How Dr. Green used data visualization to meet their goals

Canada Post Visualization takes the guesswork out of data. By mapping out data so marketers can literally see the opportunities in front of them, the tool offers the insights needed to make confident, data-driven decisions that drive traffic to stores and grow businesses.

For Dr. Green Lawn Care Services, Visualization proved to be the perfect prescription for its seasonal direct mail acquisition and retention goals.

Visualizing data and discovering possibilities

Founded in 1985, Dr. Green is a family-run lawn care services company which operates in Ontario, Alberta and parts of the United States. The company’s primary focus is on residential lawn health, including seeding and weed control services.

Lawn care is a competitive market no matter where you operate. In Canada, Dr. Green faces dozens of competitors –from family-owned local companies to international franchises. As prices and services are relatively similar across all competitors, success is determined by who can develop the best marketing strategy and deliver top customer service.

Lawn care has a clear annual cycle, so acquisition of new customers and retention of existing customers happens within a narrow window of six weeks at the start of the year. In Ontario, for instance, three-quarters of Dr. Green’s new annually generated revenue comes in February, March and April. That means Dr. Green needs to make every dollar spent on marketing, including every mailing, count.

Over the years, the company tried a number of solutions – from newspaper ads and inserts to door-to-door solicitations. The results were mixed, as affordable solutions were unsuccessful and effective solutions were too expensive. Even with direct mail, the company’s early efforts were scattered.

“We were broadly targeting our markets with the hopes of finding customers,” said Raunie Ratcliffe, owner/operator of Dr. Green in Ontario.

Refining targeting with data visualization

Dr. Green embraced Canada Post Neighbourhood Mail^TM and Personalized Mail^TM from the start. The company sends direct mail to 300,000 homes in Alberta and 1.2 million homes in Ontario with the goal of hitting every home three times within its sales window.

To succeed with that kind of volume, however, Dr. Green had to be strategic in its targeting. Precision Targeter^TM helped the company get to the root of its potential customers. Knowing what their best customers looked like, the company filtered for income (seeking households making $80,000 or more); homeowners over renters; and detached or semi-detached homes.

“My ‘ah-ha’ moment with Precision Targeter came when I saw how demographic data and geolocation identified our best potential customers right down to the route level of some of the awesome postal codes we have,” said Lee Ratcliffe, owner/ operator of Dr. Green in Alberta.

As it evaluated each mailing, Dr. Green used Visualization, a tool that provides a visual representation of data like geographical insights and patterns, to assist it in making smarter targeting decisions. In this case, Dr. Green used the tool to see where the company had opportunity to grow its customer base by displaying areas where cost of sale was low, yet the company had only sent direct mail once in that sales window.

Canada Post made other suggestions, as well, like using Personalized Mail to encourage previous customers to sign up for the upcoming year and incorporating QR codes into marketing creative driving to the company’s get-a-quote tool.

Compounding growth with data visualization

In 2020, Dr. Green saw 30% sales growth in Calgary and 15% sales growth in Edmonton thanks to Precision Targeter. In 2021, the company adjusted its campaign using Visualization and saw further growth: 30% in Edmonton and 20% growth in Calgary.

In 2021, Dr. Green also added two extra campaign mailings in four top-performing postal codes (two in Calgary, two in Edmonton). Those became the company’s most productive postal codes. Today, they look to expand that number to six postal codes.

Enhancing mailings with QR codes

While Precision Targeter and Visualization pointed the way to success, the addition of a QR code to the direct mail creative made things easier for customers.

In 2021, the direct mail piece with the QR code pointing to a get-an-estimate tool became the company’s top online lead generator – more than 2,000 scans leading to 700 sales and $200,000 in revenue.

As a result of the QR code, the company anticipates an increase in new revenue year-over-year in 2022, as well. In fact, they were so happy with direct mail’s performance that the QR code was added to the sides and tailgates of their vehicle fleet this spring.

“All of this data insight is something that we’ve never really been able to see before. It has proved to us that our old way wasn’t going to work – and we need to do what works. Working with Canada Post has helped us understand the opportunities we have available to us,” Raunie Ratcliffe said.