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: How often do you communicate to your database?
Usual Response: Huh?
Question: Do you know the average spend by client on the database?
Usual Response: Ummm…..no
Question: Do you divide your clients into profitable, break even and loss making categories?
Usual Response: 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.
& #8232;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”.
Author Resource:
Tony Gattari of Achievers Group is a business keynote speaker and guest speaker. His passionate enthusiastic style makes him ideal as your next sales speaker, marketing speaker or keynote speaker. Tony Gattari has worked with over 120 businesses. See http://www.achieversgroup.com.au for more info.
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