contractor success Market, By: Randy Mayes Don’t Advertise I I can’t tell you how many times advertising representatives have told me that advertis-ing pays. My response is to emphatically agree that, when I buy advertising, they always get paid. The problem for me as a consumer of advertising is that I often don’t get the results I want. Additionally, advertising is often very expensive and it can be extremely difficult to measure its effectiveness. So, you might be asking yourself, “Should I be advertising?” My answer is maybe. As long as it is part of a well-thought-out marketing strategy, advertising is worth it. Otherwise, don’t waste your money. Marketing and advertising are not the same thing. Advertising is a subset of marketing and can be an essential part of your marketing efforts; but, this is not always the case. Along with my extensive background in the sanitary supply industry, I teach marketing to graduate students in William Woods University’s Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. Let me share with you the essence of what I teach my students. Good marketing involves three essential components: 1. Identifying your unique value proposi-tion (UVP) 2. Identifying your target market 3. Developing your communication plan. What do you do for your customers that no one else can offer in the way you do it? People are not looking for the cheapest price; they are looking for the best value and, often, they are more than willing to pay for it. What most building managers want is a no-hassle partnership with a respon-sive cleaning professional that consistently delivers topnotch service day in and day out. Contract cleaning is, first and foremost, a service business. Provide great, consistent service and you will be way ahead of 90 percent of your competition. If you aren’t getting the desired results, your tactics may be tawdry. The second component of effective mar-keting is identifying your target market. Your target market is a definable group of people that receive the most value from your goods and services. In the cleaning industry, this is a very small group of people. This is also why most traditional advertis-ing is not cost effective for building service contractors (BSCs). Advertisers charge you for the number of total exposures. Mass media has a lot of total exposures, but most of the people who will hear or see your advertisement are not your customer. This brings us to component number Good Marketing Comes In Threes At the end of the day, your UVP is why people do business with you. Branding your company as something that speaks to your ideal clientele is more effec-tive than blanket advertising. 38 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2011
CMM – Archives Aug 2011: 38
