A brochure is a good way to have non time-sensitive material available to your prospects.  But truthfully,  most brochures only get a quick glance and a toss into the trash can.  So what if you put your brochure information on a DVD?  Now you have an automated, replicatable salesperson which you can hand out to more people in an afternoon than you could possibly give free consultations to.  And when your prospects are finished with the DVD, it’s more likely to be passed on to another prospect than to be thrown away.

The cost of producing DVD brochures is really not that great compared to print brochures when you consider that you only need to burn as many DVDs as you need for now vs. minimum runs for brochures.

For a quick run down of the costs of burning DVDs let’s look at a retail office supply store. Blank DVDs cost about 32 cents each and slim jewel cases cost about 15 cents each. That’s about 47 cents each.  Now, I know you can have brochures printed for about  20 cents each but that’s a minmum run of 500 usually.  So you have a higher upfront cost as well as the design work involved in preparing the brochure.  The software required to produce a DVD is all available free.  So if you already have a camcorder, you’re in business!

Now, your first video brochure may take some time to create as you overcome the learning curve (unless you are already familiar with video and using youtube, etc.)  But once you get the hang of it, you can churn out DVD’s in no time.

And, you burn just a handful at a time.  Keep a few with you as you are out working.  Burn a few dozen if you are attending a lawn and garden show.  They can be made on demand unlike printed brochures, which require a minimum run.

If you don’t happen to have any with you, send your prospect to the website where your videos are posted.  This also can be done with no out of pocket costs.

As cost effective as it is, you could even have a DVD brochure for each individual service you offer.  Or, one about each topic for which you have a solution.  Maybe one for new customers.  And another for Fall aeration and overseeding (with before and after shots.)  And another for leaf collection.  You get the idea.  If you had a printed brochure for for each service, it would cost you an arm and a leg for each run of 1000 copies!  Not so with your own DVD brochure.

And if you need to make a change, its not set in stone and you don’t have to scrap all the extra brochures lying around.  You just make your changes and burn a few new DVD’s.

Stay tuned as I delve into using video for marketing YOUR lawn care services in future posts!