Earl Nightingale, considered one of the world’s foremost experts on what makes people successful, had some good advice for entrepreneurs who want to market their businesses. He said that if you want to learn a new skill in business, and you have no mentor or guide you can trust, the best approach is to figure out what everyone else is doing and then do the opposite. The majority is, at best, average. So it is with marketing in most industries.
Many entrepreneurs struggle with how to market their goods and services. The result is a follow-the-pack mentality. Stop reading this article right now and go and pick up the Yellow Pages directory for your area. Look at the ads of companies who do what you do. What do you see?
Are there any compelling messages that would convince you to call any particular company first? If the reader looking through the Yellow Pages knew no one in your business, could she pick the most qualified one based simply on the Yellow Pages ads? Probably not.
Most advertising does little more than to try to “shout” louder than the rest. In advertisements for personal injury firms, the messages–shouted in big print, over multiple pages, and in color–are all basically the same:
- If you need a [fill in the blank], call us!
- We are fast!
- We will [do whatever it is] right!
- We have been in business for 50 years!
Not very helpful, are they?
Think you can fix this problem with graphics? Not likely. Who cares what your picture looks like, or your building, or your “mascot”?
Response to your advertising will improve when you improve your advertising. Get out of the “I can outspend you” battle and focus instead on what you want your marketing to achieve and how you can make it stand out from everyone else’s.
To bring you a steady stream of new clients or customers with the types of business you want to handle, your marketing must achieve six specific goals. Although I’ll focus on Yellow Pages ads, the goals are the same for TV, radio, and Internet marketing.
Attract attention. Depending on where you practice, the Yellow Pages directory in your community could include several dozen pages of ads in your line of work. To attract prospective clients’ attention, you must have a different message.
Motivate people to contact you. You must give prospective customers a reason to reach out to you. What’s yours?
Stop their search until you have a chance to communicate with them. Give callers a good reason to stop looking elsewhere once they have contacted you.
Prove that you are the right choice. Your response to prospective customers’ contact has to be to give them overwhelming proof, in a credible way, that you are the best company for them.
Create a sense of urgency. Let them know that the demand for your services exceeds the supply.
Filter out potential customers or clients that do not meet your selection criteria. The information materials you provide to prospective customers must help weed out (with little or no staff time) the kind of business that you do not want to handle.
