Article Contributed by Mark Deo
Today for small business operators as well as larger enterprises marketing continues to be a mystery. Often, the ad that generates record-breaking volume one month is repeated the following month and bombs. A campaign designed by the best ad agency may elicit a mediocre response. The same item sells like hotcakes after a 30-word classified ad, with abominable grammar, appearing on page 35 of an all-advertising shopper tossed on the front stoops of homes during a rainstorm! The mystery eludes solution but demands attention.
Your marketing results can be improved through a better understanding of your customers. Putting the customer first is probably the most popular phrase used by firms ranging from giant conglomerates to the corner barbershop, but the sloganeering is often just lip service.
Marketing success, however, is more likely if you dedicate your activities exclusively to solving your customer’s problems. Any marketing program has a better chance of being productive if it is timed, designed and written to solve a problem for potential customers and is carried out in a way that the customer understands and trusts. The questions and answers that follow will reveal the mystery of marketing by looking at ways we can put the customer first. These are questions that we often receive in our practice and some of the answers we give. I hope it helps you in your marketing efforts.
How can I set myself apart from the competition?
Client retention is key. The importance of “the relationship” with the customer never diminishes. For most small businesses, developing and exploiting the relationship is the one major advantage they have over the big players who don’t have the time and energy for it in the first place. This boils down to added value. Customers crave it but don’t get enough of it. When was the last time you gave serious thought to providing a value-added premium in customer transactions? Coupons, incentives, giveaways, special events – All of these are very effective when aimed at strengthening customer relationships.
How do I recession-proof my business?
Build a cash reserve. We have all heard the expression “save some for a rainy day.” But what happens when a rainy day turns into a rainy year, or two? Many entrepreneurs and small business owners will be facing this situation in the coming months. The best way to prepare is to set aside cash during more prosperous times. There’s a real benefit to having a long-term business plan that deals with the kind of cash requirements you’ll need in case of a business downturn. For some, building a cash reserve may come at the expense of swifter business expansion. But the alternatives such as borrowing cash, taking out a loan, dipping into personal net worth, or shutting the doors are far less palatable. But wait, you say, isn’t this finance rather than marketing. True but without cash reserves to launch marketing initiatives a marketing program has no chance in getting off the ground. Many people believe that the best time to launch a marketing initiative is when times start to get tough. This is a fallacy. The most advantageous time to launch such a campaign is when times are GOOD. In this way we can invest both our time and dollars at a time when people are more apt to move forward. This approach may be the very thing to keep the recession from knocking on your door.
How can I get former clients back?
Recognize that all customers are at risk. Even satisfied customers can be persuaded to defect to the competition. Do not take any customer for granted. Consider that customer win-back strategies can be more effective than finding new customers. Many experts believe that win-back success rates are far higher than recruiting new prospects. Here’s a few that anyone can implement:
+ Identify all of your products or services that could possibly be of value to your customers.
+ Motivate your customers to use as many of your products or services as possible.
+ Prove to your customers that your products and services offer value that they can not find anywhere else.
+ Keep track of every sale and sort in a database
+ Personally communicate with customers at regular intervals
+ Establish some form of satisfaction rating system
+ Sell peace of mind more than just product or service solutions
+ Admit when you’re wrong and pick up the pieces quickly and effectively.
Make your organization defection-proof. While everybody is talking about customer loyalty today few are taking real action. Preventing customer defection is surely the prime motivation for building customer loyalty, but it also gives us the ability to proactively develop strategies to improve our value and service in general. This is what prevents price sensitivity.
We can literally avoid price sensitivity by how we treat the client. Remember when you’re telling, you’re selling. No one likes to be sold. That’s precisely when they start focusing on the cheapest price. By asking questions we accomplish several goals. We discover valuable information about the customer. We bond with the customer by letting them do most of the talking. And we show that we care by being interested in their wants, desires and motives. This is the most effective way to overcome the price objection and redirect their interest to the relationship.
