Greetings Floor Dealers!
In the previous installment of this series, I listed the three reasons most advertising fails floor dealers: 1) There is a ton of misunderstanding among retailers about advertising; 2) they are unaware of alternatives to “brand building” types of advertising; and 3) as a result dealers wind up copying each other.
This week I discuss the second reason.
Reason #2: Most floor dealers are unaware of alternatives to “brand building” types of advertising
The alternative is direct response marketing, which is what I teach my Flooring Success Systems members. Direct response covers a wide range of strategies, and one of the most powerful is building, nurturing and protecting your herd of past customers, and that’s what I’m going to focus my discussion on today.
Most dealers spend the lion’s share of their time, energy and money trying to convince total strangers to do business with them. All the while they completely ignore the only people on the planet who have proven that they will buy from them: their past customers. Madness!
One of the most effective methods for communicating with past customers is via a monthly newsletter. When I say “newsletter” I’m not talking about the usual, boring junk that you get from your insurance agent. (I call those “snoozeletters.”) It’s critical that your newsletter be structured properly so that it gets read. Here are some tips for writing an effective newsletter:
- Use “infotainment.” Make your newsletter a mix of 80%-90% entertaining and informative articles, and 10%-20% about your business. Why this ratio? Because in any given month the majority of your past customers don’t need floor covering, so don’t bore them with content that’s 100% about floors. It would be like getting a newsletter from your dentist each month containing nothing but information about the latest developments in root canals. Boring.
- Include language that compels ongoing referrals. If you have 200 past customers, each of them have at least 200 people in their sphere of influence; that’s 40,000 people connected to your past customers. Within that expanded group there are dozens of people each and every month that need flooring.
- Include emotional “triggers” that get people involved in the letter and promote readership. I create a turn-key newsletter for my floor-dealer customers that includes at least ten triggers in every issue. Three of the most powerful triggers are customer recognition, testimonials, and a contest where people must call or visit your store to participate.
I can almost hear some dealers say, “Geez Jim, send a newsletter every month? Won’t that get on people’s nerves?” Space won’t permit an exhaustive answer to this objection, but I will say a few things in response. First, for every month that goes by that your customers don’t hear from you, you lose 10% of the value of that relationship; so after ten months you might as well be a stranger stalking their neighborhood. Second, I’ve been sending newsletters for nearly fifteen years and it’s been a major revenue source; this would not have been possible if I was getting on people’s nerves. Third, I’ve seen the results from other floor dealers, including one who used newsletters to generate over $250,000 in extra revenue in a single year, and another who went from nearly closing his doors to (last year) doing over $2.5 million by using newsletters as his primary marketing strategy.
A properly constructed monthly newsletter is one of many powerful alternatives to image advertising.
In the next installment, we will discuss how to set yourself apart from other dealers in your market.
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!