Exhibit at a Trade Show

Have you considered advertising your services at a trade show? In addition to local shows, like a "Home & Garden Show", there are specialized trade shows (like the Hurricane Expo) that enable you to reach prospective customers in large numbers.

There are some keys to getting the most out of your involvement, however:

If possible, share the cost. Approach your insurance agent and ask if he or she would be interested in sharing a booth. You might name your booth "Peace of Mind" and then have both of your company logos on a sign below that.

Make your own signage. You don't need a $1,000 booth -- have some professional signs and banners made, and get some disaster photos blown up.

Have a contest. A memory contest would be a good way to reinforce the principle of a home inventory service. Create a contest where you have 3-4 people compete against each other to see how many items they can write down from memory after looking at a photo of a room for 1 minute. Offer the winner a prize -- say, a $50 towards your service.

Conduct a drawing for a Free Express Inventory (up to one hour of service, or [$] towards a full inventory). Use the drawing to collect the name of qualified prospects. But don't just collect names and addresses. Ask for e-mail addresses too, and ask if they are interested in a Free Guide to Conducting a Home Inventory.

Give something away. Imprinted pens or notepads are good, as are refrigerator magnets.

Staffing makes a huge difference. Of course, you'll be working your booth -- but you'll need help. You need at least one other person to help interact with people while you engage with potential clients. Choose someone with an upbeat personality who isn't afraid to help you draw attention. My mom has always been my best trade show worker -- she's non-threatening (think 60-something, short, and silver-haired), and isn't afraid to stop people to ask them to sign up for the drawing.

Don't be afraid to SELL at the show. Make sure to have sample (fictionalized) inventory books available for people to look through. Set appointments at the show -- offer a substantial discount (30-35%) for folks who put down a non-refundable $50 deposit at the show. Ideally, you want to walk out of a show with a half-dozen or dozen appointments.

Follow up...quickly! You might be exhausted when you get home from the trade show ... but now is not the time to rest. Instead, create a mailing list of prospects -- and tag them as A, B, and C. "A" prospects either won a prize or set an appointment. Follow up with them first. (To confirm the appointment and reinforce your interest in working with them to provide peace of mind.)

"B" prospects provided an e-mail address and requested more information (the free guide mentioned above). Send them an e-mail within the next 24 hours with the guide attached, and a link to your website. (Create it -- a simple one-page tip sheet -- BEFORE the trade show so it's ready to go. (Follow up with a phone call to these individuals within a week to make sure they received the guide and "to see if they have any questions about conducting their inventory.")

"C" prospects didn't provide an e-mail address, but they might have provided a home address. Send a postcard to these individuals and direct them to your website for free resources on emergency preparedness and disaster planning. (You do have those resources on your website, right?)

Exhibiting at a trade show is expensive -- so make sure you are prepared to capture sales at the show, and to follow up to make the most of the leads you identify.

Using Joint Promotions to Build Your HIS Business

Building on the "Who's In Your Network" idea, identify people or businesses who you can work with to build your home inventory service business.

"Working Together, We Can Do Better." You often hear this saying in campaign season – implying that by sharing resources and information, everyone can profit. Working together is also the fundamental principle behind cross-promotions and joint promotions.

Both types of promotions are developed with related but non-competing businesses. Both participating businesses “win” through increased sales and lower distribution costs.

Joint promotions are things both businesses do together to reach prospects – sharing the cost of a direct mailer to prospective customers or each other’s mailing lists, a coupon booklet of savings featuring both businesses, or a joint newsletter.

Cross promotions are things you do to reach each other’s prospects – swapping mailing lists, developing a coupon for your services to give to your promotional partner’s customers, or a bag-stuffer insert for retail partners.

One way to identify perfect prospects is to develop a partnership with a related but non-competing business (an RNB). An RNB already has clients that may need your services. There are varying levels of partnership, from “piggybacking” your offer on a mailing from your RNB to swapping mailing lists for one time or multiple use.

Think about the mailing list that you have (hopefully already) compiled. You’ve done business with a specific, identifiable group of customers. Once these individuals have been identified, you can use them to help you reach other identifiable customer groups, by developing a partnership with other businesses. You make an agreement to reach their existing customers, and they make an agreement to reach your existing customers.

Some possible promotional partners for a home inventory service business include: insurance agents, cleaning services, home security companies, and lawn service businesses.

Once you’ve identified these possible promotional partners, determine if any of them appear on your current client or referral list. If you currently have a referral relationship with an insurance agent, for example, it will be easier to approach him or her to develop a joint promotion than it would be to approach a complete stranger as a possible promotional partner.

What do you say to a possible promotional partner to get them to participate in a joint promotion with you?

First of all, it helps to understand exactly what a joint promotion is: It’s any type of offer that allows two businesses to reach each other’s prospects. It can be a coupon, a direct mailing, a seminar hosted by both businesses, or swapping mailing lists for one-time use.

Next, remember that you are giving instant credibility to your potential promotional partner’s business, so make sure you are dealing with a reputable individual or company before you approach that other person. You don’t want your customers to think negatively of you when they receive bad service from someone with which you’ve developed a joint promotion.

