There are many different places where you can target consumers with advertising. For many companies, targeting consumers at home can be one of the best strategies. This post explains why and how to market to customers in their homes.
Why market to consumers at home?
The average person is spending more time at home than in previous decades. The convenience of online shopping and takeaway restaurant deliveries has meant that there’s less need to leave the house. The rise of working from home (increased by the pandemic) has also encouraged more of us to spend more time at home. Consequently, fewer of us are being exposed to posters, billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising as regularly as in previous decades.
Many of us spend less time browsing physical shops, instead spending more time online at home. It’s here where we are now most susceptible to impulse purchases. At the same time, more of us are using the internet to do product research at home in our leisure time. Consequently, it makes sense to also advertise big ticket items and services to people in their homes.
What are some great ways to target consumers in their homes?
Post flyers/leaflets through their door
A traditional way to target customers in their homes is to post advertising mail such as flyers and leaflets through their letterbox. While some people see this as ‘junk mail’, there are still many consumers that do read flyers and leaflets. In fact, getting noticed via advertising mail has become much easier now that fewer people are receiving physical mail (most of it has been replaced by emails). A flyer may be the only mail a person receives that day – making it a great way to stand out.
It’s important to invest in high quality flyers. This will tell people that your business is high quality. There are sites you can use to design and order flyers, although you may prefer to hire a graphic designer to make something unique. Make sure that all contact details and your website address (or a QR code) are included on the flyer.
Include freebies/vouchers with product deliveries
If you deliver products, a great marketing method for generating return business is to include free extra items or vouchers giving customers a discount on future purchases. Such freebies and discounts need to be not so generous that you make a loss, while being attractive enough to get customers back.
A pizza delivery company for example might include a free drink with a pizza or a limited 20% discount on a future pizza. Some cosmetics companies meanwhile throw in free make-up samples or free perfume samples in tiny bottles.
Invest in digital inbound marketing content
Digital inbound marketing content is online content that customers voluntarily look up. Because people are doing more product research at home, it can be important to provide this content. Aim to answer questions that people have about your product or service using in-depth blog posts and videos. For example, if you sell mattresses, you could consider doing an in-depth post on ‘what is the difference between hybrid and memory foam mattresses?’.
Such content can make your business look more credible, and can help generate leads. Make sure to select your keywords carefully in order to maximise traffic. There are various keyword research tools that you can use to do this.
Publish social media content during at-home hours
Social media content can be a great way to advertise your business, but you need to consider at what time you post it. While more people are spending time at home, many people are still out of the house at work between 9am and 5pm on weekdays – and therefore not using social media much during these hours. Research shows that the most active hours on social media are 8am to 9am and 5pm to 6pm. So consider scheduling your social media content to get published during these hours.
Most social media platforms have in-built tools for scheduling posts. This allows you to plan out a week’s worth of social media content whenever you are free and then schedule it to be posted at peak times throughout the week.
Get featured in your local newspaper
Many people still get local newspapers delivered to their door, while other local newspapers have gone online. Getting featured in your local media publication could be a great way to build some credibility if you’re a local business (providing you’re in the news for good reasons). This could be in the form of a news story or an interview. Alternatively, you could buy some advertising space in your local newspaper.
When trying to get featured in your local news publication, make sure that you have an interesting news angle. The launch of your business or the launch of a new product could be the perfect time to pitch a news story. Alternatively, if you’ve got involved in local projects or charity events, this could be a great angle.
Create a smartphone app for customers
A lot of us spend much of our time at home on our mobile devices. Creating an app can provide customers with a permanent reminder of your business on their phones. Through in-app notifications, you may also be able to continue marketing your services.
To get customers to download your app, you need to come up with an app that has a useful purpose. If your app offers the same features as your website, no-one will see the point of downloading it. Exclusive app features to consider could include things like a digital loyalty card to use in-store, product delivery location tracking, credit card scanning or AR features.
What are methods you may want to avoid?
While there are many ways to market to people at home, there are some methods that are best avoided. They may be viewed as intrusive and annoying, or may just be inefficient compared to other available methods. Some of the methods best avoided include:
Door-to-door sales
While there are still many companies that employ salespeople to knock on people’s doors, most people find such salespeople to be annoying. Stories of scams have only increased mistrust for door-to-door salespeople. Larger companies may still be able to gain trust when marketing home services like internet/TV services and energy, but smaller companies may find it hard to get anyone to listen.
Cold calling
Cold calling is another marketing strategy that many consumers find to be annoying and intrusive. Caller ID display and spam blocking features found on many modern phones have been making it increasingly hard for telemarketers to get through to consumers. And when they do, most consumers quickly hang up (with some even responding abusively). There are also strict laws as to who you can and can’t call. Therefore, it’s often not worth using cold calling as a marketing strategy.
Physical mail newsletters/catalogues
Sending newsletters and catalogues to people’s doors may seem like a similar strategy to using flyers and leaflets. The difference is that regular newsletters and catalogues use up a lot more paper than the occasional flyer or leaflet, making them more expensive to produce. Physical newsletters are also not a viable option unless people are willing to subscribe to them – and most people would rather subscribe to an email mailing list. Catalogues meanwhile take a lot of time to produce, and often serve the same purpose as a website but with less benefits (you cannot update catalogues once they are published or track which products people are looking at).
TV advertising
TV advertising is pretty expensive and usually only viable if you are a large company with a national audience. Fewer people are also watching traditional TV channels. You are much better off producing video content to be distributed online as it’s cheaper and typically more effective at producing leads. Facebook, YouTube and Spotify are just some of the places you can target video ads.
Feature image by Ketut Subiyanto on unsplash
