How To Creat A Marketing Plan That Sells Your Service... Without Costing You All Your Money

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

There are differences between selling a product and selling a service. One crucial one seems to be that people selling services come to the business of marketing with a lot of weighty baggage that doesn't begin to handicap people selling a product. When you're selling a product, you know you're going to have to spend far more time marketing than developing it. There's a certain inevitable clarity, therefore, about product marketing.

This definitely isn't true about marketing a service. Instead, those who do often feel that because their service is so valuable, people will find them instead of them having to find their prospect. This is, of course, just the way most service providers like things. Amazingly, large numbers of service sellers feel that their status is dependent on them not marketing. That marketing undercuts their status and reduces them to the level of the mundane sales personnel they despise.

Service sellers all too often focus on their own (often fragile) status... to the detriment of developing their business and helping their prospects. 

This situation is not helped, of course, by the fact that all too few service sellers learn anything about marketing during the time they're becoming a  service specialist. It's quite possible to go through most service training programs (whether in the law, accounting, medicine or running a dry-cleaning establishment) and never hear the word "marketing," much less how to use marketing to develop their business. In my view, this constitutes the kind of criminal neglect that the American educational establishment too often exhibits. Service and marketing must become as inextricably linked as product and marketing.

The end result of a system that mixes educational neglect and personal disdain is that most service providers find themselves woefully unprepared for the business of connecting with the prospects whom they can help and who are absolutely essential for the development of their businesses. Fortunately, this problem is soluble.

Developing A Service Marketing Plan

Building a service business involves focusing on some very simple steps. 

. First, you must develop a service that offers meaningful benefits to your prospects at a price that is comparatively attractive with other service sellers in your area. From a marketing standpoint, these "meaningful benefits" are crucial.

. Second, you must identify those individuals for whom the benefits will in fact be meaningful, either because they have the problem you can solve or the want that you can help them satisfy. 

. Third, you must develop a plan outlining the various ways of reaching the individuals you can help... a plan that makes it clear exactly what you intend to do, when you intend to do it, and how you intend to do it.

. Fourth, and finally, you must implement your plan and monitor the results of each of your marketing activities to find out which of them made money... and thus should be continued... and which of them didn't... and should, therefore, be dropped.

When a service seller comes to me and tells me his business isn't developing and making money, I know the problem lies in at least one of these four areas, and possibly more. Today I want to concentrate exclusively on the third of these, on developing a plan to reach the individuals you can help.

Key Elements Of A Service Marketing Plan

To be successful, a service marketing plan must have these essential elements. It must be:

. written. A plan that isn't written isn't a plan. It's just an idea that gives you no way to check and confirm your progress... and make reasoned decisions about changes.

. concise. The best plans are short plans. The kind of plan I'm talking about need not be longer than two 8 1/2" by 11" pages.

. specific. The plan should lay out in precise detail exactly what you are going to do, exactly when you're going to do it, exactly how you're going to do it. One specific step should follow another specific step.

"Warm" Marketing Steps vs "Cold" Marketing Steps

Although it may seem superfluous to say so, the objective of marketing is to get clients and derive profit. It isn't to engage in tasks that take up time and create expense. I say this only because it seems to me much service "marketing" that's done is quite pointless. It's done because the service seller feels he has to "do something", rather than doing the thing that needs to be done to connect with prospects... in the way that needs to be done to get the prospect to take immediate action and become a buyer.

To be successful, a marketing plan should be made up of two distinct parts: "warm" marketing steps that establish you as an insider, as someone the prospect feels he knows and trusts. And "cold" marketing steps in which you approach prospects who have no prior knowledge of who you are and what you can do for them. They need to be persuaded. "Warm" activities should always take preference.

Warming Up Your Prospects

Warm marketing activities include:

. networking
. publishing articles in print media read by your prospects
. appearing on electronic media programs your prospects listen to
. giving speeches, workshops and talk programs through professional and civic organizations that attract your prospects

"Warm" marketing activities are beneficial to service sellers for many reasons:

. Instead of having to tell people yourself how great you are and what you can do for them, others, like a satisfied customer or media source, tell them for you. These activities validate you as an expert, as someone who has a solution to the prospect's problem and can be trusted... because others have trusted and benefitted from you.

. They're inexpensive. "Warm" activities cost less. It's a lot less expensive to appear on a station's radio show for a half hour than it is to buy a half hour of radio time, even if you could. It's much less expensive to get a satisfied client to recruit a new client for you than it is for you to recruit that first satisfied customer via "cold" marketing.

. "Warm" marketing builds your reputation. Service sellers who become adept at these "warm" activities naturally become leaders that other people want to engage. Thus, instead of looking like the quintessential hard-talking salesman, they can engage in truly compelling marketing, using charm, graciousness, honesty, and all the other aspects of client-centered behavior.

Making "Warm" Marketing Work For You

This kind of marketing will only work for you if you have a plan to make it work. Let's see what this means in relation to each of the categories above:

. Networking. "Warm" marketers are organized marketers. We know that people who've been happy with our service know other people who have the same problem... and who would be equally happy if only they used our service. But how can we get to these people? Here's where organized networking comes in. You've got to:

. ask each satisfied customer for the name, address and telephone number of at least one person he knows with the same problem. Develop a form that you can give each current customer, or that you can fill out over the telephone. If the marketing chain stops with your present customer, it is your fault. Give the satisfied customer who helps you some kind of premium, a discount on your service. Or something he can use; just enough to say thank you. Another thing: if you provide the kind of service that provides continuing benefits... then ask for continuing referrals. Go back and check your customers after three months, six months. And if they're still happy, ask for more referrals. 

