Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

First, I assume their focus is commercial vs residential.

Skip the flyers. You are correct, they won't get in the right hands. And if they do, they won't inspire a sale. Your competition is out pounding the pavement and making face to face calls asking for the business.

Is your team IICRC.org certified? Taking a class (and passing the test) can get you there, the site gets a crazy # of hits of companies & consumers looking for that service. There are a ton of carpet cleaners-- but there aren't a lot of Hard Surface Technicians (HST) out there. That'll cost you less than $500-- course and registration on the site.

I was a manufacturer rep with multiple floor covering manufacturers many many years. I will tell you a lot of the claims I'd go on were maintenance related. Finishes not applied properly, not applied at all, wrong finishes. If a claim was determined to be maintenance related it would be a scramble to find a maintenance contractor. So market to the dealers. Even if a dealer doesnt focus on commercial, he does some of it.

Every commercial project requires the dealer to perform the initial maintenance. They either opt out of it, or sub it out. They don't have the expertise-- and don't want it. So call on the commercial focused dealers to both handle their maintenance related claims and do the initial maintenance. Add a % in for the dealer to add a profit to the line item-- it's their contract after all. Then, make a very warm call to the new building owner or tenant, tell them you did the initial maintenance and ask for the ongoing contract.

Go to the floorcovering manufacturers and find the local rep in the area. Again, ask to be a resource for those type of claims. In the course of my tenure as a rep, I could have referred a HST a ton of biz. And saved me a lot of agony.

Dear designers41,

Carol's given you a TON of great advice. Listen to her.

I know nothing about floor refinishing, nor do I care to. But
as your potential client's client, whether I'm looking for floor refinishing OR web design, a leaflet of any description is unlikely
to sell me on either service UNLESS it's got some form of testimonial on it.

And even then, I'd prefer to see actual results: a real floor, an actual web page, rather than some printed evidence or claim. It's for this reason that video or a practical demonstration or exhibition has such a huge influence on buying decisions: both techniques tell AND show.

The upshot of this is that IF the results are good enough, and if the claims, guarantees, testimonials, risk reversal, offer, call to action, and deadline or scarcity issue are all strong enough, all compelling enough, the potential buyer then sells themselves on whatever is being offered, WHATEVER it is.

Although printed evidence is nice, it's not total proof. Nor is it social proof, emotional proof, or positional proof.

To stick in someone's mind—to attach mentally—whether to some felt or implied need in someone's mind, the proof you're offering has to be sticky enough to connect.

This means message, tone, value and outcome gained or attained—these things ALL need to gel together to form a compelling enough set of reasons that, as a group, over power and doubt in the prospect's mind as to why they ought to IGNORE your offer.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Flyers are too broad/"generic," and many people resent getting them. You need something more targeted for both businesses.

In either case, the problem you're going to face is getting the flyer in the right person's hands. If you're trying to send it to everyone, then it's likely to be ignored (as Michael mentions) since it's not targeted to the recipient. Carol & Gary have given you the ways to approach writing the content, and even better, approaches to get flyers in the right hands.

My suggestion is to identify your goal: get the right person (who? where?) interested in what the company is selling (why should they care? why should they trust you?).

For a web design firm, instead of showing how pretty the design is, tell me statistics on how much traffic/conversions the had prior to hiring the web design firm, then the documented results. That's concrete information that will make me take notice.

Go where you market is.

If I am intersetd to look for a web designer, of course I am going to go straight to the web :))

Very unlikely that I would buy a web design service from a flyer :) I want to see the designers online portfilo of work and 'TESTIMONIALS' from satisfied clients.

In this day and age - people need proof. 'TESTIMONIALS' are your number 1 weapon in the armoury.

Flyers can work for the floor finishing busienss so long as they are distributed by the right people through the right channels but they are only one small part of your whole marketing mix. Don't expect too much business from the flyers. If you get 1 client pe 5,000 flyers then you are doing great. More likely 1 client per 10,000 flyers.

Good luck.

Matthew