I was having coffee with a small business owner the other day and he told me he was considering doing some direct mail marketing. He was thinking about a post card campaign.
He said, “Whaddayathink?”
And so I asked him this important question: “Why should anyone want to do business with you instead of your competition?”
Well, to be honest, he just sat there looking like a deer in the headlights. That question left him rather dumbfounded. I actually think he was slightly insulted that I would ask such a question.
He began glancing upward and to the left (which means he was searching) and stammering for the right words and phrases to answer me…which means he really had NO ANSWER.
I said, “Never mind. You really don’t know!”
To which he replied, “Well…yes, I do know…I just don’t know quite how to tell you.”
Bad answer.
Until you have clearly defined how YOU are DIFFERENT from your competition…..and exactly what great benefit someone would receive by doing business with YOU instead of your competition…you are going to be wasting a lot of money on advertising.
Sorry, but it’s true.
I’m speaking directly from experience here, as well as from years of observation and study.
There were many times in the past, when I owned and operated a pest control company, that I allowed advertising agents and sales reps from yellow pages, newspapers, radio and magazines to talk me into advertising with them. They would come up with my ad. It would be “pretty”.
And it was.
So what?
It didn’t cause very many people to call me and sign up for my pest control services.
And, knowing what I know now, it is easy to see why my ads were not very effective. I had no crystal clear, powerful, compelling, seductive, irresistible USP (Unique Sales Proposition).
There was nothing in my ads that clearly set me apart from my competition (but they certainly did set me apart from a lot of my hard earned money!).
My ads were just like everyone else’s. They consisted of the name of my company, my telephone number and contact information, and a list of features I offered, the organizations I was a member of along with some generic graphics of people and homes, etc., that were totally unknown to me or anyone else. My ads were classic examples of sterile, commercial “business card” type ads.
The FACT is…nobody cares about that stuff.
They only care about…
- What you can do for them.
- How can you make their life better?
- What major problem can you solve for them?
- What pain can you alleviate?
- What’s in it for them if they do business with YOU?
You must be able to identify these and explain them in your ad. Otherwise you’re no different than all of your competition. You’re simply a commodity, which means you’ll be beaten by a lower price almost every time.
So…before you go spending a bunch of money on advertising, you’d better makes sure you have a great message. If not, you be wasting your hard-earned money on something that isn’t going to work very well.
You’d better make sure you understand how to use psychological response triggers on your website and in your ads that will generate a buying response in the reader and cause them to pull the trigger, make the call and do business with you.
If you just allow the cookie-cutter ad agents, web designers and sales weasels to design your ad, you’re making a big mistake.
Your advertising is an extension of YOU. It speaks. And…..if you pay money for it to speak….you’d better make sure it says something powerful that is worth saying.
More food for thought.
Now…get out there and get some new customers!
Hal
PS. Find FREE Pest Control Marketing Tips, Secrets, Strategies and Techniques at my website, http://www.PestControlMarketer.com
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Or feel FREE to call me at 770-993-0004 or email Hal@HalColeman.com
http://www.PestControlMarketer.com
