Cheap Marketing in a Down Economy

I’m constantly amazed at the number of business owners who tell me they don’t contact their clients because they don’t want to bother them or because, “Nobody wants to hear about _____ (fill in the blank product or service).

If they never wanted to hear anything about it, why did they buy it in the first place? Why do people assume nobody wants to hear from them? I think a lot of it is psychological and related to insecurities and fears they may have related to having to “sell themselves.”

Do you have the “Nobody wants to hear from me syndrome?” If so, you need to get over it. Unless you are a real pain in the neck and are bothersome, the issue is not in your client’s mind, it’s in yours.

Just think about it for a minute… Say you buy something or use a companies services and the owner or sales rep calls you and asks if you were satisfied with the purchase. Do you suddenly freak out and scream, “Why are you bothering me?”

Probably not. You tell them what you thought and thank them for calling.

Now imagine this scenario… This same business sends you a card every few months to thank you for your business and asks you to come back. Once again, do you freak out and scream, “THIS DUDE HAS A LOT OF NERVE FOR BOTHERING ME!!!”

Probably not. You look at the card and offer and either keep it or throw it away. One thing that’s likely is that you have a positive attitude about them.

Your clients are the same. If you do a good job and ask them to do business again, it’s likely they’ll be back. If you ignore them because you are afraid of bothering them, there’s a good chance you won’t have the chance to bother them again.

Something to think about!

Small Business Marketing Guide to Up Your Profits in a Down Economy

Let’s continue with profit-boosting ideas that will increase your profits without exhausting your marketing budget (I’m assuming that you are budgeting for marketing and not just hoping dollars will become available). I’m going to focus on two keywords and they are two words that can dramatically change the way you look at your business – Leverage and Systematize.

Think leverage – If there is a client in your business and they are buying from you, what can you do to leverage this contact? Here are some ideas:

• Cross-sell or up-sell to increase the value of the transaction
• Get their name, address, email address and record their buying preferences so you can continue marketing to them with coupons, newsletters and other tactics that encourage additional purchases.
• Ask them for referrals (learn how to ask for referrals!)

Give them coded coupons to hand out to their friends. When they are redeemed, send the client a thank you gift.

• Ask what business they are in and see if there are products or services you offer that the business could use.
• Start a platinum membership club for your key clients. Sell memberships that entitle them to special offers and privileges.
• Find out what other businesses they frequent and ask for an introduction to the business owner to explore joint ventures and strategic alliances with them.
• Send them a thank you note for their purchase and include a coupon for a discount on their next purchase if they return within the next month.

Pretty much every item listed is leveraging a relationship with a client. Do the same with your prospects and suppliers. You want to leverage every contact to see not only what additional profit you can gain but what additional service or benefit you can bring to your clients.

Up your profits in a down economy – Increase client value

In this order, these are the easiest people to sell to:

1. An existing client
2. A past client
3. A referred or endorsed client
4. A cold prospect

This list is an established fact. Even knowing this, where do the vast majority of companies spend the majority of their marketing dollars and effort? On number 4, the cold prospect. Nearly every client or prospect I speak with spends little, if any of their marketing dollars strengthening their relationship with their existing clients.

The thing is, most of them realize they should be keeping in touch with customers but still do nothing about it. Very few companies even have any process or method of getting basic contact information like name, address, phone number, email address or a list of the products purchased by their clients. According to a study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, for every month that passes without your contacting your clients, there’s a 10% reduction in loyalty to your business.

For about $10 to $15 per client per year, nearly any business can build a customer contact program that will dramatically increase their sales and profits at a fraction of cost of obtaining a new client. Ideally, you will have 12 to 14 contacts per year. Rather than looking at this as an expense, look upon it as an investment in the lifetime value of your clients.

The key to success in your client contact strategy is to include an offer, a coupon, a discount or other reason for your clients to contact you and purchase additional products or services from you.

In my next post, I’ll list some of my favorite client contact strategies and tactics you can use to increase your profits.

Till then…
Dedicated to multiplying your sales!

Up your profits in a down economy – Post 3

In my last post, I wrote about the importance of improving your selling skills. Without a doubt, it is the simplest way to dramatically increase the value of each sale.

Even if you don’t take the time to go through a professional selling course or book, there are some things you can do to increase the average transaction value.

