Whatever your service or product, remember there are certain "gatekeepers" who should know about you. A gatekeeper is someone who knows lots of other people and can recommend your service.
Gatekeeper examples, by profession, include accountants, lawyers, and typing services. Accountants need to recommend good ideas to their clients, so you should regularly remind accountants of how you can help their clientele. Lawyers need all types of services for their clients. In addition to regular client needs (of which you may be able to supply a solution), many lawyers hold powers of attorney for their clients and help to take care of their day-to-day needs. Your services and products can make both the lawyer and accountant look good.
Typing services and barbers fall into the same grouping, except one is geared towards business while the other is more of a personal referral service. When a clients use a typing service, they'll generally need many other services, and since they trust their local typing service to regularly get them out of binds, there's a good chance they'll ask the service for recommendations (I've been in this business for 20 years now and I'm still amazed at some of the reasons my clients call me for advice and recommendations). If your typing service is well-established they'll be able to recommend several sources to help fill just about any need. Same holds true for barbers, who tend to know more about you personally because they spend a half hour or so every couple of months talking with you and hearing more about you. I always pick up some good advice and recommendations while getting my hair trimmed.
These four groups, and I'm sure you'll be able to add a few more to this list, should receive regular mailings about your service. Test this out by picking 10 or 20 from each category and mailing your brochure or sales literature to them on a regular basis. And remember to ask people where they heard about you. You'll probably be surprised at the number that come from these "gatekeeper" referrals.
Laura Clampitt-Douglas recommends in her book "How to Get Business to Come to You" that you should develop a quick and easy-to-understand description of your business and what you do. The description should be easy for potential customers to understand and should flow comfortably from your mouth. I took this to heart because I've had similar problems describing what I do for a living. Do I handle mailings? That requires furhter explanations ... I process mailings from start to finish. Do I handle the design of mailings? No. Do I write the copy? Not usually. I put the mailings together, stuff envelopes, sort for bulk mail and deliver the stuff to the post office. That's too involved to actually understand, and it requires further explanations. We type in and maintain lists for our customers. Easier to understand, but that's only a small part of what we do.
So I was posed with a problem ... how to convey in as few words as possible something about my business that potential customers can readily identify with. As with any marketing-related problem, I went to my best critics -- my present customers. I asked them how they explain to their colleagues what Letter Perfect does (fortunately many of my customers are happy and regularly refer new customers to me). These people already know most of my services. What I learned surprised me. But it also made sense. Mailing lists are a hot topic nowadays, and most everybody knows what a mailing list is. My customers told me that the easiest way to describe my business is to say "He Sells Mailing Lists". Not that this is the only thing I do. But it immediately conveys the message of what you can do with a list -- mail to, call to, or just use for research. And then from there I can spawn off into areas that mailing lists are used for -- to process mailings ... or maybe someone's been collecting names and business cards and would like to key those names into a database. Plus, he also publishes a pretty good newsletter called Mailing List Tidbits. The simple four-word phrase "I Sell Mailing Lists" seems to get more reaction (mostly positive, thank goodness) than any other explanation of my business.
I tested this phrase for about two weeks. Whenever someone asked what I do for a living, I answered "I Sell Mailing Lists", even though that's only 20% of my business. Invariably, that short phrase led to toher questions about lists and what to do with them, which led to both our typing and mailing services. I was so impressed with this that I redesigned my business cards to say, at the top and in large bold letters "I SELL MAILING LISTS". This worked so well that I gained a new customer before I paid for the cards. The lead outside salesperson at the print shop came running over to me when I picked up the cards. She said she never knew I sold mailing lists and could I supply just the list she needed. Of course I could, and then I asked if we could also handle the mailings. Oh, and by the way, maybe you'd like to take a look at this newsletter where you can pick up some new ideas for getting your shop's message across.
I'm now in the process of redesigning my ads to lead off with the "I Sell Mailing Lists" theme.
Now that I'm off my soapbox about my company, use this same tactic for your business. What is the simples phrase you can use that explains what you do, or at least peaks the interest of your prospects. Make it short, make it simple, and you'll find it easier to entice people to find out more about what you do.