For people making payroll, by people making payroll
For people making payroll, by people making payroll
Comanche Marketing has a terrific series of articles on boosting your average sale (#2 of The Three Ways). One that caught my eye was to use your fax cover page as a marketing tool. Wow, what a great idea!
So I decided to do that. That was the easy part. But how would I start? Right about there is where I usually grind to a halt. Maybe you have this problem, too: we have a great idea, but no clue where to start, so we just sigh and move on.
You know the phrase “the best is the enemy of the good”? In this context, it means if I don’t see how to do the best possible fax cover sheet ad, I won’t do it at all. Ryan and I have been masters at this excuse.
But let’s face it: it’s pretty hard to mess up a fax cover sheet. Just try something. As long as you don’t do something offensive (use a little judgment, right?), you’ll be OK. If you use coupons, slap one on there. If your customers need to come see you, post your hours. If you are a restaurant, post a description of your best dish. If you are anyone, just post a bunch of customer testimonials (you do have some, right?).
So how did I do it? Well, I was fast out of the gate, and my graphic designer gave me exactly what I asked for:
While it was exactly what I asked, it had looked better in my head than it did on the screen. So far, no big deal.
But then I made the Big Mistake: since I didn’t know what to do next, I did nothing. What I should have done was start using this right away and move on to something else. It was far better marketing than the standard cover sheet we had always used. But I didn’t. I failed to remember that this is only a fax cover sheet – I can change it next week and every week forever if I want. I’m not paying for a huge stack of brochures that have to be as good as possible the first time. It isn’t an earth-shattering deal that will make or break my company. It’s simply another little thing I can do to push us ahead.
Even though I knew better, I let the best be the enemy of the good. After spending far too much time on it, I wound up with testimonials:
Is this perfect? Not by a long shot. Is it good enough? Probably. Is it better than a vanilla cover sheet? Definitely.
So here’s what I’m doing: I’m declaring this done and asking the office staff to use it. If they need more space to write, we’ll fix it. We’ll tweak it as we need to, and if one day someone has a brainstorm about something better to put on here, we’ll change it.
You can do this easily. Don’t take weeks on yours like I did on mine. If you want to promote your company in this way, pick something and do it! Understand the risk of it not being perfect (very low) and adjust your time/money/energy investment accordingly.
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Posted: September 30th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Category: Marketing and Selling
Chris Gattis Says:
Another excellent marketing idea. I never thought of doing this.
I too am constantly stopped by best getting in the way of doing something. I am somewhat of a perfectionist (in certain things) and find myself stopped in my tracks and moving on to something else if I can’t get something just right. Like you said, it’s only a fax cover sheet and it can be changed next week or tomorrow. It’s not to say we should do sloppy work. We should always do our best work. But don’t let perfect get in the way of getting something done.
