The Hitman

Here’s a quick tip on how you can get prospects to visit your
website.  As you may have figured out by now, simply putting your
web address in an ad rarely gets much response.  The key is to give
them a reason to take the time to visit your site.  It’s like a
headline for your website. 

It takes quite a bit of work to go from reading the newspaper (or
yellow pages, etc) to surfing the net.  So the call to your website
MUST be strong and relevant to your ad. 

For instance, if your ad is about tile cleaning, your call may be
“To see how beautiful your floor will look, visit
www.CarpetCareTips.com.” 

If your ad is about expert stain removal you can say, “To see an
extensive list of all the stains we can remove on your carpet,
visit www.CarpetCareTips.com.”

If your ad is selling pet stain removal say, “For a FREE pet stain
removal guide, visit www.CarpetCareTips.com.”

Just keep it short and benefit driven.  Tell the prospect EXACTLY
what they’ll get by going to your site and why it will help them.

Tell next time,

John Braun

P.S.  If you haven’t signed up to take your website to the top of
search engine for FREE goto www.HitmanAdvertising.com/freelinks.htm
to participate in our FREE link exchange.  And, if you need help
developing your website from scratch, email me and I’ll help you.

More homeowners are searching the net for services than ever before. Carpet cleaning companies around the world are seeing more activity on their site every year. Consumers want to be connected to you through the internet.

Get involved with marketing your site online NOW. You’re losing out on market share if you’re not actively promoting your site. It’s one of the cheapest types of advertising you can do for your business. Plus, web marketing has one of the greatest returns for your advertising dollar. It’s a no brainer.

Who looks for carpet cleaners on the internet? It’s not just computer geeks any more. Nowadays, it’s professionals who are relocating to your area. Or, it can be a landlord searching for a trustworthy cleaner. Or, it can be an educated homeowner who wants to find out information about a company before she hires.

Most of the clients who will contact you via email are high-end clients. They live in nice homes. Especially if you have an extensive amount of educational material on your site, they’re willing to pay top price.

Being ranked high in search engines greatly increases your probability of getting traffic to your site. Best of all, it’s FREE. You don’t have to pay Google or Yahoo for search engine rankings. The trick is getting in the top ten of the search results on the first page.

So how do you get a high search engine ranking? As you may know, the more relevant links you have going to your website, the higher your search engine ranking.

Having a link to your site from a plumber in another city won’t help you much. But having a link from another carpet cleaner rates highly in the eyes of search engines. Having lots of links from carpet cleaners rates even higher.

How would you like your site or multiple sites to take most of the entire top 10 when a prospect searches for “Your City Carpet Cleaning”? You can get nearly all the business from web searchers. The trick is to have more than one website for your company with dozens of links from other carpet cleaning sites. There’s other stuff involved with getting a good search engine listing, but this is the most important part.

Do it now. Start creating links with other companies associated with your keywords. Link with other cleaners. Also, link with other companies in your city. You’re sure to have a top ten listing in the search engines.

Get links with other carpet cleaners NOW! Sign up for the FREE link exchange to get on top of search engines. It’s an absoultey FREE service, so do it today. You can sign up FREE at www.Hitmanadvertising.com/freelinks.htm

I recently lead one of Howard Partridge’s Inner Circle calls where we talked about how to get ideas for ads. At the end, we did a brainstorming exercise to come up with an idea for a tile cleaning ad.

Here’s a simple brainstorming technique anyone can use. You can use it even if you don’t consider yourself creative. All you have to do is spend a few minutes associating your “key point” with different words. Then, BOOM! You have a creative idea.

First, come up with your key point. This is the ONE thing you want your prospect to know after they’ve read your ad. Your key point could be your offer, something particular about your service, your unique selling point, or any benefit you want the prospect to know. Your entire ad is centered on the key point.

Start by writing down everything that comes to mind about your key point. Don’t leave any ideas out. The more off the wall, the better. Write down movies, songs, TV shows, cars, food, and products that associate with your key point. Write down some stories your clients have told you about the topic. Then, think of the biggest benefit your client could possibly get from your key point. Write every idea you can think of. There are no bad ideas at this point.

