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Answers to Your Questions 2. What are some more inexpensive ways to advertise? Advertising is a much misused term. It’s really a part of marketing. So I would rephrase the question to "What are some more inexpensive ways to market my business?" Along with the ideas in my e-book, The Professional Scoop Master, there a re literally hundreds of ways to market your business in creative, cost effective ways. In the next few paragraphs, I’m going to outline a few creative ideas on promoting your business that are not in my book. Some are free and easy, others may cost a few bucks. Let’s start with the free and easy. Keep in mind that your main goal is to let people know about your business, then to obtain the customers. The more people that know about your business, the more they will talk about it. I would hope that you have some sort of signage on your work vehicle. This is one of the most cost effective forms of advertising your service, and if you don’t have signs on your vehicle...don’t try this idea. You’ll see why in a minute. While you are driving around doing your route, look for people who are walking their dog(s) and have already done the responsible thing by picking up their dog’s poop. You can tell they have because its usually hanging from their leash hand. Simply drive up beside them, (without scaring them) and offer to take their bag of poop for them. Make sure they see your signs and have a business card or brochure handy. Tell them that the only catch is that they have to take your card and give it to a friend, co-worker or neighbor. The idea here is to get them to talk about your business for you. After all, who wouldn’t tell this story to someone, that "Some guy (or gal) pulled up next to me and offered to take my bag of poop from me." Eventually, someone who wants your service will be calling. Bandit signs. A crude term for placing cheap signs all around town, usually illegally. You’ve seen them before at the end of freeway off ramps, across the street opposite from the mall driveway. Some cities and municipalities have sign ordinances that prohibit bandit signs. You would have to check with your local and city government to see if it’s OK to do. In my town it is illegal...except for politicians and real estate agents. I have seriously considered placing dog poop signs in the midst of all the political signs whenever election time is here. Seems fitting. But, before you pass on this idea, double check your sign ordinance in your town. It may be legal to place them on private property! Most of the time it is because of that Constitution thing. If this is the case, you can offer your customer $5.00 off their monthly fee to keep a sign on their property for a week, or a month, or whatever you can get them to agree to. You can find yard signs for about a buck a piece if you shop, but expect to spend twice that much because the specials usually don’t come with the wire stands. Either way, it’s still a bargain. Want to appear bigger than you really are? If your marketing budget allows, here’s an idea that can do just that. Scoop Masters gets about a third of their new business from the signs on the work trucks. All of our trucks are small white pickups. If you have a common or even a unique vehicle that you like to use, consider finding others in your area who have the same vehicle. You may be able to pay them X amount of dollars to letter their vehicle like yours. I start at $50 for a tailgate to $200 for the whole truck, and I offer them $10 for every customer I get from them. That encourages them to talk to people and hand out your business card. Just have a way of tracking who does what and pay your bill on time. Also, you want to use common sense when finding these people. You don’t want some teenager who goes around cutting people off and shouting profanity at people from their vehicle. I don’t want to run out of space so stay tuned for more marketing ideas from Scoop Masters. Enjoy!
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