You can invest in Top Of Mind Awareness with advertising. To make the investment worthwhile, you need to become well known for solving specific problems.
Problems have Top Of Mind Awareness because of people's daily experiences & news reports. As problems become common, you should earn Top Of Mind Awareness by offering specific solutions.
Earn Top Of Mind Awareness with a reputation for offering superior value.
Businesses can team up to solve problems & invest in cooperative advertising to make Top Of Mind Awareness affordable.
As soon as you're aware of problems, you should check your inventory & ask suppliers about solutions.
Learn who has or will have problems & reach them with urgent messages about full solutions. If you don't have full solutions, you can work with other businesses to offer full solutions.
A Dangerous Household Problem
In the US, there are news reports about lead poisoning from pipes & paint.
In some neighborhoods, houses were built about the same time & have the same issues. You could use direct mail to reach neighborhoods with messages about hazards.
Depending on local laws, you might have testing kits or information about who can legally test for lead.
By advising people to talk to a doctor about medical tests, you'd show how serious the problem could be.
After you gain attention & raise awareness, you can offer solutions.
Offer the Right Solution for Each Person
For this example, let's assume you own a hardware store & your advertising partners (team members) are a plumber, painter & carpenter. You could advertise about poisoning from lead water pipes & lead paint.
(Note: I'm using this example to show how businesses can use details to sell products & services. You should focus on details of problems & solutions to show benefits are vital.)
Individual & combined offers from a team can focus on a variety of customers' conditions. As a team, businesses have more resources, including a bigger knowledge base.
The team can make better offers, so each member can be stronger in its category.
You can split advertising costs or you could pay for ads & partners could pay you per sale. Payments could be a set dollar amount per sale or a percentage of transactions.
Together, you can afford longer advertising & more frequency. Longer advertising can present more product & service details to help people choose options.
Your combined promotions can raise more awareness than smaller, individual efforts. As a team, you also can establish Top Of Mind Awareness by offering better benefits than competitors.
Partners can include individual & combined offers, so customers will have a full range of solutions.
Advise People To Quickly Solve Problems
After cities replace municipal lead pipes, there are still lead pipes in houses.
Assure people you have knowledge & other resources they need. Their solution can start soon after they contact you.
They might get partial relief by using water filters to remove lead. You can help people fully solve their problem by replacing lead pipes.
Show you have valuable knowledge by summarizing the problem & solution steps. Explain what's necessary & what people's options are. Explain how you help people plan for what happens.
Example: Lead pipe replacement probably requires making & patching holes in walls, floors or ceilings. There could be another hazard because walls might be covered with lead paint. Making those holes can break up paint & lead paint particles can become airborne.
While that work is being done, it's inconvenient & possibly unsafe for people living in a house. Since potential hazards increase until the work is finished, professionals work quickly to reduce hazards & inconvenience.
Explain how professionals assure safety & satisfaction. They can do it by showing step by step results before closing up walls. They can also show & explain materials & methods before they start working.
If there are regulations, specify how professionals comply with laws. Set people's buying criteria like this: 1- Advise people how to be sure the work is done in full compliance with laws by a qualified business. 2- Specify how you fulfill legal & professional requirements. 3- Explain why each step & method is necessary.
Hire Professionals For Hazardous Work
Help people understand their conditions are hazardous & why they should hire professionals - example: "Lead poisoning causes long-term health problems. We have equipment for safely removing hazardous materials. As we remove lead paint, we safely remove lead laden dust & scraps. We obey all laws for disposing of lead pipes."
If people think of doing it themselves to save money, they should consider how quickly & safely they can do it.
You could outline hazards for home owners who choose to do that work. Explain why your knowledge & equipment are necessary. Summarize regulations about disposing of scraps & lead pipes.
Hire Professionals For Full Solutions
If the conditions aren't hazardous, people might wonder if they should do a task or hire a professional.
A professional could offer consultations, including diagnosis & instructions for fully solving problems. Professionals could visit early in a day & check back later.
Depending on customers' skills, here are some options-
Option 1: Professionals could do complicated work. Customers could do the other work.
Option 2: After customers do tasks, consultants could check the work & make adjustments.
Option 3: Multiple professionals could be involved. Example - After plumbers replace leaky pipes, carpenters could patch walls or show customers how to do it. Painters or customers could paint walls.
You can help people choose from a list of options. Example: "We have instructions, tools & materials you can use for these repairs: (list). Hire us if you find these problems: (List hazards they might find & legal prohibitions about who should those tasks)."
Rate The Difficulty & Risk Levels
With your knowledge of local conditions, you can be an authority on fulfilling people's needs.
To keep problems from getting worse, people need to quickly determine if they'll do tasks or hire somebody. You can help them compare options.
You could use a scale to rate the difficulty & risk levels, so people can determine if they'll do tasks. After setting a rating, explain why.
Here are optional rating criteria - Difficulty could be rated according to the kinds of parts involved or tools needed. Risks can include poisonous residue & gases, or if sharp tools & parts are involved.
Home owners are distracted by many priorities & might have stress from several unsolved problems. You can reduce their stress with guidelines for deciding whether to hire somebody or do tasks by themselves. You can help to prioritize solutions, then set a budget & schedule.
If consumers do a task, they need to diagnose a problem, learn how to fix it, then buy & organize what they need. They may need help choosing the best products for their conditions.
You can offer kits (including diagnostic & repair instructions) of materials with or without tool purchases or rentals. Kits can be combined with consultations. It's important to consider what people need for one time repairs or frequent maintenance.
People want bargains & a bargain can be a total (permanent) solution even if it doesn't have a discount price.
You should offer better, more convenient solutions than competitors.
Amateurs might assume they can diagnose & solve a problem, so you might tactfully suggest reading instructions.
After starting, people might find a problem is worse than they thought. If they follow instructions step-by-step, they can notice at which point they find something unexpected.
When they ask for help, they can more easily report what happened at a particular step. Their descriptions can include what's right & wrong. After good & bad symptoms & events are isolated, a more precise diagnosis & thorough solution are possible.
As you outline knowledge people need to diagnose problems, you should consider various issues. Examples -
Can a problem be accurately diagnosed before disassembling parts?
Do you have tips to guide people in disassembling only what's necessary?
Disassembly can be confusing & cause more stress if people don't already have everything they need.
After disassembly, problems become more urgent, so people might have to solve a problem even if they have to delay other tasks.
Do you have tips for organizing & identifying parts for easy reassembly?
Do you have tips for checking parts to determine what to replace? Do you have a list of parts & tools they need? Do you offer tool rentals?
If there are typical results, your instructions can guide people to the next step. Example - "If you find __, it means __. Your next step is __."
If they find anything unusual, they can ask your team for help. Your team can update instruction books as you get customers' questions & results reports. Your team's knowledge base will grow & you can offer more value.
With these efforts, you can learn about customers' concerns & explore options competitors don't offer.
Even if you can't compete with a wide selection, you can offer better solutions with products & services combinations from multiple businesses. A business team can coordinate offers instead of each business expanding products & services.
Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.
Copyright 2018 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/
