• One Simple Step to Boost Your Marketing Effectiveness

    Feb. 15, 2012
    You just found out you’ve got a free weekend at a hot deer lease. Hunting it alone is no fun. There’s no one to help you drag out a deer if you get one. There’s no one to drink with at night. You want to bring a friend, but figure you’ll have to persuade the spousal unit. Can you come up with a generic argument why wives should let their husbands hunt? Sure.

    You just found out you’ve got a free weekend at a hot deer lease. Hunting it alone is no fun. There’s no one to help you drag out a deer if you get one. There’s no one to drink with at night. You want to bring a friend, but figure you’ll have to persuade the spousal unit. Can you come up with a generic argument why wives should let their husbands hunt? Sure.

    Now, imagine it’s your best friend you want to come along. Now the argument is focused specifically on his wife. Thinking of your best friend’s wife, you can create a stronger, more personal argument, right?

    Transfer this to marketing your company. If you market to a generic person, your marketing becomes more generic. But market to a specific person and it’s more focused and on target.

    When you create marketing for your company, who do you market to? Yeah, I know. You market to the customer. Okay, what does the customer look like?

    Sadly, most contractors cannot describe their target customer. If you lack a clear image of the customer, your marketing will equally lack clarity.

    The answer is to create a consumer “construct” of your typical consumer. Describe a representative buyer in terms that makes him or her real. Give the customer a name, an identity, and a real description. Then market to this person. Have a conversation with this person. Do this well and your marketing effectiveness will soar. Your messaging will have greater clarity.

    The marketing construct will become as real to you as your best friend’s wife. Start with a few basic questions:

    • Do men or women call for service?

    • How old is your typical customer?

    • What is the customer’s income?

    • Education?

    • Presence of children? Age of children?

    In the residential service and replacement market we assume the customer is a homeowner. For most, the customer is a woman. Usually, she’s 35 years old or older. The income depends on the community.

    Here comes the difficult part. What does the homeowner want from a contractor? What does she care about? How do you speak to her? What are her most pressing concerns? What are her fears? Her desires?

    What does she expect from a service company? What does she want? How can we reassure her?

    What is her background? Is she a lifelong resident of your community? Does she expect to move in a few years? What are her interests? Does she spend time online? Does she go to church? Does she work? How connected is she?

    Don’t do this in isolation. Get your technicians involved in a service meeting. Talk with your CSRs, dispatchers, and salespeople. Then, call some customers or talk with some friends. As one of women working in the Service Roundtable commented, “I don’t think service techs realize they’re scary to women on a service call.”

    Once you’ve described your construct, name her. A Lewisville, Texas contractor might name his target customer “Lewisville Louise.” Because the target customer is different in nearby Flower Mound, an entirely different construct might be created for “Flower Mound Flo.”

    Build the construct to have an image in your mind of the person you are creating your marketing and business policies for. If your contractor’s name is Lewisville Louise, you might ask yourself, “What would Louise think about that?” “Would Louise like it?”

    Once you’ve described your construct, find a picture of her. Create one. Take a picture of a person you think epitomizes the target. If you don’t want to use a real person, get an artist to make a sketch. Market to the person. Talk with her. Have a conversation.

    Get a local printer to blow up your image. Make it a poster. Create a life-size, free-standing cutout you can move around the company.

    This is not rocket science. It is fundamental marketing. If you want some help, call us at 877.262.3341. We’ll show you an example we created for Service Roundtable members. Follow this one simple step and you will see your marketing effectiveness soar.

    For an example of “construct marketing,” call the Service Roundtable toll free at 877.262.3341. They’ll show you an example and give you other sales, marketing, and management ideas. Check them out at www.ServiceRoundtable.com.