One of the key marketing strategies of print and Yellow Page advertising is to have a guarantee. The ideal guarantee is a complete risk-reversal where you guarantee your clients satisfaction or they get their money back. I know what you’re thinking, “If I give my prospects a money-back guarantee, they’ll all ask for their money back and I’ll go broke!” Well this is the type of thinking you want your competition to have, but not you.
I felt the fear of stating this type of guarantee when I was building my 3rd carpet
cleaning/water damage business. But I wanted to try a money-back guarantee so I used, “You Get the Most Sparkling Clean, Fresh and Fluffy Carpet Ever Seen, or It’s FREE!” as my headline.
This was not only a great headline and guarantee, but it was also a great Unique Selling Proposition. You are probably wondering if I lost my shirt on this marketing strategy. Well I can report to you that in 7 years of using that headline and guarantee, I only gave 2 people their money back. Both of the jobs everything conspired to go wrong. In both cases, I knew I was going to give them their money back so I didn’t even cash the check. I simply returned their check to them uncashed. In both cases this saved me from a much more expensive in time and money lawsuit.
But the risk-reversal guarantee caused the high-income prospects to really respond. My phone began ringing off the hook with new qualified prospects when my new headline appeared. My response from my Yellow Page ad design went up 327% the first month the ad appeared. This strategy was a huge winner for my business as it was stronger than all my competition’s guarantees.
Now you ask, “But Larry, how did you keep from having to honor that guarantee when the situation did not warrant that?” I’m glad you asked. It is true that I could not guarantee every situation. But I could guarantee the majority of them. What I did when I did my estimate is point out problems that I could not solve to the prospect, write those areas as excluded from the guarantee, and have the client sign my invoice before the work began. This ensured that we both understood what was possible, the price and what was able to be guaranteed. So if there was a permanent stain or damaged area. I would make a not on the invoice that allowed me to complete the job and guarantee what I could.
But doctors and medical professionals are prohibited by law and governing and overseeing boards from offering a guarantee. So I created a personal promise for my print and Yellow Page ad design clients that were medical professionals. This is one of my most secret print and Yellow Page ad design marketing strategies. What medical professionals want to do is display a personal promise in their print and Yellow Page ad design that clearly spells out what your patients can expect as far as your training and the care they can expect to receive. This gets around the “No Guarantees” rules and informs the prospective patient what they can expect when they become your patient.
I have completed over 200 print and Yellow Page ad designs in the last 3 years with specific personal promises for medical professionals for dentists, chiropractors, cosmetic surgeons, veterinarians, and other medical professionals, and none of my clients have received negative scrutiny from overseeing boards and governing bodies. Using a personal promise as a guarantee in medicine is an insider secret sure to make your print and Yellow Page ad design outperform your toughest competition.
I include guarantees and personal promises in the print and Yellow Page ad designs my marketing agency completes every week. Using a risk-reversal guarantee is a highly profitable small business marketing strategy you can use to increase your ROI on all your print and Yellow Page ad designs.
Tags: advertising, Larry Conn, marketing, marketing strategy, print advertising, small business marketing, Yellow Page ad design