You don’t have to be a marketing expert with a huge advertising budget to build your janitorial supply business via mailing, faxing and e-mailing your customers and prospects. Oftentimes, jan/san distributors get their fair share of business through simple and inexpensive strategies: direct mail, faxing and e-mail. If you know your business (and why people buy what you sell), you can use this information to win and keep customers by simply following this 6-step plan:

  1. Compile a database of prospects, clients and lost clients.
    How can you accomplish this? All you have to do is give people a reason to give you their names, addresses, e-mail addresses and fax numbers. This could be as easy as creating a low-risk offer to respond to, or a notebook on your counter with a sign that invites customers to “Join our Mailing List.” Or a fishbowl that says, “Enter a drawing.” If you have a service business, one where items are brought in for repair or cleaning, or if you issue invoices, you have a natural opportunity to ask for names and addresses. Collect that information and you’ll be have a head start toward effective communication. You might also consider renting a mailing list from some of the top list shops. Getting a name is cheap — you can pay 15 cents to 25 cents per name. Contact a list house to help you identify the characteristics of people who are most likely to become customers, and ask them to provide mailing lists of people who fit that profile.

  2. Devise a low-risk offer.
    Once you have a list of names and addresses, you have to give people a reason to do business with you. Or better yet, give them a reason to do long-term business with you. Discounts and sales are among the most common offers because they steer business your way that might otherwise go to someone else. But anyone can have a sale. Take some time and look at why people buy from you and the biggest problems or annoyances your product or solution solves. Then develop a low-risk offer to help educate your prospect base. This technique will increase your prospect base and help gain customer loyalty and sales.

  3. Understand that people think in blocks of time.
    As time changes, so do people. Most people procrastinate and push things off until the pain is high enough or they think they need to try something different. If you time your offer with a specific block of time — the changing of a season, next month, next quarter and next year — your business will increase. And if you thrive on repeat customers, a well-timed reminder can be a beautiful thing for your business.

    For example, you can remind a customer to stock up on ice melt, or that they’re due to refinish all their floors. Tell them they just need to sign the approval sheet and you will send an invoice. A carpet cleaner can remind its customers simply that, “Spring is here. It’s time to clean your carpets after a harsh winter.”

    Professionals seeking new customers can offer a free consultation — a research meeting that is timed with a specific change. A possible headline to use on your marketing pieces could be: A recent survey revealed 8 out of 10 operation managers pay too much for (fill in the blank). Anything that will interrupt and engage the prospect will do the trick. You may even remind customers to use your services before harsh weather conditions set in. Send your message tied to a specific, timely event and your sales will increase.

  4. Create and send the offer.
    Now it’s time to present your offer to your target customer group. You can create the piece yourself on your computer with templates that come with many software programs (go to Microsoft’s website for tons of great tools; many are free). Or you can get help from a local source. The pieces (direct mail, fax or e-mail) can be very easy to produce and manage. Most database programs come with a mail-merge feature that can automatically create a mailing list for personalized letters, postcards, brochures and catalogs. Some programs can be low-tech and inexpensive.

    A janitorial supply distributor, for example, can put 12 dividers into an index card file — one for each month of the year. Then they can print postcards that remind prospects and customers to check their inventory of product.

  5. Examine your results.
    Mailing, faxing and e-mailing is easy to measure. You know immediately if it works because people will call right away. Count the coupons that come in. I suggest tracking it with some type of keycode. See how many customers come back to you. Ask customers for feedback. The fact is, you can calculate the profitability of every piece you send out. Then adjust your program for the next step.

  6. Repeat.
    A successful contact program is just that, a program. To be successful, you need to make contact consistently and frequently. If you have a good list and good offers, and mail consistently, you can build your business through the mail. All too often my clients get caught up in the one-and-done mentality of marketing their businesses. I would rather see a client send out 12 touches to the same 1,000 people than a one-time 12,000-piece campaign.

There are unique instances when a major marketing campaign will produce great results, so take a look at your target group, how they buy what you sell, your low-risk offer(s) and, of course, pay close attention to your budget.

Glenn Fallavollita is a principal consultant with Y2Marketing and is president of MyMarketingPartner of Turnersville, N.J. He conducts workshops throughout the country to teach business owners and executives how they can differentiate themselves using Y2Marketing’s MYM System. He can be reached at (856) 401-9577 or email.




POSTED ON: 10/1/2004