Boost Your Profit by Thousands With A Phone Call!

Happy new year to all!

I hope you've tossed your resolutions to the wayside already...heaven knows I have!

2008 has officially begun. This is the year for the brave souls to really knuckle under and push their businesses beyond all expectations...make more money...make your competitor sweat bullets on sleepless nights...

2008 is the year of the guerrilla!

The guerrilla mindset dropkicks convention and academia right in the pants and opts for the proven, the bold and the innovative.

Your first step?

Stop repeating past mistakes. Don't throw good money after bad. Sacrifice the lamb of ego to the gods of profit!

How does one do that?

Take a good hard look at what marketing tools you employ. Ads, spots, mailings, etc. What's working for you? What isn't?

Immediately drop any piece that you cannot measure results from!

The largest, most offensive WASTE of your marketing dollar?

That innocuous little publication known as the...the phone book.

There are a boatload of "experts" out there that continue to make money for themselves (and Yellow Page sales reps) by pushing this reference book as a sales tool for funeral homes.

Obviously, anyone who has spent any sort of time in this field knows, or should know, that the Yellow Pages is not effective as a marketing tool for a fully-branded funeral home. Unless your firm is the new kid on the block, stop wasting your money! Large ads in the Yellow Pages only benefit the people who sell you the ads!

Last year, I was contacted by one of these "experts" who claimed he could make my Yellow Pages ad into a virtual ATM for the funeral home.

Ummm...yeah. Okay. So give me the name of one of your funeral home clients who has used your ideas and benefitted from it.

Never heard from him again.

People outside of the funeral industry think that you can market us like plumbers, or lawyers or roofers.

CLUELESS! Each and every one of them!

You know why? They've never spent one day in the practical reality inside of a funeral home.

Unless you've spent some time in this field (not simply as an interested observer from the sidelines) you really have no idea what it takes to market a funeral home.

My personal favorite of the clueless options is their suggestion of a special phone number (just for their ad!) so you can track the number of calls generated by that ad.

Now, why in the hell would you want to risk confusing customers who have read/heard/dialed your current number already by introducing a completely different number into the equation?

And even if you do use that different number, is there any reliable way to measure if those calls have translated into sales? Not that I've seen!

And here's what really tells me how much is overspent on Yellow Pages ads...

Go look up Coca-Cola's phone number...or Home Depot....or McDonald's....IN THE YELLOW PAGES.

Bet I can guess what you found: A small ad or in-column listing. Their other marketing efforts support them, not the Yellow Pages. So do yours!

Make sure you have a PRESENCE in the Yellow Pages...a small in-column ad or even a bold listing if you can swing it. Your customers are not going to trade your superior service and comfortable familiarity for your competitor's big pretty ad.

Let him waste his money. Don't let your ego confuse the issue. Call your local Yellow Pages rep and thank him kindly, but for the next directory, you're going to keep it small and simple.

You've just added thousands to your profits!

You're welcome!

I hope you've got fire in your belly for the coming year! It's going to be your best ever!

Here's to us in 2008!

Dan Heaman, CFSP
The Guerrilla Director

PS-I wanted a little extra proof about this theory...I looked up the phone company in their own directory and guess what...a small in-column ad!

Tells you something, doesn't it?

PPS-Church bulletins are highly suspect as far as marketing value, too! There are more powerful ways to connect with that church body than a dinky, useless ad just BEGGING to be ignored!