad just said, I don't think I need to say it any. Any differently like this. This, to me, is a Very simple solution to drive business. Like the odds of you not making your money back are so slim.

[Chad]

Yeah.

[Chris]

That it's like, well, just, you know, stop. Don't try to do it yourself. You know, there's shit to do. Like, just let somebody who actually knows what they're doing do it and manage the whole process for you. Like, like Zach and Prolific. So what's, what's the best contact information for you, Zach, for our listeners? We'll put in the show notes too. But what's the best contact info for me personally?

[Chad]

Go to. Just send me an email, Zach at.

[Chris]

Jesus.

[Zach Garside]

Good stuff, Zach.

[Chad]

Just send me an email ac just, just call me prolific brand design.com Zac Zach.

[Chris]

We'll put in the show notes. Well, thanks, Zach from prolific brand design.com and email marketing. All right, listen, he get. We gave a lot information in there just about seasonal messaging about. You remember your. Your target rates should be in that 30, 40 to 50 open rates and the 1 to 2% conversion rate. So 1 to 2% people actually taking action from these emails to provide business for you. So you gotta do it. 1500 bucks a month. Shit's cheap. Okay. This is one that you have to do. I mean, you don't have to do everything, Chad, but you gotta do something just like email marketing. No. Zero days. Welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead, better grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow, and let's get to the point.