If you follow these few key guidelines, you'll greatly increase the profitability of your advertising. Advertising can be tough, especially for owners of carpet cleaning companies. You know you have to advertise if you want to grow, but what else can you say in an ad besides how cheap your services are?

Most ads are based on low price. Using a competitive price is a good way to gain attention. However, it confuses your prospect when all advertising messages about carpet cleaning are based on price. She wonders what makes your company unique. Use this to your advantage.

How to differentiate yourself from the competition

It's your job to tell your prospect how you are different. You have to develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that is completely unique to your company. It states what you do that it different from any other cleaner in your market. Spend some time figuring out what you do that's different.

Ask yourself: What do your clients say they like about your service? How do you make your clients feel? What problems do you solve for your client? Having a USP other than "We're Cheap" will tell your prospect that you're different from other cleaners. You'll be able to charge higher prices and book more jobs.

The difference between benefits and features

Give benefits. Benefits are the reason why your client calls you. She doesn't want carpet cleaning. She wants her home to look beautiful. She wants her family to be healthy. She wants her friends to praise her for having such a clean home. What she is really buying are the benefits.

Features are what you actually do. For example, you'll steam clean, deodorize, use prespotters, etc. The client doesn't care about features as much as benefits. The best way to use features in a great advertisement is to give reasons why your benefits are true.

Suppose you said, "You'll get the guaranteed absolute cleanest carpet in town." This is a pretty decent headline. The first thing the reader thinks in her mind is, "Really? How?" Then she'll start to scan your ad. If you don't give her a reason why your benefit is true, she won't believe you.

If you backed your headline's benefit up with features of why she'll get the cleanest carpet in town, you've won. Your ad will be more believable because you didn't leave the reader hanging. You'll have a very successful ad.

Say something different with your advertising. Don't follow your competition. Chances are, they couldn't advertise their way out of a paper bag. With a little effort, it will be easy to out-advertise them.