As I write this Hanukah starts in 13 days, Thanksgiving is
in 15 days and Christmas is in 41 days. So what does that have to do with
Oriental Rugs and Rug Washing? I will tell you what, it is about money.
Holidays are a time of parties, family meals, visiting loved ones and company.
Think to yourself if you have friends and family coming over for Thanksgiving
Dinner what do you want them to smell when they walk into your home the turkey
or the cat?
Pet odor is a major problem especially since over 80% of all
rugs coming in to be cleaned have some pet contamination. It is also a
wonderfully profitable problem. Customers bring you problems, you provide solutions
and they give you money.
But unless you take action some of your customers will
forget to get the rugs done. Unless you take action some of them will wish they
had gotten their problem rugs cleaned. Unless you take action some of them will
even roll up the problem and stick it in the basement or garage until their
company leaves. You customer faces shame, embarrassment, or inconvenience but
you have a worse problem; you lose the opportunity to have your customer give
you money.
One solution is email marketing. By collecting emails it
gives us an easy inexpensive way to remind or customers that as of today there
are only 40 days left to get their rugs cleaned. Actually it would have been better if you had
done that a month ago but there is always next year.
There are all the major holidays but there are other events
you could email your customers. In most of the country moths lay their eggs in
May or June that would be a perfect reason to send out a warning message. A
spring cleaning message reminding people that rug wear is primarily from dry
particulate soil abrasion in the foundation. Summer vacation is a great time to
take rugs out for cleaning. Fall is the annual start of the rug season. The
list goes on and is as big as your imagination.
USPS Mail is so expensive and even post cards for rug washers are so 1995. I
mean really Postcards are as old fashioned as Bronze Silver Gold pricing
packages. It is time to focus on email and get set for text messages as well.
