Portable Sanitation Association International

ASSOCIATIONINSIGHT Portable Sanitation Association International News BIWEEKLY EDITION DECEMBER 23, 2020 Page 18 Portable Sanitation Marketing Success—Try This! By Todd Ginter, PSAI's Director of Marketing Continued on page 19 When you opened up your business, did you have your marketing all figured out? Are you still struggling with marketing? Of course you know the business inside and out, and you may be the best provider of portable sanitation products in the area, but what does the public know about you? Are you an owner that groans every time you are asked about advertising or promotion of your business? If so, maybe you could take a different look at how you are showing off your company. It is a common struggle for small businesses, startups, and solo entrepreneurs to find ways to stand out from the competition and gain brand recognition. The good news: You are in an industry where you can do both, using a powerful strategy. That strategy is simply telling your story and explaining the products you distribute in a unique way. You certainly do not need to outspend your competitors on marketing. You just need to be a bit bold, creative, and willing to have some fun. For starters, look at the business you are in. Considering the seriousness of the work that you do and its importance to your customers, a lot of fun and humor (in good taste) can be injected into it. If you have ever been to one of the PSAI's events, you know the people in the industry can be laugh-out-loud funny! Instead of running away from the silliness of your work, maybe it is time to embrace it in your marketing. You may already have the unique business name or a catchy slogan, but those are only going to be found by people searching for you. Let's take a look at how a company just like yours is using fun and humor that casts a positive light on the industry to great success in their marketing. Marketing Your Brand For Service Sanitation, a company based in Indiana serving a wide territory including Chicagoland, their branding really took off four years ago when they rethought how they should send out their annual holiday card to customers and friends. The idea they came up with involved using portable toilet units equipped with holiday lights, and this now-tradition has become a viral hit. If you have not yet seen their "Jingle Johns" 2020 Holiday video, you can watch it on YouTube. If you follow them on YouTube, you can also view their other creative and popular videos. In the beginning, Service Sanitation just shot lights onto the portable units. Then they decided to up their game. In a YouTube video that went behind the scenes of the making of the 2016 video, the company stated: Holiday traditions…Every family has them, and our Service Sanitation family is no different. When sending out a stale holiday card to our customer base year after year had lost its luster, we took the one thing we know best—portable restrooms—and lit them up to celebrate Christmas. Well, we did more than that.

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