Your Best Customers Already Wrote Your Ads

Ask a business owner to describe what makes them different, and it often comes out sounding like a brochure. Quality service. Customer satisfaction. Family owned and operated.

Ask their customers, and it sounds like a person. They showed up when they said they would. He explained everything and didn’t try to sell me anything extra. They cleaned up before they left.

The second version wins almost every time. And most businesses already have it written down somewhere. They just haven’t looked.

Your customers describe you better than you do

There’s a reason for this. When you describe your business, you describe the service. When customers describe it, they describe the problem they had and how it felt when it got solved. That’s what the next customer is thinking about too.

Customers also use their own words, not your industry’s. You say “HVAC diagnostic.” They say “the furnace was making a banging noise.” The next person with a banging furnace is going to search, think and listen for their words, not yours.

Where to find their words

You don’t need a research budget for this. You need an hour and a place to write things down. Here’s where to look:

• Your reviews. Google, Facebook, anywhere people leave them. Read the five-star ones for what people love, and the three-star ones for what they expected and didn’t get.
• Emails and texts. The thank-you notes, the questions and the complaints. All of them are useful.
• Phone calls. Listen to what people say in the first thirty seconds. That’s the problem, in their words.
• Your front line. Ask the people at the counter, in the truck or on the phone what customers say to them. They hear it all day.
• Your customers, directly. Next time you finish a job, ask: why did you pick us? Then write down exactly what they say.

Put all of it in one document. Then look for patterns. What problem comes up over and over? What moment made them decide? What surprised them? What words do they use for the result?

Where to use them

Once you have the phrases that keep repeating, put them to work.

In your ads, build radio scripts and social posts around the words people actually use. If customers keep saying some version of “they called me back the same day,” that might be a better headline than anything you’d come up with in a meeting.

On your website, use their words in headlines and on service pages. Turn the questions people ask on the phone into an FAQ. Search works the same way: people type what they’d say out loud, so the closer your pages match their language, the easier you are to find.

On the phone and at the counter, give your team the same language. When the person answering sounds like the ad and the website, the whole business feels consistent.

One caution. If you want to quote a specific review word for word in an ad, ask the customer first. Using the idea behind it is fair game. Using their name and their exact words should come with their permission.

A good project for the end of the year

November is a natural time for this. Before you plan next year’s marketing, set aside an hour to read through the last twelve months of reviews, emails and notes. You’ll probably find your next campaign in there.

If you want help deciding where those words should go first, the Marketing Checkup takes about three minutes and shows which part of your marketing needs attention.