Duct Tape Case Studies
Cast Study Number One: Your Answering Service, Inc.
Duct Tape Marketing Coach: Scott Campbell
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008
The Owner of Your Answering Service (YAS, Inc.) responded to a direct mail piece I sent out and called because she had experienced a declining client base and was getting concerned. YAS, Inc. did about $30k/mo in revenue but it had declined by about $10k over the last few years. She said that she wanted to get revenue back to $40k/mo and that she wanted to sell the business in 2 years.
We used the Strategy Planning Workbook as a guide. The marketing tactics she had used were 1) the yellow pages (she said the prospect called had shrunk from this significantly, 2) a flyer she sent out once, 3) a modest little website and 4) some networking groups they engaged in about 10 years prior.
The tactics we agreed to move forward with included- 1) improve the website and make it more visible. She had an old domain but wasn’t on the first page of “Atlanta answering services” or “Atlanta call center”. I thought early on that the type of business she was looking for played well over the internet…that a lot of prospects would look in Google as opposed to the phone book. 2) direct mail campaign to limo companies, trucking companies, and doctor’s offices in the area 3) public relations campaign with emphasis on the 25th year anniversary 4) referral marketing plan to cell companies who might use her to push business and 5)creation of a marketing kit which was used for all the above efforts.
Results: Over 6 months of improving and campaign initiation, business really started to come in through the website effort (they’re now #1 for “Atlanta answering service” where they were on the 2nd page a couple of years ago). They saw modest results from the direct mail and public relations efforts, and minimal from the referral marketing effort.
The good news is that in a year and a half, they doubled business from just under $30k/mo to around $58k/mo! The owner was impressed by all of it to say the least. She surpassed what she thought was possible and in a competitive, declining market. She was able to sell the business 6 months earlier than her plans and retired.
