A young friend of mine, who has his own home caretaking (construction) and project management business proudly announced he’d bought his wife (who has the cleaning side of the business) a Volkswagen Beetle. Whilst he was driving it back to his home he came up with all sorts of wonderful ideas to market his wife’s business around the words bug, after all, the car is affectionately known as a Beetle Bug. His first creative attempt was “has the cleaning bug bitten you yet” with visions of this slogan painted on the side of the royal blue Beetle. The name “The Cleaning Bug” pinged for me and I suggested they use it for this business as it didn’t have its own name, trading only under his business name. And so the name “The Cleaning Bug” was adopted. Catchy – yes! And there’s more. The creative juices continued to flow and he’s decided to put an advert into the local newspaper which read “has the cleaning bug bitten you yet? Get vaccinated – phone ..” Catchy? Yes. Effective? No, no, no!

My friend was a little deflated when I told him his advert would miss the mark and his potential clients would probably phone their doctors to find out what bug was currently going around that needed a vaccination. Yes I know I’m stretching the point a little but think about it. My friend’s advert was going fine until he used the words – get vaccinated!! Yes, it’s a clever spin on pick up the phone, but remember our clients are lazy (we are all lazy as clients) and if they go ‘huh’ we've lost them.

It is so easy for us to slide off course when putting together our advertising messages. Yes we need to be creative and have fun with words and messages to catch the attention of our potential clients but we have to also remember that our messages need to guide our clients towards action. Our client smust never say “huh” when they read our advertisements.

Advertising is just one outcome of our marketing process. It’s our message that goes out to clients telling them what we are selling (not doing), and this is my point with The Cleaning Bug advertisement. I asked my friend what was he selling – window cleaning. Then he needed to guide his client to pick up the phone and enquire about the cleaning service. Getting vaccinated won’t do it.

Advertising is just one area where we can get lost; another is in the name of our business. I have worked with business start-up clients for a long time and constantly have to focus my clients on choosing a name for their business that tells the client what they were doing. The tendency is to choose a name they like, forgetting that it is actually the client who is on the receiving end. Names like Obtuse Concepts or Ringing Tones say nothing about the nature of the business or what it’s doing. But if we place something else alongside this name, such as Ringing Tones Dance Troupe the client now knows what is being offered. The words ringing tones also conjures up pictures in our mind and so we need to take care to ensure that the nature of our business matches the pictures that pop up with such descriptions.

I’ve always suggested that we to check out our names and ideas with friends and acquaintances before cementing them in concrete and if they go 'huh' or have a

Read More puzzled look on their face – rethink the name and the message.

In any marketing plan or message it’s important to be very specific. As the saying goes “you don’t get a second chance to make a good impression”

Bev Moodie is an entrepreneurial business coach and writes self-help business books, training programmes and articles. You can contact her at 083-268-7678 or view www.business-opportunity-books.co.za