You don’t need a fancy ad agency or marketing firm to improve your marketing performance. In short my advice is to place the focus on the customer. It’s really about doing the simple things and doing them consistently. Focus on the relationship. Add value to every transaction. Build a significant cash reserve. Keep current customers loyal and win back the old ones. And most critically ask plenty of questions. Show that you really care. I hope you’re starting to see that there really is no mystery to marketing. It’s about putting one foot in front of the other every day and always putting the customer first.
About the Author
Mark is author of The Rules of Attraction: Fourteen practical rules to help get the right kind of clients, talent and resources to come to you!Business Update”. Many of his articles and commentaries have appeared in Business Week, Inc, Fortune, Entrepreneur, MSNBC, Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He has also appeared on FOX, NPR, CBS and NHK. Mark writes at least one new article every week and comments in numerous media outlets.
Category: Sales & Marketing
Social media is about valuable communication. Of course, “valuable” is a subjective term, but typically refers to content which educates, engages, or entertains. Great content makes the difference between getting noticed and being ignored.
There are 3 main secrets for great content creation, especially when producing for the social web:
1) Listen to what your visitors want and need. Do you see questions coming up again and again within your area of expertise? If so, this highlights a need your visitors have. This happened a few times recently on Twitter, when a few different people asked for input on various WordPress plugins and techniques. I was able to respond to several of these, which helped me realize more about what kinds of questions people were having with WordPress. It also enabled me to learn something from others who responded to the requester. Great content is in the eye or experience of the user, and most often addresses a question, provides a solution, or moves the person to think differently about their current situation.
The best way to create great content using this principle is to keep track of the questions your clients ask most often, and creating content to meet this need. Another way to use this principle is to pay attention to the media and see what kinds of questions reporters are asking about. You can get reporter queries by using the free (and excellent) service at HelpAReporter.com. By monitoring what journalists are asking for, you know what kinds of questions people have and want answered.
And here’s another benefit: if you track what reporters are looking for, and create content around this, it not only adds to your blog, but it can quickly position you as an expert for future requests. I routinely publish blog posts based on interviews I give, and then use these to create instant credibility to get additional interviews.
2) The second way to create great content is to keep learning. I spend several hours per week taking in new ideas, reading up on new technologies, and improving my knowledge in several key areas. Not only does this keep me inspired (which is crucial to my personal happiness and productivity), but it also helps me speak intelligently about trends and emerging technologies, which boosts my expert status even further. This has been helpful in attracting and retaining clients, as well as helping me get out in front of the media. If you’re not making time each week to take in new ideas, do add this into your business development process. New ideas in means new ideas out.
3) Put parameters around your content production. I first read about this strategy in a book on thinking creatively. Basically, the process involves setting limits around an idea, and coming up with the most creative solution or outcome you can think of. So, for instance, I sometimes try and create the best blog post I can in 3 minutes or less. In this case, time is the limiting parameter. Research has shown that you come up with some of your most interesting ideas when you have two or more parameters in place.
This principle is demonstrated in the very popular “top 10 lists” and other similar content- people have asked a question: “How do I create great graphics for less than $10?”- and the two defining parameters are great graphics + low cost- and then they go searching for resources to meet these criteria. These kinds of lists and resource listings tend to be highly favored and widely repeated.
The whole goal of creating great content is to connect with your ideal market and create dialogue with them. Focus your tools, resources, and energy towards being interested and interesting.
You might just get a whole lot of people talking.
Dr. Rachna Jain is Chief Social Marketer at The Mindshare Corporation. Rachna works with speakers, consultants, authors, and small business owners to develop and execute effective social media marketing strategies. Her proprietary persuasive social media process (sm) focuses on building influence, credibility and visibility online. This translates into greater recognition, increased website traffic, faster lead generation, a shorter sales cycle, and more opportunity for her expert clientele. She blogs regularly at The Mindshare Blog
Categories
How to Build a Brand That Lasts
Young Entrepreneur Blog: Aspiring entrepreneurs and those who are just dipping their toe into the business world should first take time to study the history of successful trailblazers and respected organizations before them. Invariably they will learn that, to be successful, you must proactively establish your brand and must go to great pains to ensure that you protect and encourage it to grow while still maintaining its core beliefs and appeals. Every organization from the humblest sole tradership to the largest multinational company possesses a brand, something that sets them apart and something that drives their entire philosophy.