When you can’t think of any more ideas, look over your list. Now it’s time to enhance your ideas. Make them even more outrageous. You can always tone them down later. But for now, you’re coming up with stuff that’s bizarre.

Lastly, look over the list again. Take your ideas to the opposite end of the spectrum. Pick some ideas to make extremely conservative. Tone them down. This helps balance out your crazy ideas.

When you’ve exhausted all your ideas, pick your top two or three. The top ideas we came up with were “Mop and Glow-Dull” and the story of how a homeowner will spend an hour cleaning a small 10 square foot area of tile. Then, we had to adjust these ideas to turn them into an ad concept.

The “Mop and Dull” concept included explaining to homeowners how mopping alone can’t keep their floors clean. Of course, our professional service is the answer to their problem.

The small area cleaned story starts with the homeowner purchasing the best grout cleaners, brushes, and even knee pads to clean their tile. Then, she spends an hour cleaning only to get a very small area cleaned. She realizes it will take four days to clean her kitchen. So, the answer is to call us so we can solve her problem.

The more you practice it, the better you’ll get. Try it the next time you create an ad. You’ll get some great ideas.

Here’s an economical way to advertise to the best neighborhoods in your city. The system outlined here works great for any carpet cleaning, maid service, lawn care, or home-service business.

I get many emails from guys who want to know if passing out flyers will work. They read that I have had success with it and wonder how. Almost everyone has tried passing out flyers at one point. I always hear, “It used to work 10 years ago, but now it just doesn’t work any more.”

Yes, it may have gotten more difficult. Consumers are getting wiser. A flyer without selling power won’t bring you any new clients. Homeowners want to know more than how cheap you are. Maybe all the bait-and-switch shows have something to do with it. Or, maybe it’s the fact carpet has lost quite a bit of market share. Regardless, you have to be savvy when creating a good flyer campaign.

First, keep in mind flyers are a cheap way to advertise. This isn’t necessarily a good thing. In fact, I usually recommend steering away from cheap ways to advertise because your prospect can view you as cheap. They WILL view you as cheap if all you do is put a piece of paper on their mailbox or a run-of-the-mill door hanger on their door.

You have to do something different (haven’t you guys heard me say this before?). If you’re going to use flyers, they have to be something extraordinary. One of the most profitable flyers we’ve used appears like a folder that sits on a doorknob. Many clients have told me, “I got your nice little information folder.” They didn’t look at it like some cheap flyer.

Other times, we’ve put a salesletter, brochure, magnet, and business card in a plastic door hanger bag. In this case, the prospect views it as a package left on the doorknob. If you’re going to bother to go out and walk door to door, put something nice on the door. Use full color printing with cute pictures. Or, if you use black and white print, make sure it’s on a heavy piece of colored paper. You want something that will look good as well as feel good in their hands.

Try using an exclusive offer just for homeowners in a particular neighborhood. Or, use a limited time offer due to a slow week, holiday offer, FREE trial offer, or an offer based around something going on in your city in your flyer. Create a great offer, but also tell how you’re unique. Write your flyer with a particular target client in mind.

This is important: When you pass out the flyers, wear your company shirt that identifies who you are. Sometimes people will want to speak with you. NEVER, EVER place a flyer on a mailbox. Stress this to anyone who passes flyers out for you. Then, spot-check the neighborhood to make sure they did it how you asked. It’s actually a federal offense to place anything inside or on a mailbox. Plus, it looks unprofessional.

Use flyer advertising as a way to keep your techs busy on a slow afternoon. It can reap a harvest of many clients to come.

When I tell most cleaners I’ve received HUGE returns from newspaper ads, they look at me funny and say, “Really?” Yes, really. I’ve had some newspaper ads get over a 15 times return.

