Effective offers for a direct mail campaign

I saw some great discussions about postcard direct mail in the past so I thought I would post that here.

I received some postcards at home for Handy.com and from Mosquito Joe.

The Handy postcard is actively pushing a 6 month cleaning program and their offer is that the first cleaning is only $19. The footnotes then vaguely explain that you are required to stay on for 6 months. I received this postcard many times leading me to believe that it has worked reasonably well for the company. I assume the $19 offer gets attention and at least gets people to look at the postcard.

Mosquito Joe offers a $39 trial offer for up to 0.5 acres. I know that their service works similar in that they generally come out every 3 weeks for effective mosquito control. In that sense it's not that different from Handy in that a customer generally needs their service on a recurring basis. Also my guess is that the postcard works to identify people who are interested in their service and then having a narrower lead pool to focus on once the trial service is completed. They mail this out nationally afaik so it has worked for them as well.

I run a pest control company. There are some similarities in our service offering but it's not an exact match. Our recurring service is quarterly, not monthly as the two examples above. However, like Handy I would be happy to start out with a very low price for the first treatment as long as people stay on for at least 6 months.

I am thinking to create a very similar postcard as theirs (handy and mjoe are somewhat similar) and then mail it out in a sequence of 3 times in about 3 months.

Does any one think that the mailing campaigns for these large national companies are not appropriate for a small fry like me?

Since I don't have the money to mail it out all over the country as the two companies above I would either focus on:
a) My small local area. Focus on the towns with high household income and high house-ownership.
b) My regional area. Send only to new homeowners.

As I see it, there are advantages / disadvantages to each:
a) I already have customers here. There might be some familiarity with my company and if it works the familiarity will increase. We will become more of a known entity. The disadvantages is that postcards will go out to people who lived here for some time and might not be open to a pest control plan. Their house is a know quantity and they might not want to invest in preventive services. They also might already receive services from a competitor
b) New homeowners are probably more likely to buy. They want to protect their investment and probably don't have a relationship with an existing firm. On the other hand, our customers will be all over the map.

That's it. I would be interested in feedback.

Thanks.