After you’ve identified a possible promotional partner, ask to meet with him or her for just a few minutes. Show a real sample of the certificate or coupon you’d like to distribute. If you’d like to develop a newsletter (see below), create a sample.

Always frame the joint promotion in “you” benefits – your promotional partner will benefit by reaching your customers (possible prospects for his or her business), inexpensively and with the instant credibility of a referral.

A joint promotion:

• Is inexpensive. When you work together to reach each other’s customers, it’s a lot less expensive than renting mailing lists or doing direct mail or television or radio advertising. Plus, you have the added advantage of knowing that the prospects you are reaching actually need your service.
• Makes it easy to track results. How many times have you spent money on an advertisement and not been able to know if it was effective or not? You can determine the exact amount of revenue your joint promotion created. When customers redeem their savings certificates, write the dollar amount of the transaction on the back of the certificate. Then, at the end of the month, or whenever your joint promotion is completed, add up the amount of the transactions and you can calculate the response you received.
• Introduces you to new ways of promoting your business. Tired of relying on brochures and personal contacts? Let others help you reach potential customers – everyone benefits!
  

What kind of offers can you develop if you have more than one promotional partner? Consider a booklet of savings, with each participating vendor offering a $10 to $15 savings. With five participating businesses, you can offer customers a $50 savings booklet when he or she uses any one of the businesses. By printing up the booklet all at once, you’ll save on printing costs, and with all of you distributing them, you’ll get five times the return!

Consider developing a newsletter jointly with each promotional partner contributing one article and one “coupon offer” per issue. You can produce the newsletter monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly, and all participating businesses can distribute free copies to their clients, by mail, by dropping them off at customers' homes, or by placing them on a counter or in a display stand.

While some potential partners may not be interested in participating (usually because they don’t realize how joint promotions work), remember that there are other small business owners out there, like you, who are looking for ways to reach prospective customers easily and inexpensively, Just keep looking until you meet up with these people!

Guerrilla Marketing: Your First 90 Days

While bigger companies (like Coke, Pepsi, Nike, etc.) can afford to "buy" brand name awareness, a home inventory service can get started with high impact, low cost marketing ideas. Slow and steady wins the race ... a couple of paid gigs will get you going and start to produce referrals. You don't need to spend hundreds -- or thousands -- of dollars to generate that new business, however.

Your best investment to start (best place to spend your startup marketing money):

• Car magnets
• Business cards (most use Vistaprint [Click here for 50% OFF Premium Business Cards & FREE Return Address Labels], at least to start)
• A Chamber of Commerce membership
• A phone book listing (not necessarily a Yellow Pages ad, because most directories don't have a specific "Home Inventory Services" category, but having a business line that will get you in the white pages is important).
• A web site (professionally designed if you can afford it, but clean, simple, well-thought out, and error-free, at a minimum). Invest in a service like Constant Contact to start building your mailing list. Click here to try their Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing for free!
• Door hangers (200-500 of them to start -- can print your own or order online from NEBS.com or one of the other door hanger-specific web sites out there). Simple is still effective.

Your 90-day game plan:

1. Attend all the Chamber of Commerce events you can (especially the networking ones). Don't just focus on getting YOUR name out there -- instead, collect the business cards of the people you meet and send them a "nice to meet you" letter. Then add them to your database. Keep in mind that small business owners are also a good prospect for non-revenue inventory services (that is, inventories of their office excluding any inventory of product that is for sale).
2. Join a local tips group if there's one in your network (BNI is a nationally known one). Find one that has lots of business-to-consumer members
3. Make a list and contact at least 2-3 insurance agents in your area per week. Draft up an introductory letter and then followup with a call and ask if you can take them to breakfast or lunch to introduce yourself and find out more about their specialties. You are a prospective referral source for them too! (Start with your own insurance agent, and then ask for referrals out from there).
4. Research and see if there is a local branch of the Independent Insurance Agents of America in your area, and find out if they have a newsletter or meetings. Sponsor one of *those* instead of doing consumer marketing.
5. Follow the lead of real estate agents and "farm" an area -- preferably your neighborhood. Is there a neigborhood association? Do they have a newsletter? Contribute an article on conducting a home inventory (I'll try to put together some samples of this type of stuff and post it later). Do they have meetings? Offer to come and speak to them. Take door hangers door-to-door in the area. Put a time-limited offer on the door hanger (i.e., 15% off your inventory if you book your appointment in the next 30 days.)
6. Plan and execute your public relations campaign. (Here's another whole separate article with examples from me...) You're a new business. That's a news release. There's a disaster in your area (flooding, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, major housefire) -- that's another news release (with tips on conducting your own inventory). Send an announcement to your alma mater for their magazine or newsletter (especially if it's in the same town you live in now).

That's your first 90 days.

If you are buying a TV or radio or newspaper ad over $50 in your first 90 days of business, you're wasting your valuable start-up money. The real problem you have is not a lack of name awareness of YOUR business, it's a lack of awareness of the WHOLE INDUSTRY at this point. Do some guerrilla marketing first to seed the market before buying awareness. (I recommend any of Jay Conrad Levinson's "Guerrilla Marketing" books -- available online (used or new), at your local bookstore, or your local library).