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Keeping Your Customers
| Guest post by: Mark Macias |
Article Overview: Could you be losing your clients without even realizing it? Many business owners may not even know they are losing their customers until it's too late. here are some tips you can do to ensure your clients stay with you.
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Free Download - Keeping Your Customers By Mark Macias |
Keeping Your Customers
Reinventing the Business
When you start losing your base, you’re in trouble and this doesn’t just apply to politics. It applies to every business – restaurants, retailers, lounges – you name it. If you notice a new hot spot is syphoning away customers, then you need to change something - your ambiance, music, specials, menu - and reinforce how your business has undergone a transformation.
In simple terms, you need to give your customers a reason to come back.
When this happens in politics, the communications staff is quickly reshuffled and a new image is created. This is why over the summer, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was never seen wearing a suit and tie on the campaign trail.
As a former Communications Director for a Congressional challenger, I can tell you Romney’s internal polling likely showed that voters wanted a President who was going to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty, fixing this economy. A suit and tie reinforces an image that your white collar is clean.
So what did Romney do? The perennial politician lost the suit and rolled up his sleeves like he was going to work in a factory.
President Obama is now at his lowest approval ratings of his administration. The latest Rasmussen poll shows 64 percent of Americans say they don’t approve of the way he has performed.
That’s not shocking with the sagging economy and meager jobs numbers, but I am surprised President Obama’s communications team hasn’t addressed this image issue. In fact, his staff is practically reinforcing this negative image with their actions.
When President Obama campaigned in the heart of America in August, he hopped on a bus that was made in Canada. How can the President lobby for Made in America when he is riding in a million-dollar bus that was Made in Canada?
And when Americans were pulling back on their vacation plans, President Obama went to Martha’s Vineyard for a vacation and was photographed eating ice cream, riding his bike, and playing golf.
This article is not meant to sway your political views. It’s meant to expose how your image matters when it comes to the media and public. If locals view your wine bar as a place where only seniors hang out, then it will perpetuate itself. Young people will flock to a new place and older people will stop in, until your customers (or business) slowly die.
One of the first questions I ask potential publicity clients is “where is your base?” Surprisingly, many business owners can’t answer that question. It’s important to ask yourself where your most important customers are coming from so you can go to them.
In New York, we have several newspapers with completely different demographics: The NY Post, Daily News, NY Times, Newsday, am New York, Metro. Each newspaper serves a different type of client. If you want to find new clients, you need to know where they are. If I’m going to pitch a story on your business to a newspaper, I want to make sure your potential clients are reading the article.
And don’t be naïve in your assessment. Open your eyes and ears to the alternative.
I have a cosmetic surgeon client who told me his clientele only reads the WSJ and finance publications. He was adamant that a story in the NY Post or Newsday wouldn’t help his business.
I thought to myself: that’s funny because as I waited in your lobby for our meeting, I saw women reading New York Magazine, People, US Weekly and other fashion magazines. I also saw a woman with a NY Post crammed in her purse.
You may not immediately recognize when it’s time to reinvent your business just like we don’t always know when it’s going to rain. But if we pay close attention to the leading indicators – revenue, customers, the media – we will get a better idea if our image is no longer appealing to our base.
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Article Tags: 3m media group, 3mmediagroup, growing your business, how to get new business, mark macias, public relations, publicity
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About the Author: Mark Macias RSS for Mark's articles - Visit Mark's website Mark is also the author of Beat the Press: Your Guide to Managing the Media, which reveals overt and covert tactics to deal with any communications situation. You can read free chapter excerpts at: http://www.BeatthePressBook.com. Click here to visit Mark's website   Losing Your Twitter Followers How to Kill a Viral Video How to Slow or Stop Negative News Proof Anthony Weiner is Lying How to Pitch Like a Journalist |
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