When it comes to marketing a custom building company, Paul Conrado says, lumpy is good. People get a lot of advertising in the mail, he explains, most of which is flat and promptly finds its way to the trash. “Send them something bulky,” on the other hand, “and they’ll open it up.” So each year Conrado sends out a series of “lumpy mailers”-a stack of 4×6 photographs of finished projects, a magazine-like company brochure tied with a bow, a foldout Christmas tree ornament in the shapeof a house-each designed to generate curiosity, build brand identity, and drive traffic to the company’s Web site.
“I call it ‘nurture marketing,'” says Conrado. “We send something out every couple of months.” To get a social-network multiplier effect, “we time them during the year when people are going to parties.” With some 800 people on his mailing list-real estate agents, former clients, architects, and prospective clients-“The cost is about equal to a one-page ad in our local magazine, and way more effective.”
It comes as no surprise that the “lumpy” principle-creating a difference that builds interest-appeals to Conrado, because it characterizeshis whole company. Some 15 years ago Conrado began planting vineyards on the wine-country estates that are his company’s mainstay. His clients grow the grapes; Conrado, an avid amateur vintner, makes the wine. Every year, two of his lumpy mailers contain invitations to a bottling party. “Probably 120 people will come,” he says of this year’s spring event, “and we’ll bottle 75 cases of wine.” Conrado returns half of the product to the homeowners, donates much of the rest to charity, and directs new clients to the 200-bottle refrigerator in his office. “We have a lot of clients coming in Fridays to drop off their checks and pick up a bottle of wine,” he says. And as if that were not lumpy enough, “Next year I’m going to make olive oil.”
The Conrado Co., Saratoga, Calif.; Type of business: custom builder; Years in business: 20; Employees: 13; 2007 volume: $12.1 million; 2007 starts: 3