. Publishing articles. Lots of service providers publish articles. But few of them derive much benefit. That's because they forget that the purpose of publishing the article isn't to get published... much less to disseminate information. It's to motivate a prospect to take immediate action to connect with you.

The kinds of articles service providers should write must excite their prospect... not just inform him. This means these articles should focus on the problem the prospect wants to solve... or the want he wishes to have satisfied. They should let him know that he can get what he wants. And that you can help him. This "you can help him" information should go in what I call a "Resource Box", a section that concludes each article. It tells the prospect that you can give him the benefit he wishes ("marketing materials that get your prospects to respond faster")... not the service you provide ("Jeffrey Lant is a Cambridge-based copywriter"). See the difference? If you don't excite the prospect to respond, your article has been a pointless waste of time.

. Appearing on electronic media programs. The same applies to your appearances on radio and television. You're not there to inform and enlighten. You're there to let your prospects in the audience know that you understand their problem... and can solve it. If only they have the sense to pick up the telephone and call you right away. This means you have to provide them with complete follow-up details.

. Giving speeches and other talk programs. The point of giving a talk program is not to give a talk. It's to get convince members of the audience that you can personally assist them reach their goals. This means that your talk has been a waste of time unless you've given every member of the audience complete follow-up information about what you can do for them and unless (far more important) you've got the name, address and telephone number of every member of the audience, so you can take the initiative to follow up and remind them what you can do for them. By this strict standard, most of the talk programs service sellers give are useless.

Factoring in "Cold" Marketing

In "cold" marketing, your prospects don't necessarily know anything about you and have no reason to trust you. True, they may (indeed, should) have the problem you can solve... or the want you can help them satisfy... but your message must compete with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others. Thus, the trick in "cold" marketing is to:

. pile one client-centered benefit on another;
. provide an incentive for immediate action, and
. let your prospect know not only what they gain by acting now but what they lose by failing to do so.

Marketing materials that don't contain each of these components are marketing materials that aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Which is precisely why so many service seller marketing materials end up in the trash.

Once you've thought through your benefits and incentives, you can use them in many different ways, in:

. direct mail pieces		. paid ads
. flyers			. brochures
. free client newsletters	. post card decks

In considering which of these means to use and how to use them, several pertinent factors must be taken into account:

. Will you be able to reach the same targeted group again? Whatever you're marketing, you must understand that the first time you approach a targeted body of prospects who know little or nothing about you, your response may be minimal... particularly if your incentive for immediate action is not a persuasive one. Marketing succeeds to the extent that you constantly hammer home persuasive client-centered benefits to a precise, specific group. This is how they come to know -- and to trust -- you. And finally to act.

. Will you get able to "capture" the names of those who see your marketing vehicle? If you can't get the names... and thus cannot continue to market to your prospects via your own house mailing list... the means you're considering probably isn't a sensible one. 

Remember, to be a success in marketing means asking the prospect to do as little as possible... and understanding that you must do as much as possible. Simply running an ad that talks about you and that doesn't persuade the prospect to contact you immediately is an exercise in futility. All marketing must be geared to persuading the prospect to take the one simple action that will put him in touch with you. After that, you must do everything else.

. Will you be able to cut the cost of reaching the same prospects by alternating "warm" and "cold" marketing activities? In other words, can you write an article for a newsletter that will reach your prospects... and then follow-up with a paid ad... and then offer this same group of prospects a workshop or speech? Remember, the objective is always to spend the fewest dollars to stimulate the greatest possible response. This means always being aware how you can maximize the effectiveness of the "cold" marketing dollars you spend by reinforcing them through "warm" marketing activities.

What Your Service Marketing Plan Does For You

The marketing plan you create succeeds to the extent that it:

. gives you control over your marketing process. Marketing cannot be haphazard, episodic or disorganized. Otherwise, you're wasting your time and money and giving your prospects the wrong signals.

. targets prospects who can benefit from your service... and gives you specific means of connecting with them on a regular basis... until such time as they fully trust you and come in sufficient numbers for you to realize your objectives.

. puts the emphasis on maximum response and minimum expense. This means you must explore the potential in "warm" marketing and use it in conjunction with "cold" marketing to achieve best results.

. gives you the data you need to make sensible decisions about what to keep doing and what to stop doing. 

My hunch is that you don't have such a plan now. In over ten years as a marketing consultant, not one of my clients has had such a plan before engaging me. Their marketing -- like your marketing -- was undirected, spasmodic, intermittent... and sadly unproductive. But yours -- like theirs -- won't be this way anymore, will it?
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Dr. Jeffrey Lant specializes in getting more of your prospects to buy what you'are selling. He works with clients both individually to create marketing materials that get immediate responses and provides step-by-step guidelines on how to sell more through books like CASH COPY: HOW TO OFFER YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SO YOUR PROSPECTS BUY THEM... NOW! ($27.95 postpaid); MONEY MAKING MARKETING: FINDING THE PEOPLE WHO NEED WHAT YOU'RE SELLING AND MAKING SURE THEY BUY IT ($34 postpaid) and MONEY TALKS: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CREATING A PROFITABLE WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR IN ANY FIELD ($34 postpaid). Order these resources through The Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog, 50 Follen St., Suite 507, Cambridge, MA 02138 or with MC/VISA at (617) 547-6372. Don't forget to ask for your FREE year's subscription to this quarterly business profit guide.vice sellers give are useless.

Factoring in "Cold" Marketing

In "cold