Direct Mail: Faster Launches, Bigger Returns

About Brody Pennell

Brody Pennell Heating & Air Conditioning has kept Los Angeles comfortable since 1945. It's the largest HVAC company in LA and part of a growing group of Southern California home service brands.

Two people drive this story:

• David Salgado, Director of Operations and Strategic Analytics, runs the call center, dispatch and reporting across the group, and leads marketing strategy.
• Jordan Davis, Marketing Coordinator, works hands-on with every marketing vendor, and now designs Brody Pennell's mailers.

Choosing Avoca

About a year and a half ago, Brody Pennell was juggling several AI vendors and wanted one partner instead. It chose Avoca. Today AI web booking, outbound campaigns, call center overflow and CSR coaching all run on one platform.

Direct mail worked, slowly

Direct mail still ran outside Avoca, with vendors Brody Pennell had used for years. It worked, returning 11 to 12 times its cost.

But it was slow. The vendor designed each piece, then the owner, David and Jordan traded emails over edits until all three signed off. That took weeks, and calls took another three weeks or more to come in. By the time an offer landed, the heat wave or promotion it was written for had often passed.

Building it together

When we set out to build Avoca Direct Mail, Brody Pennell was the natural design partner. We brought David the idea, learned how his team really ran direct mail, and built it with them.

How it works: you design the postcard in Avoca from your logo, photos and a short brief, pick who gets it (a zip code, the homes around a job, or your own customers), and Avoca prints and mails it, with a tracked phone number and QR code so every call is counted.

• "I remember when you came to me with this idea and started asking me questions. We got to work together on this, and it's working amazing for us so far." — David Salgado

Jordan's first mailer

Jordan had no design experience beyond a little in school. Jordan's first campaign was an $80 AC tune-up to mark 80 years in LA, under the line "Eighty Years. Eighty Techs. One LA." No outside designer, no email chain: the team now builds and edits each piece in-house, and it can go out the same day it's approved.

A hot July

In June, David saw a hot July coming and picked the zip codes to hit. Jordan built the mailer: a Brody Pennell van at night in downtown LA, "here yesterday, here tomorrow, no matter the time." Calls started the day it landed.

• "Being able to launch the campaign in a day instead of waiting weeks has been huge for us." — David Salgado

The results

• From 11–12x to 16.4x return: long-time vendors before, July's Avoca mailers after, sent to new customers only and with the month not yet over
• A day instead of weeks to design and launch a campaign
• Calls the same day the mailers landed, instead of three weeks or more

Next, Brody Pennell is adding existing customers, where returns run even higher, and radius blasts: mailers to the homes around a job it just finished.