It is important for an organization to fully understand what its brand is. Without a clear demarcation it will be difficult to cement any relationships with clients. The client only sees your organization as a brand, while an organization itself may often not share that same point of view!
Good brand relationships are not created overnight and must be the subject of a continuous operation. You must strive to engage the customer, once you have attention and understand that there must be some kind of emotional connection to ensure that you will be able to interact over any period of time. Often this is the most difficult aspect for the fledgling organization to understand.
Be prepared to go above and beyond in every aspect of your organization. This includes pricing, promotion, delivery and backup. Ensure that over delivery is a part of your business mantra. When all elements work together you have the chance of forging a brand association that will remain in place through good times and bad. You must establish a depth of feeling throughout the operation, so that the customer appreciates that the brand is worthwhile and interest should be retained.
While many management teams give a lot of lip service to brand management and the buzzword of the decade, “customer relationship management” or CRM, they often miss the point. Indeed, you could argue that when a company shifts its focus to a distinct CRM team or operation it may impart responsibility for brand management which represents a major strategical error. Brand management and development must be instilled within the entire organizational team and must come from the bottom up not from the top down.
Sometimes, smaller is better–just ask the small business entrepreneurs also called micropreneurs flourishing in today’s marketplace. A growing set of entrepreneurs are building successful businesses by serving a niche market. Micropreneurs aren’t trying to become the next Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. They’re thriving small-scale on the strength of a loyal customer base and utilizing social business networking and utility tools to help with sales lead generation.
Micro-Enterprises Rely on E-Commerce Solutions
Micropreneurs are rewriting the rules of small business–and they’re relying on the internet to make their business model work. A New York Times feature on startups explains: “the Internet has given people an extraordinary tool not only to market their ideas but also to find business partners and suppliers, and to do all kinds of functions on the cheap: keeping the books, interacting with customers, even turning a small idea into a big idea.”Thanks to a range of online small business resources, today’s micropreneurs have the resources to build their venture on a shoestring budget.
With minimal upfront investment, you can:
1. Create an Internet storefront for retail sales. E-commerce solutions can create a Web site with point-of-sale (POS) capability. Online POS systems enables secure credit card processing on your site, allowing you to keep the doors open 24/7.
2. Reach your niche market. Online sales lead generation and marketing tools excel at targeting interested consumers and businesses.
3. Communicate with your customers via online business networking tools, a blog, or social networking tools. Social media sites offer powerful resources for finding your needle in the haystack, also known as your niche customers and partners. They can also help you keep in touch; today’s customer service agents use online media such as twitter, facebook, tradeseam and email correspondence to connect with the public.
4. Need niche supplies or equipment to launch your niche business? Tradeseam connects entrepreneurs and suppliers of all stripes. You’ll find business resources including manufacturing companies, international suppliers, and everything under the sun online.
5. Web-based technology offers a range of resources for small business owners. Time-tracking software and online accounting programs are just two examples of today’s affordable, productivity-enhancing business tools.
6.The Internet offers the reach and low startup costs to support a niche business.
7. For many micropreneurs, the Eureka moment–the business idea–derives directly from a personal passion.
The following entrepreneurs built a following–and a profitable business–catering to like-minded individuals.
Specialty Food Carts
El Dorado tacos? Chow Fun to go? More and more specialty food carts are cruising urban neighborhoods, with offbeat menus to serve the random craving. Restaurant consultant Clark Wolf notes: “Mobile food is one of the hottest things going all over the country. Brooklyn has its ribs truck, Manhattan has its dessert trucks, and now Los Angeles has the cupcake patrol.”
Specialty food carts rely on social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook to broadcast their coordinates. The strategy seems to work. L.A.’s Kogi taco truck draws between 300 and 800 by tweeting its location in advance, “setting off a taco-minded flash mob.”
