How to monopolize your market
The landscape of business has changed, not
only over the last five to 20 years, but even more dramatically
since 9/11/01.
Just being aggressive doesn’t cut it
anymore. Good drycleaning skills alone aren’t enough. The
days of simple selling and awareness advertising are over.
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This is what real marketing is supposed to
do, but most drycleaners don’t understand this.
Your marketing and advertising has got to
cut through the clutter. Good marketing and advertising should
separate your business from your competition, then eliminate
the competitors from the minds of your prospects.
Your marketing should make you the obvious
choice to the consumer.
Your marketing and advertising is supposed
to build an argument for your business (just like an attorney
would build a case for his client) that makes your prospects
arrive at this one simple conclusion: that they would have to
be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you,
regardless of price. If your marketing and advertising
doesn’t do that, then it’s not working right!
Build and safeguard your business
As marketing consultants we develop
and critique marketing plans and advertising in hundreds of
cities across the U.S. and Canada. The Golomb Group has worked
with over 5,000 businesses in many different industries,
although our primary focus is on drycleaning. There are not too
many things we haven’t thoroughly examined within the
realm of marketing. And, quite frankly, most of the advertising
we see is an absolute waste of money.
The ads are hopeless. Especially those
written by the advertisers themselves.
The businesses are not necessarily bad.
The companies are usually very good at what they do. It’s
just that their advertising doesn’t communicate it.
Success in marketing and advertising is
based on a marketing equation. It never changes and is the same
for every drycleaner. It is a step-by-step process, a system
that can be measured and graded. Ninety-eight percent of all
the advertising we see is average, at best.
Your marketing and advertising needs to
make an impact to be successful. When done correctly, your
marketing can be a powerful tool, capable of separating your
business from your competitors and eliminating them from the
minds of your prospects.
Good advertising leaves but one
conclusion, which is, as I said earlier, “I would have to
be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you,
regardless of price.”
Every drycleaner we’ve ever
consulted with tells us the same thing. They say that their
market is different from all the others. The argument usually
goes something like this: “You see, in our area, people
put a lot of thought into this type of decision. They
don’t just react to good advertising and go out and buy.
As a matter of fact, our competitor has customers who have been
doing business with them for generations. You just can’t
change these things overnight.”
It’s a myth.
Like all myths, there are some elements of
truth to this. Yes, it’s true that your customers should
like doing business with you. (Good location, courteous counter
personnel, pleasant atmosphere, etc.) Yes, it’s true that
you can’t influence everyone overnight. But please
understand one thing – your customers buy from you for
one reason: they perceive you to have “the best
deal.”
Now their definition of what’s the
best deal may be different from the next person’s. But
generally, it has a lot to do with a combination of things like
convenience, quality, consistency, service, and price. And
usually, about 80 percent of a given target market will have
the same needs, the same problems they want solved, and the
same attitudes about buying. If you can fulfill their needs,
then getting their business is just a matter of staying in the
public eye long enough to let them know what you can do for
them.
A horticultural tip
A good analogy would be a cherry tree.
Like a cherry tree, prospects must be cultivated in a certain
way if they are to bear fruit (bring you their money). The
problem is that most businesses don’t know how to manage
their advertising budget. Ninety-five percent of all businesses
still use the knee-jerk method of marketing. If business is
down, really drastically, “maybe we’d better
advertise! “And if the prospects don’t happen to be
“ripe” at the exact moment the advertising hits the
market, “advertising doesn’t work” and the
whole plan goes rotten.
By developing a comprehensive marketing
strategy, an on-going program, you provide the tree with light,
water, and nutrients — and it bears fruit. You provide
your entire target market of prospects with information,
education and knowledge, until it becomes self-evident to them
that you are the only logical choice when it comes to
purchasing your services.
Dennis McCrory is president of The Golomb
Group Inc., a firm that designs marketing programs for
drycleaners. Contact him at The Golomb Group Inc., 7664 Plaza
Ct., Willowbrook, IL 60527 Tele: (800) 679-5856
E-mail: dennismccrory@golombgroup.com
