Offering a full range of landscaping materials to commercial and residential clients, Kalamazoo Landscape Supplies, based in Michigan, faced a unique marketing challenge in 2014.

A record-breaking cold winter and late spring meant that homeowners would not be making purchases for their land-scape projects until much later than normal. The company needed marketing that would boost early sales, creating traffic before and after traditional peak times.

Extend Your Reach put together a complete marketing plan. We focused on their primary customer demographic and recommended a targeted mailing list within a particular radius around their location. The campaign kicked off with a direct mail postcard that was written, designed and printed in-house. This unique card featured a scratch-off discount on one side, which created excitement, while the reverse provided advice on a common problem, offering a solution with one of their products. Underneath the scratch-off, we used our variable data capabilities to print different discounts and the client determined how many of each variable would be printed.

Delivered in April while there was still snow on the ground, the postcard produced tremendous results that exceeded their expectations, driving early business and creating awareness by directing people to their website.

That success was followed by an 8-page, full-color brochure with a glued-in discount coupon that was designed, printed, stitched, folded, glued and tabbed as a self-mailer – all done at Extend Your Reach. It was delivered just before the height of their season as the second phase of the direct-mail campaign, delivered to the same targeted list that had already brought in new customers.

Featuring beautiful photos and strong graphic design, this piece blended content marketing of useful information with colorful images, with the goal of extending the length of time it would be kept as a resource.

The third phase was a second scratch-off postcard, mailed to the same targeted list. KLS started getting calls the same day the cards were delivered and sales were higher than expected after the peak time of their season.

Our marketing plan also included radio and print advertising, as well as e-mail marketing to their customer list. This coordinated campaign expanded their customer base with first-time buyers and all of this was accomplished without increasing their budget from the previous year.

Extend Your Reach helped this customer turn a challenging season into a very successful one.