Is it just me or or do you think that stack of cash with eyes is brillant also? here is one commercial of it cleaning windows. I’m going to put a twist on this and use it on flyers and stuff. Has anyone else thought of doing this?
Geico uses the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va for a lot of their ads, if not all. They come up with this stuff, along with Ted Ward, Geico’s marketing VP. The stuff they come up with is great.
When the owner of your business is Warren Buffet, you can afford some nice ads!
The stack of cash with eyes works super good on video, how do you plan on using on a flier?
Since you like the stack of cash with the eyes, you’ll probably like this SNL clip. It’s so simple, but I almost die laughing about it everytime I see it.
Oh, the reason I know about the marketing agency and everything was I googled it a while back about the “cavemen” ad’s and got interested in everything and read forever.
Good info Micah. I’m not sure on exactly how I will use it yet. Brainstorming some stuff now though. That vid was funny.
Keep in mind guys GEICO and the rest do institutional advertising, not direct response. They are not asking anyone to call now and sales do not go up when you see these funny commercials. We can’t afford that.
They are strictly brand awareness ads. If we seen the staring money ad once we would not remember it. If the cavemen had 1 commercial we would have forgotten them like the other 100,000 commercials we seen last year.
They spend 100’s of millions to burn these images in our brains (I still don’t use GEICO and I likely never will- they were too expensive)
Who goes “look at the funny caveman, sign me up!”. nobody does.
The Martin Agency likely could not make us a dime even if they worked for us for free. They are into advertisng, not results marketing. They want cool commercials that win awards, who cares about how much money was made directly from their effort (which is 100% untrackable).
As business owners we care about image more than results
I think it foolish to try and do these ads as they do not lead to dollars. 70,000 people lost their jobs yesterday and it’s predicted 2 million more will in 2009.
Try and be cute or gitchy with a slim market and the price you pay could be your business.
I want to be the business that goes to the bank everyday, not the business with the funny ad and going belly up.
(p.s. insurance is a need and people have to have it, unlike clean windows)
just my thoughts… use caution and test small
Yeah - there is tremendous power in funny and ‘catchy’ ads.
All you have to do is find a way to MAKE it trackable and direct response, for your window cleaning company.
Incorporate some calls to action, and incorporate some kind of “phone code”, “promo code”, or unique URL, and you can track that puppy.
With massive amazing stock imagery at our fingertips for incredibly cheap prices, it’s very easy and affordable to at least experiment with this approach, and see what happens.
Try it!
I’m all for flashy and catchy if it makes the phone ring, and puts more customers on the books. And if it’s FUN!
People are bored stiff. EVERY single one of them.
Insert some smiles and laughter into their boring lives and they’ll love you for it, and give you their money more readily.
And tracking will show you where and when tweaks help.
On a personal level, this ad doesn’t excite me. I liked the caveman theme WAYY better. Don’t know why they scrapped it.
Do you have some rough concepts in mind, Steve?
i don’t really agree with this point of view. now certainly parts of it yes.
taking this from the angle of window washing, power washing, gutter cleaning, etc - not insurance- i think brand or catchy does work.
now i agree i don’t think the frogs sold more beer, or the cavemen more insurance…but we were entertained. i wonder did the big mac song sell more big macs…have to look into that one.
but i do think brand or brand recognition is important.
i/we have a “memorable” company name. i have had so many people tell me. they were looking for someone to wash the house or wash windows, and each one remembered my company’s name - or they couldn’t remember the name but remembered it was something unusual, weird, or whatever.
if you see my trucks or my advertising enough you may not have a need today but down the road when you’re trying to think of who you’ll call…you’ll remember me. i am telling you recognition is key. and yes it is absolutely imperative that we are offering more than a brand. we have to make sure we are offering quality services and products to match the brand awareness.
millions have been spent on studies to determine what color sells best, what type of music is most appealing, etc…and yes i am sure “we” have spent too much time and too much money on these things, but necessary to some degree. what we all know about marketing and advertising is based on these premises…what “we” like, what sells us.
wow i got a lot long winded there…i guess i am trying to say i would not worry so much about using the “eyeballs” to sell. pay attention to your brochures, website, business cards - making them eye-catching but not too busy! and just keep putting your name out there…saturate the market with your company’s name.
sorry about the wordiness!
You make some solid points, Robin, and being “around” in the market long enough to build some public brand recognition is a valuable milestone for any window cleaning business.
The danger exists though, that as small window cleaning business owners, in our efforts to saturate the market with “brand awareness”, we end up wasting all of our money on immeasurable efforts.
That’s why direct response marketing is so much better.
It encourages the recipient to DO something, and then you can measure how many people have actually DONE that thing you wanted.
The DOING may be sending an email to a unique email address, calling your phone number with a coupon code, or simply visiting a specific hidden webpage.
Without asking someone to DO, you don’t have any way of knowing how well a certain marketing investment is working out, that’s all.
That being said, frogs, or money with eyeballs, or lumpy mailers with crazy things jammed in them all have varying levels of effectiveness in capturing peoples attention in a cardboard-brown marketplace, and at least getting them to absorb your marketing message.
Next step: Making the message motivating 
branding is a gray area
our names don’t sell, the recognition that follows our name sell. Being known for something will create brand recognition in a hurry. Being known for nothing usually means nothing. That is why when we create marketing pieces we really think about what it is saying and why we are unlike the rest.
I am all for getting our “brand” noticed. To simply “put it out there” is the build it and they will come theory. I disagree with that totally.
-Meaningful message
-to the right market
-equals a meaningful brand
in my opinion anyway…
Paul,
To better understand your line of thinking, can you share a piece of marketing material you designed?
Rough is a little generous at this point but maybe Something along the line of this is the money you’ll save on costly home repairs by having me clean the gutters or save on window replacement by having them cleaned, or off the next service of 200 or more. I will be using a “special url” (thanks Kevin) to track all adds as soon as my sites up which should be any day now.
CFP
I am just trying to think outside the box a a lot after reading Kevins book and was being bombarded by “Kash” I couldn’t help but wonder “can I use this”?
It ,“kash” would be a small part of it like coupon with said url to claim it by acting now or very fast.
From the very first flyer I made to the ones I’m able to make now is a tremendous difference so I think I could “maybe” incorperate this tastefully as well as all the good stuff you mentioned but definately wanted to run it by you guys first.
Let me see what I can put together and post it .
Cool. I’m looking forward to seeing it
CFP, I will be buying your book soon too. Maybe Chris & Alex could give a copy with every order of ----$ or more?
Sounds great! I am all for “out of the box”
Boring sucks
All of you guys are right. You have to draw attention to yourself. However, despite the triumphs of clever marketers and hotshot salesmen I have witnessed over the years in this business, nothing sells better than quality, reliability, and a good reputation. If you have these, you need far less marketing. It is amazing how fast word spreads! If your customers are bragging about you and recommending you to friends and relatives no marketing campaign is nearly as effective.
True, but no one will try your services in the first place until you convince them to. And unless they end up trying your stuff, they’ll never know how awesome you are.
Therefore, this kind of marketing wins. At least at the beginning.
I 1,000,000,000% agree
No customers no word to spread
