I talked in an earlier post about the need to have “Something Good To Say” in your marketing and to be able to provide definite proof to your customers and prospects as to why they should choose you.

The above ad is one I did for a painting contractor client that eliminated all his competitors and let’s go through each element of this ad to see why it was so effective.

All the other competitive ads just had pictures of houses and painters and were full of platitudes like “free estimates” best quality” and so on.  No ads provided any reason as to why to choose that advertiser to to do your painting job.

We talked to customers and determined what the biggest concerns were and then innovated Rick’s business so he was demonstrably better than everyone else.

The Headline

It all starts with a headline to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read more.  If you are looking for a painter, the “4 mistakes” headline will grab your attention and make you want to read more – that’s the headline’s only job.

The Sub-Head

Telling the reader that we will make sure you don’t make those mistakes keeps them engaged and wanting to know more.  That’s the subhead’s only job.  They can see the body copy of the ad has a numbered list addressing each of those issues.

Body Copy

The body copy addresses each of the customers “hot button concerns” individually and educates them as to how we will address each concern.

Point # 1 – deals with doing the job right and not mislead or trick you.  Most painting contractors are not members of the BBB – which assures the customer of an honest company and a dispute resolution system.

On top of that, very few painters are members of the PDCA trade association that specifies how the surface preparation and painting job itself is to be done to assure a quality result.

Out of the 477 painting contractors in the Denver only 10 contractors are members of both – my client is one of those 10.  We got rid of 467 competitors already!

Point # 2 – deals with a pet peeve of many homeowners who hire contractors – them showing up on time.  Many don’t even show up on the right day, much less the right time.

So how do we assure our customers we are different?  How about a $50 cash payment if we are more than 30 minutes late?  Absolutely nobody in the market would do that – we are now established as the best choice already – but we have more . . .

Point # 3 – How about painters who bait and switch and whose final bill is much higher than their bids?  We not only guarantee that will not happen but we also offer a 3 year quality guarantee and if an additional coat is needed we didn’t include in our bid, we will do it FREE!

Point # 4 – Another big complaint from customers – painters who leave trash and cigarette butts in the yard, play loud music or are rude to the homeowners or use crude language.  Our stated quality standards point out these things and assure the homeowner our painters will not do any of those things.

Point # 5 – Another outstanding benefit nobody else offers – how about a free interior decorator to advise the homeowner on paint colors and textures!  We got this done at no cost to the client either because the decorators were happy to do that for free in hopes of getting a more in depth consult.  A true win – win.

If you were looking to hire a painting contractor, would you choose anyone else?  Most people didn’t and this marketing campaign took a flat lined sales curve to double in just one year.

Call-To-Action – The forth component of any good ad is a call to action that captures the prospects information so we can market to them ongoingly if they are not ready to buy today.  The FREE Report with 15 point checklist to help a homeowner evaluate a contractor worked very well for that.

We also included the owners photo to build trust and the logos of the BBB and the PDCA.

Do you have a lot of competitors?  Need to differentiate yourself from them and become the obvious choice for your prospects?  Get in touch and let me explain how this process can help your business no matter what industry you are in.

Call or text me at 303-884-0859 or email joemcvoy@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most business owners don’t how to do effective marketing.

The purpose of this post is to outline this process in a simple way and show how we do this for our clients.  There are 5 steps.

1. Understand your Customer and their Needs

This means verifying your assumptions about your customer’s hot button needs by talking to actual customers.  You want to find out the most important things they want when buying what you sell.

For example, a home improvement contractor’s customers usually want these things: they want you to show up on time, they want you to charge what you promised, to do quality work, stand behind that work with a guarantee and keep their workplace clean and not leave trash all over.

What do your customers want?  Do you know?

2. Determine whether Innovation is necessary

How do you deliver on your customer’s needs?  Are you demonstrably better than your competitors or not? If you are just the same as everyone else you compete with, then you need to innovate the make yourself better.

This process of actually being better than your competitors is necessary so you will have something good to say in your marketing.  Marketing that just uses platitudes and says what everyone else says is a waste of money.

The key to effective marketing is to “Have something good to say”, “Say it well”, and “Say it often”.

Innovation can create that something good to say.

We have a systematic process that we use to help our clients do this so you do innovation on the issues that matter to your customers.

3.  Create your Strategic Marketing Plan

Strategy comes before tactics.  In marketing, this means developing what you say, how you say it and who you say it to.  You need to do this before creating any ads, web pages or marketing communications.