• Start by identifying your most popular selling products or those that are easiest to sell.
• Select one or more products or services that compliment these products.
• Create “bundles” with special package pricing that applies if the client buys the extra product at the same time as the initial purchase.
• Create a sales script and rehearse the words that you will use to up-sell to a client. Say you own a pet store and a client just bought a training leash for their new dog. You say, “If you are using this for training, I recommend you also get the bookGood Owners, Great Dogs. I think it’s one of the best training books ever written. If you get the book today with the training leash, I can discount the book 10%.”
• It’s that easy. The key is to know what extra value you can bring to your client, believe in the value of what you are offering and ask the client to buy it.

The key is to get used to asking. Will it work every time? No, but it will only work if you ask! Whatever you sell, it is very likely you can add value with additional products. Since you’ve already spent the money to get the client in front of you, you owe it to yourself and the client to insure they have everything they need!

Do your client’s miss you? You must keep in touch with them!

Is this you? Staring out the window, hoping a client will appear over the horizon with loads of cash in their hands ready to fork it over to you? Do you wonder where your clients have been? For most business owners, the answer is yes. The reason is they’ve done nothing to create a relationship, let alone nurture one.

Just think about it. How often does any business you patronize ask for your name? What is the chance for them to develop a relationship with you if they don’t even know your name?

They spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising to get new customers. They are out in the yard digging for bones when all they need to do is wag there tails and show appreciation to the person who gave them their last one.

They are ignoring a key marketing concept, Life Time Value (LTV). The LTV looks at the value of a client over the lifetime of the business relationship. Here’s a simple formula to calculate LTV:

What if the average dog refers one other neighborhood dog per year who becomes a loyal client? Over a twelve year period, the potential value of one happy dog can exceed $25,000!!! Can you see why it makes sense to spend $20 per year to strengthen relationships with existing clients.

Keep in touch with your clients. They do want to hear from you !! Ask them to return and to buy from you again and again. It’s that simple. Get their names and develop relationships with them. You need to do more than throw them the occasional bone or table scraps.

Here are some things the pet boutique can do to cement a bond with their furry clients:

• Send a coupon for a pampered pet day.
• Send a special treat on their birthday and monthly pet care newsletter.
• Take their picture and hang it on the lobby bulletin board. Use the picture to create custom post card appointment reminders.
• Send the dog’s family birthday cards on the family birthdays..
• Hold a “Where’s Fido?” month to ask back the dogs who quit coming to see you. Put a treat in a special envelope addressed to the dog and say “I miss your wagging tail and cold nose. Please come back in to see us.”
• Hold a special human training days where the dogs’ owners can learn how to take care of them.
• Have a pet art show. Hire a caricature artist to draw caricatures of the dog and their owners. Sign them with paw prints.
• Create a pet blog where your clients can share the funny and cute things their owners did.
• If you hear a client has died, send their owner a sympathy card.
• Get a welcome board to welcome all your clients by name on the day of their session. Their owners will say “Look, Sparky. There’s your name on the board!”
• Have a pet Halloween costume contest. Charge a $10 admission fee with all proceeds going to the local animal shelter. Invite local media. Find local celebrities that love animals and ask them to be celebrity judges.
• Call to confirm appointments.

The list of possibilities is endless. Notice that the cumulative cost of my suggestions is probably less than $10 per dog per year! Now, if your pet groomer did these things, would you look elsewhere for grooming services? You’d even pay them a premium.

Not in the dog grooming business? Well, there’s good news. Humans also like to hear from you. Before you say, “It’s expensive to keep in touch with all of my clients,” be sure to calculate the LTV and the cost to acquire a client. You may think good service is sufficient to retain clients but, in today’s world, good service is the minimum to BE in business.

There are many inexpensive and simple systems to maintain client contact. Topping my list of recommendations are newsletters and greeting cards. Here is an automated greeting card system I use and recommend. Email is easy but the odds of it being delivered and read keeps decreasing and dogs have a hard time with keyboards.

Your competition is sniffing the air and putting out plenty of treats to convince your clients and prospects to switch over to them. It is up to you to build an invisible fence of loyalty around them. You can help to insure that your clients will give your competitors a “slight correction” if they try for the business!

Client loyalty is not a mystery buried in the ground with old bones. It requires quality products and service and regular communications from you to let your clients know you appreciate their business and want them to buy from you again.  If you forget this critical concept, you can plan on always sniffing around the neighborhood, forever looking for your next client.