Some Don’ts When You Do Advertise

The price of the gun never hits the bull’s eye.
And the bang seldom rattles the bells.
It’s the hand on the trigger that cuts the real figger.
The aim’s what amounts–that’s what makes record counts–
Are you hitting or just wasting shells?

DON’T forget that the man who writes your copy is the man who aims
your policy.
When you stop to reflect what your space costs and that the wrong talk
is just noise–_bang without biff–you must see the necessity and
sanity of putting the right man behind the gun.

DON’T tolerate an ambition on your ad-man’s part to indulge in a
lurking desire to be a literary light.
People read his advertising to discover what your buyers have just
brought from the market and what you are asking for “O. N. T.” They buy
the newspaper for information and recreation and are satisfied with
the degree of poetry and persiflage dished up in its reading columns.

DON’T exaggerate. Poetic licenses are not valid in business prose. The
American people don’t want to be humbugged and the merchant who
figures upon too many fools, finds himself looking into a mirror,
usually about a half hour after the sheriff has come to look over the
premises.

DON’T imitate. Advertising is a special measure garment. Businesses
are not built in ready-made sizes. Copy which fits somebody else’s
selling plans, won’t fit your store without sagging at the chest or
riding up at the collar. Duplicated argument and duplicated results
are not twins. Your policy of publicity must be specially measured
from your policy of merchandising.

DON’T put your advertising in charge of an amateur. Let somebody else
stand the expense of his educational blunders. Remember you are making a
plea before the bar of public confidence. Your ad-writer is an advocate.
Like a bad lawyer, he can lose a good case by not making the most of
the facts at hand.

DON’T get the “sales” habit. “Sales” are stimulants. When held too
often their effect is weakening. The merchant who continually yells
“bargain” is like the old hen who was always crying “fox.” When the
real article did come along, none of her chicks believed it.

DON’T use fine print. Make it easy for the reader to find out about
your business. There are ten million pairs of eyeglasses worn in
America, and every owner of them buys something.

And DON’T start unless you mean to stick. The patron saint of the
successful advertiser hates a quitter.

Chance Marketing

Most lawn care operators are in the same boat.  They use Chance Marketing – that is, just wait for chance to happen and referrals will somehow come along on their own.  Can you afford to leave your business’ growth to chance?  Not in today’s economy.

Do You Have Customers Or Do You Have Evangelists?

Of all the tools in your marketing tool bag, “word of mouth” or referral marketing is by far the most effective.  When your satisfied customers tell their friends and neighbors about you, they aren’t advertising, they are evangelizing!  They believe in you and their word is worth more to that potential customer than 10 or 15 exposures to your marketing message.  How can you beat that?

Consistent Referral Results

If you don’t have a system in place to consistently, relentlessly get referral business from your satisfied customers, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.  How much?  I’d say at least $475 per customer per year.  If your average account is $45 per service (conservative) and your average season yields 35 service visits, then your average customer is worth $1575 per season.  If you use a 30% response rate on a fine-tuned referral system, that amounts to $475 additional income per customer per season.  If you have 20 customers that amounts to $9500 you’re leaving on the table every year.  If you target higher end customers and learn the art of upselling of course, your loss is even greater.

Your Referral Garden

Your customers are a garden and you have to cultivate the referrals. This means develop a system or systems to encourage them to share your name with their friends and neighbors.  Referrals don’t just happen with enough consistency to depend on.

The Answer Then Is A System

system
Noun
1.a method or set of methods for doing or organizing something
If you want consistent, predictable results from your referral marketing, you need to have in place a system that works day in and day out.  There are as many ways to implement a referral marketing system as there are creative marketers.  The key, however, is to know your customer.  Think like they think, and you’ll be able to develop a program that will pull consistent results.

One Quick Example

Need a little help to get started?  How about this.  Create a “New Customer Offer” such as a free 21 point lawn inspection, or free first fertilization application, or whatever your ideal customer would value.  Print your offer on a sheet of business card stock (most word processor programs have templates for 8 or 10 business cards to a page, or search for free downloadable templates) along with your satisfied customer’s name.  For example, one entire sheet of business cards would look like this:

First Fertilization Application
Provided Compliments of
Mr and Mrs Smith
Call 555-5555

So, you see.  You give this stack of 10 cards to your customer, Mr Smith with instructions to pass them on to his neighbors and friends.  In return, for every referral call you get, he gets a credit towards one free service.  If you get a new customer as a result of his referral you’ll give him a $50 gift card to Long Horn Steak House or something.

So your cost is about 80 cents per sheet of business cards plus the value of the service provided to your new customer plus a gift card to your current customer.  So for about $80.00 in hard costs, you get a new customer worth $1575 each season.  More if you master the upsell.  If you get no referrals, you are only out 80 cents for the stack of business cards.

The Power Of Referral Marketing

If you need help coming up with ideas or just want some concrete advice about how to use referral marketing to its maximum potential, check out this ebook from Vince Goldeexampler.