“What you say” means how you communicate your superior ability to deliver on your customers hot button needs (that you just developed by innovating as needed in the previous step).

“How you say it” is copywriting that needs to clearly and persuasively communicate why you are the best choice and . . .

“who you say it to” is your target market.

4.  Create your Tactical Marketing Plan

This has three sections – Lead Generators (include ads, landing pages, social media pages and ads, direct mail campaigns, lead magnets, referral programs, emails, etc) that bring prospects into your marketing funnel.

Marketing Tools (brochures, web sites, scripts, signage, audio content, video content, newsletters, white papers, reports, and more) further educate your prospects once they are in your funnel.  Then,

Follow-Up Systems (sequential follow up systems using email, direct mail, telemarketing, and any other multi-step follow up sequences).  Follow up sequences are intended to stay in touch with prospects by providing helpful and welcomed information over time so that when a prospect is ready to buy they will choose you.

All the components of your tactical plan educate the prospect as to how to buy what you sell and how to make the best decision for their needs whether it is you or not.

When you help people make the best decision for them, this builds goodwill and trust so that when the time comes to make a buying decision, you are the only logical choice.

5.  Create the Sales Plan

The goal here is to “franchise” your sales system by systemizing the process using marketing tools.

This will make sure you get the optimum results every time. We want to turn your company into a selling machine that doesn’t have to rely on superstar sales people but improves the performance of all.

This process does the sifting and sorting of prospects to deliver the best prospects to sales staff and also includes the creation of “knock-down” lists of key target accounts and the plans to get them closed.

Maximize & Optimize Strategies

Think of these as bonus strategies but also critically important.

– Perpetual Selling Strategies are designed to get customers to come back over and over again to provide a steady stream of sales and profits

– Joint Ventures leverage other companies customers and relationships for your mutual advantage.

– Upselling and Cross-Selling increase the profits of each sale.  You can consider including products and services that you do not provide yourself but that your JV partners offer.

– Referral Systems – we have over 30 different systems we can incorporate into your business.  Most businesses believe referrals are their absolute best prospects so don’t leave getting referrals up to chance, proactively install systems to create them!

Contact me at joemcvoy@gmail.com or by phone/text at 303-884-0859 for information on how we can help you to do all this for your business.

 

 

Most marketing totally sucks and does not differentiate the advertiser from their competitors at all.

This short post will give you three evaluations to apply to your own advertising or marketing pieces to see for yourself if it’s any good or not.  Almost all marketing out there uses only platitudes – in other words, words and phrases that are meaningless.

Does yours?  Let’s see . . .

Evaluation # 1 – “I would hope so . . .”

Are the statements in your marketing or advertising just stating the obvious?  If you you repair cars, do you say things like we fix any make or model of car – well, I would hope so – that’s what you do, right?

Any statements just stating what your business does do not set you apart from any competitors, they just state the obvious.

A CPA that says they do personal and business taxes, we find all the deductions you are entitled for, we file electronically on time every time.  That’s exactly what every other CPA on the planet does . . .  very unremarkable and a waste of your money saying it.

Evaluation # 2 – “Who Else Can Say That” 

Does your marketing or advertising say things like “in business 30 years, best service, top quality work, free estimates, customer service always available, best service after the sale, etc, etc, etc.

Who else can say that – actually every one of your competitors can and does – these platitudes do not set you apart from anyone.

To be clear, the point is not who else can do it but who can say it.

A competitor may suck at delivering what they claim but that’s not the point, – this evaluation is about who else can and does say it not whether they can deliver.

Evaluation # 3 – “Scratch Out, Write In Test” 

Take one of your ads or brochures – scratch out your name and write in your competitor’s name – is the ad/brochure still valid?

Now, do it the other way, take a competitor’s ad, brochure or marketing piece and scratch out their name and write in yours – still valid claims?

You fail!

No matter how good your inside reality may be, it is not being communicated to your prospects and customers if your materials fail these three evaluations.

In order to have something good to say in your marketing, it may require you do some innovation in your business to make sure you have something good to say.

We help companies do that by first determining what your customers want and need, what their hot buttons are, what their frustrations are surrounding buying whatever it is that you sell and then fixing those problems.

Once that is done, we have something good to say your competitors can’t say and you get much more business as a result!

The steps explaining the innovation process are the subject of a different post but just know we have to make sure you are in fact better than your competitors before doing any advertising and promotion!

Call 303-884-0859 or email joemcvoy@gmail.com to find out how we can help you make your marketing effective instead of sucking!