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Authenticity
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on March 8, 2010 @ 10:45 am
I had this With Compliments slip come through my front door a few months ago, I liked it, it got my attention. It was hand-written, personal and friendly. Wow, they were cleaning a ‘close neighbour’s’ gutters, were probably in the area, had a With Compliments slip handy and wrote me a nice message. Thanks Ben!
I didn’t need my gutters cleaned at that time but kept hold of it for the right time. A month later the same With Compliments slip came through my door. This time I inspected it closely, it wasn’t written in pen like I thought, it was a actually a print out.
The third one I had through my door prompted me to write this blog. The reason a genuine approach like this would work is because it’s personal and authentic. The moment you realise it’s not personal all that ‘trust’ goes away. They probably weren’t cleaning my ‘close neighbours gutters over the next few days’ (it’s a good thing I didn’t ask them!). On closer inspection of their website I found out they’re a national company so ‘Ben’ who posted this flyer through my door is probably not even a ‘Ben’.
The lesson to learn from this is you have to be authentic in your marketing otherwise people will see through it. If Ben was a local, one man band that cleaned gutters, had genuinely cleaned my neighbours gutters and posted this through my door and that’s the kind of person I was after to do my gutters then fantastic, it’s great marketing as it gets attention! If though it’s a nationwide company with local representatives, say that – show me who you are. Write me a flyer scaring me of the costs of not cleaning my gutters or tell me how the nationwide support makes your service better.
Just don’t try and fool me, because once you do that I will never use you!
I couldn’t agree more; there’s nothing worse than being tricked. It’s the lower slopes of Mount Dishonesty. If you want a friendly local service, it can be invisible. Most times you find that trades people like these rarely have to adverstise. You’ll have to ask people in your vicintiy for recommendations.
For instance, WOM keeps my plumber more than busy. He lives a few streets down and rarely has to venture more than a few minutes drive to look after his ‘database’. He’s responsive to my needs, lets me pay in instalments and wears appropriate work wear to prevent unsightly ‘plumbers bum’. What more could you want?