As I was looking through a package of advertisements from a chamber of commerce, I was reminded of the saying "actions speak louder than words". I don’t know about you, but I was lucky enough to receive this advice 3 or 10 million times while growing up, so it kind of stuck.
Several ads contained the phrase "Se Habla Espanol" (we speak Spanish or Spanish is spoken). In each case, the phrase was located at the bottom of the ad, as if to say, "oh, and by the way, we also speak Spanish". Each ad was printed on one side of 8.5" x 11" piece of paper with the back side of the page left blank. What a wasted opportunity! If you really wanted to market to the Spanish speaking community, why not run a full page ad in Spanish? Use the empty back of the ad. Follow that up with a page on your website written in Spanish and a phone extension that is answered in Spanish and now you are demonstrating (rather than claiming) how you serve this market.
None of these "extras" are terribly expensive and I believe that the extra expense will be more than offset by customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referral business.
This lesson isn’t limited to language. Many (most) business make claims about their uniqueness in their marketing. Few actually demonstrate uniqueness. Do you have a unique process? Show us what it is. Have a special 20 item checklist to make sure you deliver quality every time? Share it. Don’t be afraid of your competitors stealing your ideas. Just because they know what you do, doesn’t mean that they can do what you do, how you do it.
Use your actions, rather than just words, to stand out from your competition.
