“Bonded and Licensed and Insured”… Oh, My!

It’s got to stop.  Really; overused phrases like the one above have been used so often and with so little affect that they can barely be called marketing messages anymore.

The only thing worse might be… “FREE estimates”. When’s the last time you came across business prospects willing to pay for you to prepare a cleaning proposal?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t include them.  There’s nothing wrong with pointing out, for example, that you’re insured.  It’s fine; prospects want to know they’re dealing with a cleaning professional that protects his workers and customers.

So, it’s not that.

It’s just that those worn- out promotional lines are thrown out and highlighted in janitorial, office-cleaning brochures and marketing pieces as if they’re somehow ‘magic’ words to instant credibility, proof of your professional cleaning status, as well as the short cut to inspiring prospects to want to hire you.

Sorry, but marketing slogans like that are likely too flat and too boring to get even one prospects to sit up and pay attention.

I once heard a marketing expert explain that a business’ marketing message needs to be so powerful that it inspires prospects to hire you above any other viable options (competitors)… including doing nothing at all!

Did you get that?  That’s right, they also have the option of simply doing nothing.  Not hire you…not hire one of your competitors…just simply do nothing at all.

Therefore, your marketing message needs to be so powerful that it actually motivates them, practically compels them, to take action, as well as clearly set you apart from the rest of your competitors.

Tall order, isn’t it?

Sure, but here are a few marketing devices or tools that can help you to do just that:

1.  Create Measureable Guarantees of Performance (MGPs): Create powerful marketing messages, we call them MGP’s, that literally grab your prospects attention; specific, dramatic answers to one or more of their most pressing problems.

2.  Use powerful CALLS TO ACTION or CTA’s, that not only tell your prospect what to do, but exactly how and when to do it.

3.  Use DEADLINES to create a “sense of urgency”

4.  Offer INCENTIVES to create a “fear of loss”.

Bottom line; today is not yesterday.  And what worked 10 or even 5 years ago, won’t necessarily work today.  Our job as marketers of cleaning services is to find out what does.

Dan Liebrecht is co-founder of Clean Guru LLC, Copyright Clean Guru LLC, All Rights Reserved
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