About four months ago, I had the unpleasant need to move my things from one flat to another in London, including an American-sized bed, which I had shipped over here not having done my homework (as most flats in the UK come furnished).
The big, excellent company that had moved me from the U.S. wanted about as much money to move me five minutes away as they had across the Atlantic. And the thought of hiring a "man-and-van" sickened me to my stomach. When I graduated from college, I hired two older, very angry, and sweaty Russian men from photocopied posters on the street to move my things from the dorm to the slum. When the job was done, they extorted another $100 on top of the agreed amount by shouting and slamming their open palms on my furniture. But that was New York, and that was years before the internet.
This time around, I did what many people would do - I started with Google. Most of the unpaid search results led to the online equivalent of classified ads in the newspaper. I got completely useless lists of London moving companies that weren't the right size and in some cases were based as far as Manchester. When I finally got to a site that had customer recommendations, I was pointed to www.vanandman.com. A few e-mails and phone calls later, they were hired.
This is a marketing blog, and there is a good reason I'm posting this story, but mostly it's because I promised Gary - the "man" in the URL - that I would. Gary and his co-worker arrived on time, picked up my boxes and got them on his van expertly. On our way to the estate agents' to pick up the keys to the new flat, we struck up a conversation. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him I work in advertising.
"Oh, really?" he said. "Then would you mind if I asked your advice about something?" That had never happened before; getting asked a professional question outside the office is something I imagine happens to doctors or lawyers all the time, but not advertising nerds like me. I told him that I would help him anyway I could.
"Is there some way that I can get more customers?"
"What are you doing right now to reach them?" I asked, half-expecting that he had dropped postcards into mail slots indiscriminately, or had bought small space newspaper advertising, because that's what a typical client on a small budget would do. I was afraid that he might ask me how much the agency I worked for charged for a television commercial (as much as 600,000 GBP), so I cringed, fearing that I'd have to tiptoe around Gary's lack of knowledge.
Instead, I was faced with Gary's response: "Well, I've been buying Google search terms for about two years now, but the price keeps going up. I have a feeling that my competitors are clicking on my link just to drive my costs up." Gary parked the van to let me out, and dove straight for his Blackberry. It suddenly dawned on me that the website drove all its inquiries straight to his handheld e-mail. "And I can't outbid the rest of the industry on the terms I want. So I've started talking to a company that does search optimisation, but I'm not sure if it's worth the money."
Before I stepped out to fetch the keys, I told him I'd have an answer for him by the time I returned to the van. I looked at the van again. On the side was the company name, which was also the web address. Here I had met a sole proprietor of a business who had embraced the internet completely: in the branding (company name), the sales force automation (web and Blackberry integation), the advertising (Google Adsense and SEO) and in the loyalty model (recommendations on the site.)
The question bothering me (besides what else I could possibly teach Gary about marketing) was why a small business with just two people knew more about internet marketing than some big budget clients or big ad agency managers.
I suppose it comes down to how much money you have and what efficiencies of scale you can command. Making a big television advert can make a difference if you can broadcast it to millions of interested parties. Without all that media money it won't be very efficient to film it in the first place. And putting money into sales promotions like coupons only works if you've got sufficient product to move and a short-enough life cycle to see the volume dividends on that original discount.
So I guess it makes sense for small businesses - like Gary's - to adopt high-efficiency, high-speed, high-touch, and high-relevance media first. It doesn't cost much and it reaches just the right number of people.
And he doesn't have much choice, either. Working from the consumer end of the marketing, this is a market where there is low frequency of repeat purchase - usually once every few years - and information is scarce because of the great number of companies in the market. Search engines like Google are excellent for these sorts of purchasing decisions. Printed telephone books like the Yellow Pages are transparently paid-for advertising (or worse, just alphabetical) so you can't get a sense for which companies are more trustworthy. The website I found with the user-generated reviews was far more helpful. Once I got to Gary's site, I was sold.
Comparing the testimonials on Gary's site to others shows a shrewd mind at work. It's a blend of celebrities, everyday people, and reviews in newspapers, so whichever sort of consumer you are, you'll find someone you trust on the page telling you to trust Gary. Furthermore, Gary goes as far as to offer a helpful guide to the pitfalls of hiring the wrong company, which he offers without strings. He's confident enough in www.vanandman.com's service that he's willing to point out that others won't show up in their own van, on time, or with the right equipment. That just shows a great understanding of how people feel when they show up at his site.
I got back into the van with the keys to the new flat, and Gary looked at me expectantly. I told him that he was already doing a lot of things right, but he should probably stay away from the kind of SEO (search engine optimisation) that he was being offered, which might get him banned from Google altogether (as BMW Germany was, briefly.)
Instead I told him that he should get more happy customers to write about him on their blogs. A few intersections passed.
Finally, he asked, "What's a blog?" I was so glad that he asked that, as I was starting to think that my mates at work were trying to pull a prank on me; maybe he would have pulled up his own blog on his Blackberry and shared his moblog entries.
But I did finally have something that I could help him with. More favourable blog entries would increase his search engine ratings. Ten words into my explanation, he interrupted me to ask me very deliberately , "Will - you - write - about - us - in - your - blog?" By this point we were both laughing.
Without further ado:
I whole-heartedly recommend www.vanandman.com for removal in and around London. Gary and his team are punctual, uniformed, friendly, and professional. The van was clean, and all my things arrived in good shape, having been carefully handled (and in the case of the large items, wrapped) by the www.vanandman.com team.
