Our Town Direct Mail | New mover marketing and targeted direct mail | Serving businesses nationwide
9
MONTHS
574
NEW CUSTOMERS
6.9%
RESPONSE
100%
RETURN ON SPEND
Montana · Hardware stores · New mover welcome package · 2024 to 2025
Every dollar came back twice
Haley Chapel runs Timberline Ace Hardware, with stores in Livingston, Butte, Anaconda, Kalispell and Columbia Falls. Her Butte store, Butte’s Ace, also used a “We miss you” postcard to win back lost customers.
We mailed 8,275 welcome packages to new households around her five stores. 574 of them came in with their $10 gift, and they spent $21,521 beyond it on their first visit. That’s $37.49 per new customer, before anyone came back a second time.
Using the Ace Corporate New Mover Program? Click here to see why we totally outperform them.
The Problem
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Five stores in three very different markets, and one program that had to work for all of them.
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New homeowners make a long project list in their first year, and the first hardware store to welcome them has the best shot at becoming their store.
How We Helped
Three mailing accounts, one program: We grouped the five stores into Livingston, Butte (with Anaconda) and Glacier (Kalispell and Columbia Falls), so each area got its own welcome package with the right store on it.
A head start at launch: We also mailed households that had moved in during the six months before launch, so the people still settling in got a welcome too.
A real gift: A $10 gift certificate with no strings attached.
The Results
574 new households, still in their habit-building stage, walked into Timberline’s five stores.
Every area covered its own cost on first visits. Livingston brought in 92 new customers and a 170% return, Butte and Anaconda brought in 209 and a 200% return, and Glacier (Kalispell and Columbia Falls) brought in 273 and a 46% return. The one-time look-back mailing at launch brought the overall response down a little, since people who moved in months earlier respond less than brand new movers.
And first visits are only the start. People who buy a home spend about $11,000 on repairs, alterations and yard projects in their first year, almost double what neighbors who didn’t move spend.* That’s paint, tools, lumber and lawn equipment, and Timberline is now the store they think of first.
$11,000
spent by new homeowners on repairs, alterations and yard projects in year one*
$37.49
average first-visit spend beyond the $10 gift
And They Lived Happily Ever After
Five stores, three very different markets, and one program that paid for itself in every one of them on first visits alone. Those 574 new households now know where to go for their next project.
Questions Owners Ask
How much do new homeowners spend at a hardware store?
More than almost anyone else in town. In their first year, people who buy a home spend about $18,700 on repairs, projects, appliances and furnishings, nearly twice what established homeowners spend.* A welcome gift puts your store in front of them before they’ve picked a favorite.
Will another hardware store be in the same welcome package?
No. Each welcome package includes only one business per category, so when Timberline is in it, Timberline is the only hardware store those new neighbors hear from.
How do you know who actually came in?
Every gift certificate is personalized to the new resident and has its own code. Your team scans the redeemed certificates in the back office with TruTrak®, so each new customer is tracked back to the mailing.
*Source: National Association of Home Builders, 2026 analysis of Consumer Expenditure Survey data
Want results like Timberline’s?
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