We’ve all seen or heard about the best selling book series Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. In these self-help books author John Gray Ph. D. explores the differences between the male and female gender and how they relate to each other.
Here’s how the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus concept applies in marketing our cleaning and restoration services. We speak “Martian” while 93% of our clients speak “Venetian”! (Remember that women are your primary market in residential cleaning.)
This “different language” is most obvious in ads that focus on a cleaner’s truck mount or the cleaning method. (The testosterone-driven ads that focus on truck mount brand name or technical data such as heat, psi and inches of Hg just don’t do it for females!) Even worse, your chest thumping statements about “My method is best” or “We’re #1” leave women cold.
Instead, all advertising needs to only answer one question from your customer’s perspective. “Why you? What’s in it for me?” In fact, if Clara Peller of Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?” fame were to return she would be asking “Where’s the benefit for ME?” So let’s do a little marketing “cross dressing” and put on our “Female Customer Eyeglasses.”
Remember that all buying decisions are “right brained-triggered” which means they are emotions based. Ninety percent of these actions are unconscious, subliminal choices.
This is why emotion-based marketing is so much more successful than fact-based marketing. Pictures of babies, puppies, kittens or a beautiful room will outdo a picture of your truck mount any time! So tap into these emotions using personal pictures that show you, your family or your company in emotional situations.
This leads to the BIG question that you need to answer before you design any advertising.
What is your USP (Unique Service Proposition)?
You can figure it out by answering these questions.
- What is special about your company?
- What are you (and your employees) passionate about?
- What does your company do better than anyone else?
- What can you do that the competition is not doing and not likely to offer?
- What does your customer need/want in a carpet cleaner?
- What fears/emotions does your usually female client have about a service company’s technician (usually male) working alone with her in her “inner sanctum”- her home? (Hint- it isn’t pretty!)
Over the years this SFS web site has published many examples of how emotions influence buying decisions (and especially those of women). There is no question that the very best USP you can bring to the Home Front table is “Managing the customer’s experience to provide a high perception of value.” Hey, that sounds like another SFS mantra: Value Added Service!
I challenge you to examine your marketing using the criteria we’ve talked about above. Remember, the main decision maker in your customer’s home is the wife, the mom, a woman. So HOW can you communicate your message to HER effectively?
Bill Yeadon