Construction Business Owner, March 2008

Have you ever spent money on advertising for naught?

You know what I mean. You got nada for your investment. Zilch. Zippo.

At best, your investment brought you a couple of lukewarm leads, a tire kicker or two and a handful of price shoppers who weren’t worth the time you spent talking to them.

Where’d It Go Wrong?

Let the finger-pointing begin. Did the advertisement go to the wrong people? Was it a poorly written piece? Did it manage to separate you from your competition? Did it do anything to pre-qualify your prospects? Were your expectations unrealistic?

Tami Hernandez stressed an important point in her January 2008 Construction Business Owner article titled “Niche Marketing Strategies for the Construction Business Owner:”

Once you’ve gathered the necessary business intelligence and developed your database of qualified prospects, it all comes down to persuasive and informative messaging. Take the time and invest the necessary resources into crafting your messaging, making sure you’re addressing the hot-button issues of your niche and clearly delineating your company’s unique value proposition.

The hardest part of advertising is that your message must hit your target’s emotional bull’s-eye instantly! You must grab their attention right from the beginning.

You Must Be on Target

No matter how perfect your list, no matter how perfect your timing and no matter how well-suited your chosen medium (TV, radio, yellow pages, door hangers, etc.), if your advertising message isn’t on target, you’re blowing a bunch of money.

Your prospects have very short attention spans. You’ve got to grab their attention, and do it quickly. You can’t throw the kitchen sink at them. They’ll lose interest and tune you out (which means wasted $$$). You must figure out the issue they care the most about, the one that bothers them the most or they fear the most. Then, you’ve got to come up with a catchy way to express that you understand the issue is important to them and you will fix it for them.

That’s why must you to construct your advertising message. You have to build it through a systematic process. The odds of you sitting around your desk and coming up with the right message? Slim to none. The odds of your team locking itself in a conference room for eight hours and coming up with the right message? Slim to none. The odds of your best customers clueing you in to the right message? A stone cold, dead lock, sure thing.

10 Steps to Help You Construct Your Message

Review your customer list and identify the ones who really represent the type of customer you want to build your business around.

Select at least five customers you believe will meet with you and be blunt about your services.

Take each out for coffee or lunch. Ask them what they value most about your service, what specific problems you solve and what problems they have experienced with previous contractors.

Look for the common threads. Find the pains they can’t stand and appear willing to pay a premium price to get rid of those pains.

Identify your target’s most emotional problem—the bull’s eye you’re trying to hit. Discuss it with your team.

When it’s time to choose which problem to place your bets on, it’s your call. This is your business, and it’s your money. Go with your gut feeling even if it disagrees with everyone else in the room.

Lock your team up in the conference room and start brainstorming about catchy marketing messages. If you are going to use a marketing consultant, include him or her in this meeting. Now’s the time for your consultant to earn his or her fees.

Think of the benefits of removing your customer’s common pain (i.e., what your customer gains when you remove the pain).

Look through the yellow pages and search the Internet (www.thebluebook.com is a great place to start). Look at the wording used by other companies who perform your trade. Jot down any that apply to the problem you’re addressing.

Create a list of headlines that may invoke interest and intrigue—headlines that grab people’s attention. Everything falls out of the headline. Your marketing consultant better be able to come up with several headlines and catch phrases.

 

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