The 5 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Most Foreclosure Cleanup Businesses Make — And How To Avoid Them

Feb. 9, 2010 - PRLog -- Following are the five mistakes most small business owners make. Avoid them and watch your foreclosure cleanup business flourish that much sooner!

1. Mistake No. 1 --  Fail to Implement a Marketing Plan: Most small business owners know a lot about their product/service, but little about how to market it. Marketing is the lifeblood of every business.

No matter how good your product/service, if no one knows about it, it will remain "your little secret." So, ideally, before you open your foreclosure cleanup doors, formulate, implement and plan to follow a marketing plan. What will you do daily, weekly, monthly to increase sales?

You must make marketing a habit to become successful in the foreclosure cleanup industry.

2. Mistake No. 2 -- Don't Speak to Core Audience: French to the French; English to the English: What does this mean? Specifically, speak to your core audience in their language.

Your core audience is made up of your loyalists, your die-hard fans. These are foreclosure cleaning clients who will use your services, NOT because you are having a sale but because they truly like, trust in and have come to identify with your company. (And, they need your services in this foreclosure-ridden market!)

For example purposes, let’s say that every time you went to buy paint, you always used Behr. You don’t even consider other brands. Why? Because you know Behr and you have come to depend upon and trust in their quality. This brand of paint has never let you down. Because of this, you don't want to take a chance on another brand.

This is called customer loyalty and it's what you as a foreclosure cleanup business owner should always strive for. Twenty to 30% of your customers will account for 70% to 80% of your sales. This proves that customer loyalty is a foundational building block that you must have to sustain long-term sales.

Continuing with the paint example, conversely, if you were a "fair weather" customer, you might ask the salesman, "What's on sale today?" when you go to purchase more paint. If Sherwin Williams beats Behr's price, you might purchase it.

This type of customer should be lumped into the “peripheral customer” group. They'll use your company for a job if the price is low enough; if you throw in free gutter cleaning, if you give them a break on the lock changing fee, etc. This not your core audience, the audience you should speak to all the time.  

3. Mistake No. 3 -- Give Up On a Marketing Plan Too Soon: "I sent out 500 brochures and only got three calls." Or, "I placed an ad in the paper and nobody called."

Not taking into account that something could be wrong with your message, one-time contact is NOT effective marketing. It almost never works.

When you consider that a customer has to see your message 7 to 28 times before they act (depending on the source you read), placing one ad or sending one postcard mailing is not going to bring in consistent jobs that will propel your business.

Marketing is a long-range plan in foreclosure cleanup; not a one-hit sales program. This is why it's important to choose marketing methods you can afford to repeat. Postcards, writing and distributing free articles, email campaigns, etc. All of these are low-cost are free! Use them on a consistent basis to see consistent results.

4. Mistake No. 4 -- Don't Market When Things Get Tight: You've had a slow month and figure you won't design and send that postcard mailer after all. Big mistake!

How is NOT contacting your customers going to help? Maybe you can't afford to send a postcard, but what about doing an e-mail campaign or some face-to-face networking? Just because you can't afford to do what you want to do is NO reason to abandon marketing altogether for that month.

Whatever you do, do something. Don't allow yourself to slide into the habit of marketing only when you have the money. Use free and low-cost measures all the time; that way you will never have an excuse not to market. And you will be greasing the pipes continuously for foreclosure cleanup business. (http://foreclosurecleanupbusiness.blogspot.com)

5. Mistake No. 5 -- Fail to Diversify Marketing Plan: To reach new clients, you need to diversify your marketing efforts. If all of your energies have been concentrated online, try some offline marketing (eg, postcards and sales letters).

Try sending a press release to a newspaper to get some media coverage, or going to a Chamber of Commerce meeting to network in person. You never know how it might turn out. The point is to always do some marketing. When you’re in business, marketing never stops.

Avoid these five mistakes and you will be well on your way to growing your foreclosure cleaning enterprise.

Good luck with your marketing efforts in your foreclosure cleanup business.

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Foreclosure Cleanup, LLC, authoring company of How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business: FREE Articles & Advice (http://foreclosurecleanupbusiness.blogspot.com) and How to Start a Foreclosure Cleanup Business ebook (http://www.Foreclosure-Cleanup-Business.com)