I started running ads in my local paper when I was just getting started and had zero sales coming in. I made a deal with my newspaper for a trial program, and started running ads that cost about $600 for six-inch ads to be run three times per week in my local paper that goes out to about 75,000 people. A six-column inch newspaper is about six inches wide and two inches deep. Of course, prices for ads can vary in each area. But regardless of cost, it can be one of the biggest returns you can get.

Here’s why newspaper can be so effective for carpet cleaners.

First, your target client is likely to read the newspaper. Most readers are over the age of 40. In fact, with age comes the greater likelihood they are an avid newspaper reader. For most carpet cleaning companies, your ideal target market is over 40.

Second, newspaper readers typically have a higher education level and interest in learning. This usually coincides with higher income. Again, your target market is usually in the higher income bracket.

Third, most people who read the newspaper do it every single day. This means you will be hitting the same exact target over and over. This is the kind of media that excites me the most.

Fourth, if your ad interests them, they often clip it out and keep it. I’ve had many clients clip my ad out and place it on their refrigerator. Your prospect may not be in the need of your service on the day your ad is run. But they will keep your ad for when they do need you. One time a client told me she had my ad on her fridge for two years. I’ve run over 100 different newspaper ads. So when she told me this, I wanted to see the ad so I could take note of the lousy call to action and never use that call again. But hey, at least the ad worked eventually.

Last, advertising in a well-respected paper will give you credibility. In some instances, your ad can have almost as much impact as an endorsement or article that runs in the newspaper.

The key is to write a newsworthy or educational advertisement that gives the reader a big enough benefit that sparks their interest. Properly written newspaper ads can help you price your service higher than any of your competitors.

When you do a search for most anything in a given city, Google maps usually comes up on top. You can register you company name and address for FREE to get placed on this. Since it’s on the top of the search engine, you may even get a click directly to your website. If nothing else, it will help your site optimization.

Search for your city with the name of your service now. Then, click on the map. There is a link where you can register. Google will mail you a physical postcard. Just follow the steps they give you and you’ll be registered.

The biggest problem with the carpet cleaning industry is that anyone can get in with little money. In many cases, carpet cleaning businesses are started on less than a few thousand dollars. Then, the start-up “entrepreneurs” jump in with no marketing plan. The only way they know to compete is by price. They figure if they charge the cheapest prices in town, they’ll get lots of business.

Don’t feel bad if that’s how you started. Heck, it’s how I started. But what you can do is use your competitor’s lack of education to your advantage. Based on most of the advertising I see, it won’t be hard to beat them.

First, make sure you have a reason for you existence. Why is your company needed in your market place? What is your unique selling proposition? If you are just another carpet cleaner, you might as well quit and get a real job. I’m sure your city has enough average Joe cleaners. You must have an aim on offering something different to your community.

Some examples on market differentiation would be: pet odor removal specialty, highest level of service, oriental rug expert, or steam cleaning with fast drying. The idea is to offer something that nobody else in your area markets very well. It’s okay if there is another company doing it. Just make sure it’s something that isn’t already heavily marketed in your area.

After you’ve differentiated yourself, make sure all your marketing complements each other. For example, if your position is that you give the highest level of service, you shouldn’t charge average prices. If you convince your client that you give the highest level of service and the price quote you give is comparable to other companies, they’ll sense something is wrong. Subconsciously, they won’t believe your entire message.

If you are the pet odor removal specialist, you should run ads about pet odor. But don’t stop there. Do everything you can to promote how wonderful life can be with pets. Have a section in your newsletter with a plug for the humane society. Put a blog on your website written by your dog. Be active in local animal groups. Advertise in their newsletters. Paint your van like a huge spotted puppy. Go crazy with it. Do something different.

Consumers love to spend money on a company with new ideas. The world doesn’t need another seafood restaurant. But a seafood restaurant where you catch the food yourself, and the chef prepares your meal in front of you would be something unique.

Everything you say to sell your service is marketing. It should all tell the same story of your market position. Don’t be boring. Break out of the box. Heck, don’t even keep the box around. Throw it in the trash.

Be different and people will beg to do business with you.