Reason 2. Advertising Like Big Corporations
Big businesses typically do ‘image’ or ‘branding’ type advertising focusing on their company name or logo hoping that when the time comes the customer will remember them. But this is very expensive and cost prohibitive for a small carpet cleaning business. (Coca-Cola’s budget is around four billion dollars!). And sometimes large corporations advertise to impress shareholders or for some other purpose. And does it work? …who knows, is the simple answer?
Here’s what YOU need to do…
- Identify WHO your ideal customers are – the ones that you’ll enjoy working with the most, the ones who are the most profitable or who will pay premium prices for high quality work and the customers who will not be a ‘pain in the backside’
- Find out WHERE they are - do they read certain magazines or newspapers? Do they attend specific events or seminars? Do they live together in a particular area? Are they gather-able together in ‘one place’ so to speak?
- Get in front of them - once you know who they are and where they are to be found, now you can get in front of them. That might mean setting up a meeting, writing an article, giving a talk, delivering a flyer or placing an ad. But you need to get in front of them in some way.
- Create attention and interest - your positioning, value proposition and sales argument need to be relevant to your ideal customer (whether that’s budget or premium). You must be able to get their attention and then get them interested and engaged so you can have a conversation with them.
- Make an offer to them - it could be a free trial offer or a free audit or inspection. Or some other ‘direct-response mechanism’ that causes them to respond to your offer.