Analyzing Outbound Campaigns - October 2023

Chiirp Revenue Performance

👋 Hey, Jon here! This week, we’re analyzing revenue generated from Chiirp outbound campaigns across a sample of 70 businesses. These businesses span HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and garage doors - while it isn’t broken down by service type in this issue of the newsletter, we will begin to do that in the future.

As a refresher, below is September’s outbound campaign performance summary:

• Response Rate: 10.6%

• Total Revenue Opportunity: -19% month-over-month ($124,285 per location)

• Average Tickets: -13% month-over-month

• Closed Revenue: -9% month-over-month ($80,295 per location)

• Closed Revenue Generated (70-location sample): $5.62 million

• ROI: 80x

If you are seeing 50% or more of your revenue potential stuck in unsold/open estimates, our recommendation is to at least look at automated outbound campaign strategies. The top-performing campaign in October was targeted at unsold estimates and generated over $600,000 in net new revenue. We also saw a lot of success for campaigns that offered furnace tune-up specials which resulted in upsells and over six figures of net new revenue to shake up some demand during the shoulder season.

With that, let’s dive in!

Chiirp Outbound Campaigns Had an 11.5% Response Rate in October

Close to 90,000 customers were contacted via an outbound campaign in October, which is a very large sample size across these 70 locations.

Of those who received a message, over 10,000 responded for an 11.5% response rate!

Response rates were up slightly from September but remained consistent around the 10% mark even with such a large audience that we’re tracking.

Note that bigger doesn’t always mean better performance when it comes to your audiences. Targeted messaging still matters and even campaigns with audiences of around 150 people were generating $100,000+ in closed revenue. The message, copy, delivery, and audience matter more than the size.

Based on the 11.5% response rate, we were seeing that for every 10 people who received a message, 1 responded.

And we also saw that 42% of people who did respond ended up booking a new job.

That means that 4.8% of people who received an outbound message booked a net new job for an average ticket of $2,690.77.

67% of those booked jobs converted to sold/closed jobs (3.2% of people who received an outbound message).

So, for every 1,000 “impressions” from these outbound texts, 48 jobs were booked and 32 were sold.

This time last year, I wrote about how it took 900 PPC impressions to get 1 sold job. I am a big fan of PPC as it is a crucial part of getting customers into your sales funnel, but Chiirp outbound campaigns were ~32x more successful at converting impressions to sold jobs!

Hardcore marketers might argue with me about the definition of an impression - yes, someone seeing a display ad while looking up the weather is very different than an existing customer who is due for a furnace tune-up receiving a text message specific to their need at the right time. But that’s the point: would you really be okay only going for that display impression or do you want to make sure you have a robust strategy to get those text message impressions?

Chiirp Outbound Campaigns Generated $124,617 in Revenue Opportunity per Location in October

Revenue potential (the sum of unsold estimates, sold jobs, and closed jobs) increased 14% from the prior 31 days to $8.72 million across these 70 locations, and the revenue potential was slightly higher than in September at $124,617 per location.

As I wrote just above, 67% of that total revenue opportunity was in the sold or closed category, 17% higher than our benchmark for marketing channels like PPC, Google LSAs, and Organic channels.

Assuming a cost of $1,000 per month per location, these outbound campaigns generated a 124x return on investment potential. That is a big number especially when compared to traditional marketing channels.

It is somewhat expected for the return potential to be higher given that these are higher intent customers who are already familiar with your brand, but that’s exactly the reason I dedicate time to writing about this data and really encourage you all to look at your outbound campaign strategy as a way to maximize revenue from your existing customer base, which is much less expensive than other avenues!

Average Tickets Decreased 22% Month-Over-Month

There was a lot more activity from outbound campaigns this month than last month (a whopping 40% increase in booked customers) but the revenue potential only changed slightly because average tickets dropped 22%.

That’s normal for this time of year before winter truly hits, but a lot of brands were able to generate customer engagement with smaller dollar items like furnace tune-up specials that ended up generating significant booked jobs and closed revenue with up-sells.

These tune-ups also create another interaction point to help strengthen your brand and keep you top of mind as equipment fails deeper into the winter season. Every “impression” counts. Even if it’s a customer receiving a text, seeing your display ad while looking up the weather, and eventually going to a search engine to pull up your business. These tactics work together with the goal of staying top of mind to the right people at the right time with the right message.

Chiirp Outbound Campaigns Generated $72,754 in Closed Revenue per Location in October

Closed revenue increased 20% from the prior 31 days, but the closed revenue by location was down slightly to $72,754.

Again, assuming a cost of $1,000 per month, that’s still a 72.75x return on investment with outbound campaigns for the month of October and is nearly $900,000 in annualized revenue.

This is the highest ROI channel that we measure, on average, even outperforming organic in most cases.

Starting with your existing customer base during all seasons with thoughtful strategies about messaging, audiences, and timing consistently performs and is always worth a second look.

Until next time . . .

-Jon