A few days ago I met one of the best marketers I’ve encountered in years. His name is Regan (that’s “reee-gan” for those of you who didn’t grow up near South Boston), he dropped out of college at age 19, he’s a six-foot tall Caucasian male, he’s a pest removal / exterminator, and we chatted as he helped me (well, as I helped him) remove a very ex opossum from under the deck of the house where I reside.

So why do I say Regan’s a great marketer?

It all started when he asked me how I’d heard about him (eg, referral source). I said “yellow pages”, and asked why. His response was that based on his spreadsheet, his internet ads weren’t showing the response he’d like, and so he was thinking of abandoning them. (!)

This was already a significantly more cogent reply than many would-be marketers I’ve tried to hire, so I pressed him further – why did he place the ads for a regional business on the internet anyway?

His response (concerning the different profitability of yellow pages responses, which tended to be one-off homeowners, vs internet responses, which tended to be national or multi-tenant retainer cases) launched us into a great chat, some of which I wanted to record here – because Regan’s situation beautifully illustrates three rules of competitive marketing.

1. Leverage Your Competition

Let your competition do “icebreaker” marketing for you, then draft behind them. For example, exterminators put up big tents, and must file with town departments when fumigating a house. (Like many other businesses, they effectively provide public notice of their customers). Regan gathers this information, then sends letters to the next ten houses on either side of the competitor-targeted house… as well as marking that house for a follow-up call. This is no different than calling on customers featured in competitive press releases, or on their websites, or in directories of similar companies.

2. Outflank Your Competition by Partnering

Regan can’t afford big Yellow Pages ads. So he doesn’t try to compete head-on with the big companies. Instead, he asked himself “Where else do would-be customers obtain their information when they want my service?” – and ended up partnering with (by appearing at local meetings of) Realtors, Property Managers, and development owners. He’s getting more profitable accounts at a fraction of the cost.

3. Know Your Differentiators

Regan wanted to leverage the power of “word of mouth” marketing. So he asked his clients “what’s better about me than a big national outfit”? The answer: he had an honest face and spoke clear English in a non-sales-driven approach. So Regan did two things – he added his picture to his email reminder newsletter (sent monthly, reminding people seasonally of things they could do to prevent Raccoons in chimney etc) and he invested in an autodialer – which, at the risk of being annoying, reminded people of his voice.

Regan had far more to say than I can put here, but I wanted to say thanks and share the comments. The Opossum stank, but the thinking didn’t. There’s a lesson there, I think.

By the way, Regan can be found at www.animalabatementspecialists.com -- and no, I wasn't compensated in any way for this, I paid him to take away the opossum...

[ps: Please buy my book. http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]