Pedicab
A physically fit duo in Spokane, Washington has pedaled to success with a pedicab service. Cheaper and more eco-friendly than a cab, the bike-based taxi is finding no shortage of riders around the downtown area. To get the wheels rolling in your own leg-powered cab service, you’ll need pedicabs, licenses, insurance, and a local marketing campaign. Once you’ve gained a loyal ridership, you can establish a call center or online-based dispatch service linking riders to your mobile phone.
Guerilla Marketing Agency
Seattle businesses looking to make a unique statement can count on Wexley School for Girls to get the job done. The agency uses off-the-wall guerilla marketing stunts to build publicity for clients. For example, they created a buzz around Copper Mountain ski resort by staging a National Snow Day with improv ski-patrol actors and fake snow. The stunts aren’t for everyone; “either you get what Wexley is selling–a very particular sensibility and approach toward marketing–or you don’t,” comments an admirer. But the agency isn’t looking for mass appeal: “Wexley is biting off little pieces, looking to take on a particular niche of a business.”
Build your own businesses staging publicity events for businesses. Start with an eye-catching Website Design and online marketing campaign to get the word out. As the costs of running a business come down, micro-enterprises are flourishing. These small businesses focus on a loyal niche, taking advantage of online business networks to communicate with customers, source, distribute, and to manage the venture.
In today’s Internet-driven economy, it’s no longer necessary to chase the next big thing. A great small idea can take you even further.
Niki is an entrepreneur, business consultant and advisor to several small business entrepreneurs in the San Francisco bay area. She writes extensively on the small business blog and is a frequent contributor to several small business resource and networking sites that offer tools and resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners, including Tradeseam, Dell, Women On Business and Small Business Community.
Article Contributed by by Joanne S. Black
Yes, the economy is lagging and budgets are cut. Yes, we have competition. Yes, clients are postponing buying decisions.
So what?
If you focus on building relationships and implement the sales strategies I reveal here, you’ll be able to close more deals and get more sales now. People will buy from you even in a lagging economy — no matter what your price point.
Sales Closing Tip 1: Recommend New Approaches
Good salespeople have always talked about creating value. Now we need to put ourselves in our clients’ shoes and be creative. We must get in and get started. Think smart, not big. It’s always smarter to have a smaller piece of something, than a big piece of nothing. Begin with a smaller project, a reduced order, or a regional, rather than global, implementation. Get in, and get to know the client. Let them get to know you. Get to know their business.
Sales Closing Tip 2: Create Metrics
Sit on the same side of the table as your client. Work together to determine the best way to get started. Always, always, create metrics with your client. How do you, together, define success? Get agreement that once this project is successful–according to the metrics you’ve agreed upon–that the client will work with you to identify other sales opportunities within their organization. A successful project breeds a successful relationship, which leads to successful referrals. This means more sales leads and more money for you!
Sales Closing Tip 3: Negotiate or Walk
Yes, the client will want to negotiate on price. That’s their job–to build business while watching the bottom line. How many times have you submitted a sales proposal to a client, and had them say, right off the bat, “Great! Where do I sign?” It doesn’t happen. We always want to get the best deal, so why wouldn’t our clients?
If you must adjust your price, then adjust the scale of your project or the deliverables as well. Always get something in return and write it into your agreement. Maybe the client agrees to write a testimonial or promises to refer you to another business unit in their organization, or to someone they know at a different company. Maybe you barter some of your services. Bartering is an age-old way of doing business, and it makes sense in many cases if you want what they have and they need what you have. Perhaps the client has software that your company needs, or a consulting methodology that could propel your business. You get the picture. Work it out.
If you can’t work things out, be willing to walk away. It’s a tough decision, but it may be your best strategic sales decision. You’ll be off to the next client who values what you offer and is willing to pay for it.
If you follow my advice in this article and in my book, No More Cold Calling™, you will build lifetime customer relationships with clients who want to buy from you over and over again even in a lagging economy. You will get more referrals. And, you will close more sales.
So, what are you waiting for? Get in and get started now!
America’s leading authority on referral selling and founder of No More Cold Calling®, Joanne Black helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners get more referrals and attract business fast without increasing the cost of sales. Discover how to turn prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time even in a lagging economy with her No More Cold Calling sales programs at http://www.nomorecoldcalling.com.