|
If You've Got Their Names....
Use Them
In
business consultations that we conduct with prospects, one of the key
questions we always ask is “Do you keep a database of clients and
prospects?”
Now
majority of businesses respond affirmatively that they do keep some form
of database, and most of the time they do so because they read some
marketing book or turned up to a seminar that said that it was a good
idea to collect the names of all the people who they come in contact
with, or who have purchased from them. Some even go to great lengths of
producing a loyalty card.
Then the
next lot of questions asked by us;
|
Question |
Usual Response |
|
How often do you
communicate to your database? |
Huh? |
|
Do you know the
average spend by client on the database? |
Ummm…..no |
|
Do you divide
your clients into profitable, break even and loss making
categories? |
Whoah, slow down |
If you
are given a gift you should use it. In a world in which it is getting
harder and harder to be heard, why is it we’re lazy when the gift of
audience is not used?
Make Your Business a 'Customer Retention Business'
You need
to start to set your business up to retain clients and develop
strategies to reward them for their loyalty and communicate your offer.
Your aim is to reduce your cost of acquiring customers (lead generation
strategies), to then reinvest that money into retaining customers.
Reward
Instantly:
You need to give people a reason to sign up to your database. So
invest in them before they invest in you. When anyone signs up to
Profit Tips they receive a FREE ‘Secrets to Fast Profits’
report. To find out how we invest in people before they invest in us go
to
http://www.profitmarketing.com.au/ezine_registration.html
Out of Sight Is Out of Mind:
One
guy that I conducted a consult with had a database of 1200 businesses.
He only had 20 of them buying regularly and another 20 who bought
infrequently. Guess what I recommended him to do – that’s right get in
contact with his database. Now he is going to stop spending thousands of
dollars on magazine ads that was producing zero enquiries, and spend
zero dollars on emailing regularly to his clients. Ensure that you are
in contact with your database at least on a monthly basis.
Educate.
Reward. Inform. Ask:
With your database you develop a cycle of educating the customer about
how to improve their lives or business though the areas of your
businesses expertise. If you have an accounting practice send regular
updates on new taxation changes, or what to do when planning to buy an
investment property. By you educating your customer, they will keep you
at the top of their mind when they need expert advice. Continuously
reward your database for their patronage either through gifts, special
events or offers that are exclusive to them. The next part of the cycle,
after you have invested in your customer, is to inform them about what
your business does, and to then at certain moments, ask them to purchase
your goods or service. But not until you have educated them, rewarded
them and informed them of your business.
Different
Strokes for Different Folks:
You are not going to believe me when I tell you this….but you
don’t offer the same level of service to each client. You need to rank
your customers in order of Profitable, Break Even and Loss Making. With
business-to-business clients that we work with, we work hard on getting
the client to rank their customers and develop different strategies for
each. For example we move loss making clients into break even clients by
increasing their prices or moving them to be serviced by
inbound/outbound phone services, and leave the high touch sales process
to be done on with profitable and loss making clients. Saving them
thousands of dollars and rapidly increasing their sales.
If you
alone just keep in regular contact with your clients, you will be
already ahead of most of your competition. The plan outlined above is
how you make your competition irrelevant whilst spending less on
advertising.
About Profit Marketing
Profit Marketing is a marketing consultancy company that serves SME
businesses in the Western Sydney region. Our success lies in delivering
continuous results for our clients through our ‘Profit Maximiser System’
which increases your profits through;
1. Diagnosing
the problem
2. Implementing
low cost strategies and systems for ongoing profit growth
3. Enabling
you to become a marketing superstar
Profit Marketing has a simple pledge to our clients “Marketing
Strategies that Increase Your Profits or Your Money Back”.
For more information,
contact Shaun on (02) 9632 9678 or
0425 238 710 or email
shaun@profitmarketing.com.au.
|
Customer
Service