58. I tried magazine advertising to win new clients. One of my most expensive mistakes. Ever.
Don't do this.
Throwback to late 2014.
2 years after starting my cleaning business, we were doing ok.
The business had doubled in size year on year. We won a major commercial account and our tenancy cleaning division was growing.
Amongst all this excitement, I explored different avenues for generating new business.
95% of our business development came from cold calling and drop-ins.
We weren’t serious about social media and our email marketing was getting started.
I’d also go to networking events from time to time.
Amongst all this I decided to spend £4,000 on a magazine campaign.
What was I thinking?
In today’s email:
Rule 1: Don’t spend £4,000 on a magazine campaign for your cleaning business.
Rule 2: Never forget Rule 1
👇🏾 Listen: How automated is your sales process?
THE BIG IDEA
When I launched my cleaning business, one of the core values was sustainability.
Green cleaning wasn’t a big trend in 2012. But, my research showed that sustainable and environmentally friendly business practices would play a big role in the future.
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) was all the rage.
A few months after my business launched, I had an article published in the November 2012 edition of Tomorrow’s Cleaning, a widely circulated industry magazine.
Cost: £0.
ROI: Unknown. I wrote the article to gain credibility as a new business. I also used it as a sales + marketing asset.
Here it is 👇🏾 (Terrible pic, I know!)
Rule 1: Don’t spend £4,000 on a magazine campaign for your cleaning business.
Both the commercial and tenancy cleaning side of the business were growing.
Out of the blue, I got contacted by an agent from Fabric magazine. We were cleaning in some luxury areas in North West London thanks to a couple of agents we were working for.
Those agents were partners in a magazine that got distributed to 50,000 homes in North West London’s most affluent postcodes.
Keep that in mind.
Somehow, through our work, the Fabric agent got hold of my contact details.
After a couple of meetings, I agreed to:
A full page advertorial
A half page advert
A quarter page advert
That’s £4,000 please.
You should be thinking “WTF?!?!?”
And you’re right.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to attract high profile clients.
In addition, I thought I could use the ads as leverage for getting access to all of the agents that published the magazine.
Decent idea (perhaps).
Terrible execution.
Rule 2: Never forget Rule 1
My ads got featured in 3 editions of Fabric magazine.
The quarter page was in the December 2014 edition 👇🏾
The advertorial was in the January 2015 edition 👇🏾
The half page ad was in the February 2015 edition 👇🏾
And the ROI?
1 phone call.
0 sales.
= - £4,000.
Here’s where I went wrong:
Target Market
The ads focused on commercial cleaning.
The magazine audience was luxury home owners.
Yes some of them will work at or run businesses with premises that needed cleaning.
But, the magazine targeted leisure not business customers.
Cleaning Service
The ads mentioned residential and tenancy cleaning in passing.
I should have chosen one cleaning service (residential or tenancy).
The advertorial should have followed this structure:
Common problem
Value Prop
Solution
Result
I didn’t do any of that.
Instead the advertorial was all about me and how I started the business blah blah blah.
This content was like the 'About' section on our website.
Value Proposition
The ads didn’t have one.
Nothing. Zero. Nada.
Instead, I gave the reader a tag line that rhymed:
“Don’t settle for an ordinary cleaning service, demand an organised cleaning service.”
Please.
WTF is a reader supposed to do with that?
No wonder I only received one call from the ads.
Nothing in that tag line screams value or what problem we solved.
Call To Action
Yes our contact details were on the ads.
But the ads didn’t encourage the reader to take action.
What’s the next step after reading the ad?
At the very least it should have said “Give us a call for a free quote”
Instead, the reader turned the page and forgot ever seeing the ad.
Looking back, there were a host of things wrong with this magazine campaign.
But it was a valuable lesson learned.
To run an effective magazine campaign, you need:
A clear message
A target market
A value proposition
Clear + distinct branding
Strong copywriting
A Call to Action
Good negotiating skills
A marketing budget
Even then, I’d use all these skills to run more effective online campaigns at a fraction of the cost.
Yes you can say that your business features in a magazine. But, unless it leads to sales and a good ROI, there are better marketing channels for your cleaning business.
Content to check out
In this week’s episode of The Growth Lab podcast, I have a chat with Martin Riley about how you can implement the Business Jet Engine Model for your cleaning business. Listen here.
Prefer watching over listening? Check out The Growth Lab podcast on YouTube.
Need More Help?
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Thanks for reading!
Matt @ The Growth Lab
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