Postcards VS Brochures

[Steve]

As quoted from http://www.lawncaremarketingmagic.com Contact Chestin if you have questions! Lawn Care Marketing: Postcards VS Brochures Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ]Hello again, I’ve spent the past few days getting caught up from the time I took off over the past few weeks as a result of Christmas and New Years and I wanted to share one thing I came across with you. I received an email from one of my subscribers and I thought the question and my response provided a lot of instruction and insight. Here’s the question: “My question is what do you feel is a better marketing tool, postcards or brochures? I feel with brochures I can get more info to the potential customers, such as all the services I provide, as well as some photos of some of my customer’s lawns. What do think?” And here was my response: “In response to your question, the answer is…..it depends. It depends what you’re trying to accomplish. It depends who your target market is. It depends what your budget is. As you no doubt know, sending brochures is much more expensive than postcards, but as you stated, they allow you to tell a much more complete story and include more of things like photos, testimonials, etc. If your budget allows, I would certainly suggest going the brochure route. However, if you do decide to go that way, keep these tips in mind when creating your brochure: o If possible, definitely include some pictures of your work but don’t crowd it with too many pictures. Leave some room for your sales message. o Don’t be afraid to use lots of text to tell your story and deliver your sales message. If you were sending a salesman to their door, you wouldn’t limit him to 250 words or less, would you? Definitely not and you don’t want to do the same to your marketing collateral. o Be sure to start your brochure off with an attention grabbing headline. Just because they receive it doesn’t mean they’re going to read it. You need to give them some reasons for reading. o Don’t just list your services or features. Everything you say MUST be as much about the potential customer as possible, so take everything you think you want to say about all the services you offer and translate those into benefits for the customer. (Example: 15 years experience – We have the knowledge and experience necessary to ensure the job gets done right the FIRST time and without any unnecessary problems or expense) o Present an offer that invites them to contact you for additional information or for a low-risk trial of your services. If you’re going to spend any money on producing these brochures, you’d be silly NOT to make them some type of offer that gets them to at least contact you for more information. o If you have some customer testimonials, use them. Just as with the pictures, letting your satisfied customers tell the story will go a long way towards reducing the skepticism felt by your prospects. o Give them a number of different ways to respond and then tell them exactly how you’d like them to respond. For example, give them your office number and tell them to call during the hours of 8am – 5pm. Or give them your website and tell them to logon and fill out the ‘Request an Estimate’ form. Don’t assume they know what they need to do to respond. You need to tell them specifically.“ So, what’s your plan for marketing this during this upcoming season? Have you decided on a method yet? Do you have your sales message carefully honed to perfection? Now’s definitely the time to be working on and planning all the marketing activities you’ll want to pursue in the coming months. Don’t let things creep up on you because you’ll just end up feeling like you’re behind the 8 ball all year long. Well, have a fantastic weekend and look for more marketing ideas next week.

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