Marketing lessons from the chimney sweep

After 26 years at Kirby Towers, we’ve decided to use the fireplace for its intended purpose – a real life open fire. After so long a time in a disused state, we had to get the chimney swept, so we called in Burnham Sweeps.

Dean did a thorough job, and then while he was writing the certificate for insurance, he asked where we’d got his name. Then he opened his diary and there on the inside cover was a page divided into sections. A tick was put in the ‘Recommendation’ box. Marketing gold!

Perhaps without realising it, the chimney sweep was way ahead of many much larger companies when it comes to marketing. He was measuring the effect of any marketing he did. He knew where every job came from.

The page wasn’t especially clever or elaborate – just a ruler and a pen gave him the boxes. The headings were Website; Yellow Pages; Leaflets; Recommendation; Repeat Order; Local Magazine and Van Signage. The simple ‘where did you hear about us’ question told him what worked best.

Do you do that in your marketing? Lots of business owners will say ‘we tried this or that and it didn’t work’. Unless they ask how someone found them, they’ll never know what works best and what doesn’t work at all.

Before you spend a penny on marketing, work out how you’ll measure how well it worked. Then you’ll be able to see how much money it’s brought in and if that particular marketing activity is worth the expense. It needn’t be big and clever – Dean the chimney sweep just needs a piece of paper and the right question.

Newsflash

In spite of over 28 years in design and print, I still made the mistake of being enticed by a really low price for some printing.

Contact Us

address
13 Princes Road
Burnham on Crouch
Essex
CM0 8BX

telephone
01621 784 509
07717 855 435

email
colin@kirbymarketing.co.uk