“Marketing to Retain Your Existing Customers”
“Marketing to Retain Your Existing Customers”
Marketing falls into 2 entirely separate strategies, ‘Customer Attraction’ and ‘Customer Retention’, I am constantly amazed by businesses that take existing customers for granted and spend obscene amounts of money trying to attract new ones. Yes, you do need to market to attract new business because you do need to grow your customer base but maybe you can market through your existing raving fans and advocates.
Capturing customer loyalty means investing in Customer Retention strategies and when you do this well, it will translate into a bigger business built as much by your customers as by you and your team. Sales are contingent on the attitude of the salesperson, not the attitude of the customer. Customers who receive fabulous service feel positive about the provider, (that’s you), they feel that they get greater value from you and it boosts their self-esteem so they’re likely to tell their friends about you. Referred business cannot be bought, it has to be earned and once you have it, it’s hard for your competitors to steal it away from you.
Here are some simple tips to help you get started on, first of all, customers don’t make up stories about your business, you create them and the customer simply retells them. It’s up to you to create the opportunity by providing your customers with stories about you that they feel compelled to talk about. By the way, it’s estimated that in the USA, as much as 50% of all business is generated by ‘Word of Mouth Advertising’ i.e. referrals.
Word of mouth advertising is like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for your business.
Stay in touch with your customers at least every 90 days, a newsletter is great for this but don’t lose the personal touch, if you see an article in the press or hear something that will interest a particular client, contact them directly and let them know. This shows you care about them more than just their business with you.
Make sure that your customers know everything that you can do for them, just because you know all about your business, doesn’t automatically mean that they do. For example do you create web sites, (if not why not), and does your entire database know this? What other services do you offer that customers may not think to ask you about, make yourself easy to do business with?
Have you ever answered a question with a question? Would that be making a difference to your retention rate? The answer to the latter is most definitely yes! Asking questions not only increases your conversion rate, it builds rapport with your customer and ensures that the sale becomes their idea and not yours and provides you with future opportunities.
Asking questions also means active listening. You can ask questions about your customers’ work, business, kids or hobbies and do make sure that you are listening with sincere interest. It may even be helpful to note down some of the answers – such as the names of their kids, interests etc for future communication. By asking questions and listening, you are building rapport and attaching importance to their conversation.
Marketing for Customer Retention is hard work and never ceases, here are 6 vital steps originally devised by William Davidow & Bro Uttal in their book, Total Customer Service:
• Devise service strategies
• Get top managers to behave like customer service fanatics
• Concentrate on motivating and training employees
• Design products & services that make good customer service possible
• Invest in service infrastructure
• Monitor achievement of customer service goals
Inky has a little story he likes to tell and retell, so here it is:
Remember me? I’m the guest who enters your restaurant, sits down patiently and waits while your front of house staff does everything but take my order.
I’m the customer who goes into your store and stands quietly while your sales assistants finish their chitchat.
I’m the client who comes to your office and waits patiently while your receptionist finishes typing before acknowledging me.
You might say I’m a good guy, but do you know who else I am?
I’m the guest/customer/client who never comes back, never refers your business and tells all my friend and acquaintances why they shouldn’t do business with you. And, it amuses me to watch you spend thousands of marketing dollars annually to get me back when I was yours in the first place…
All you had to do was show me a little courtesy.
Marketing to Retain Your Existing Customers - To learn more about this author, visit Jack Fraenkel's Website.
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It’s generally accepted that it costs 6 times more to attract new business as it does to retain and grow existing business and yet time and time again we hear that business is just a numbers game, the more you advertise, the more customers you’ll get. The facts are slightly different, it is true that advertising will bring you more prospects to sell to and win away from some other printing company by whatever means, fair or foul, and often based solely on price, and if you can win them away by price, how easy will it be for a competitor to win them away from you?
Marketing falls into 2 entirely separate strategies, ‘Customer Attraction’ and ‘Customer Retention’, I am constantly amazed by businesses that take existing customers for granted and spend obscene amounts of money trying to attract new ones. Yes, you do need to market to attract new business because you do need to grow your customer base but maybe you can market through your existing raving fans and advocates.
Capturing customer loyalty means investing in Customer Retention strategies and when you do this well, it will translate into a bigger business built as much by your customers as by you and your team. Sales are contingent on the attitude of the salesperson, not the attitude of the customer. Customers who receive fabulous service feel positive about the provider, (that’s you), they feel that they get greater value from you and it boosts their self-esteem so they’re likely to tell their friends about you. Referred business cannot be bought, it has to be earned and once you have it, it’s hard for your competitors to steal it away from you.
Here are some simple tips to help you get started on, first of all, customers don’t make up stories about your business, you create them and the customer simply retells them. It’s up to you to create the opportunity by providing your customers with stories about you that they feel compelled to talk about. By the way, it’s estimated that in the USA, as much as 50% of all business is generated by ‘Word of Mouth Advertising’ i.e. referrals.
Word of mouth advertising is like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for your business.
Stay in touch with your customers at least every 90 days, a newsletter is great for this but don’t lose the personal touch, if you see an article in the press or hear something that will interest a particular client, contact them directly and let them know. This shows you care about them more than just their business with you.
Make sure that your customers know everything that you can do for them, just because you know all about your business, doesn’t automatically mean that they do. For example do you create web sites, (if not why not), and does your entire database know this? What other services do you offer that customers may not think to ask you about, make yourself easy to do business with?
Have you ever answered a question with a question? Would that be making a difference to your retention rate? The answer to the latter is most definitely yes! Asking questions not only increases your conversion rate, it builds rapport with your customer and ensures that the sale becomes their idea and not yours and provides you with future opportunities.
Asking questions also means active listening. You can ask questions about your customers’ work, business, kids or hobbies and do make sure that you are listening with sincere interest. It may even be helpful to note down some of the answers – such as the names of their kids, interests etc for future communication. By asking questions and listening, you are building rapport and attaching importance to their conversation.
Marketing for Customer Retention is hard work and never ceases, here are 6 vital steps originally devised by William Davidow & Bro Uttal in their book, Total Customer Service:
• Devise service strategies
• Get top managers to behave like customer service fanatics
• Concentrate on motivating and training employees
• Design products & services that make good customer service possible
• Invest in service infrastructure
• Monitor achievement of customer service goals
Inky has a little story he likes to tell and retell, so here it is:
Remember me? I’m the guest who enters your restaurant, sits down patiently and waits while your front of house staff does everything but take my order.
I’m the customer who goes into your store and stands quietly while your sales assistants finish their chitchat.
I’m the client who comes to your office and waits patiently while your receptionist finishes typing before acknowledging me.
You might say I’m a good guy, but do you know who else I am?
I’m the guest/customer/client who never comes back, never refers your business and tells all my friend and acquaintances why they shouldn’t do business with you. And, it amuses me to watch you spend thousands of marketing dollars annually to get me back when I was yours in the first place…
All you had to do was show me a little courtesy.
Marketing to Retain Your Existing Customers - To learn more about this author, visit Jack Fraenkel's Website.
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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