Did you know the average American household moves every five to seven years? With each move, these people will be establishing new buying behaviors and shopping at new stores in their vicinity. New movers represent a lucrative opportunity for brands to establish new customer relationships and maintain existing ones. Here are some things to keep in mind when considering a new mover campaign to capture this audience.
1. Test your sources.
Not all new mover data is created equal. The best data gets you the mover data as close as possible to the move-in date. This is critical because you want to get in front of people before they start shopping for their needs and develop new buying patterns. The goal should be to be in their mailbox within 2 – 3 weeks of move in.
2. Use a multi-channel campaign.
According to a study by Epsilon, top channel influencers on moving-related decisions depend on the service or product the consumer is researching. For example, 32% use online resources when searching for a moving company while 43% prefer visiting a company in person for major purchases. Over 41% of people said they pay more attention to information received by mail than if it was in an email and 31% of people felt that move-related information received by mail was the most convenient way to receive it. When searching for new businesses and services, movers clearly do not depend on one channel alone for research. They use a variety of channels, depending on what they are looking for and what stage they are at in the moving process.
3. Assess results on a chain wide basis.
Depending on the size of your markets, the number of responses may not seem significant on a per store basis. For instance, if there are 200 prospects per store and you get a 2% response rate, you’re only going to see 4 redemptions. Companies with franchisees may hear some chirping about “lack of results” from individual store operators. However, if you have multiple locations, when you look at your stores in aggregate, you can see a much different result. For instance, 4 responses per store x 300 stores is 1200 acquisitions, which moves the needle and justifies the investment of time, energy and money.
