The other day I got asked about our email marketing services. 'We need to target architects and interior designers in Sussex', he said. I had to disappoint him, as I explained we deal only with permission email marketing, in other words, communicating with customers/members/suppliers or prospects who have given you their permission to do so.
For many small businesses, getting new business is about getting new customers: perhaps they have a service or product that only gets bought once, or not very often (funeral directors or estate agents for example).
But a much neglected area of marketing is customer retention. If there's even a possibility that people might buy from you more than once, then customer retention is worth putting some budget against. If there's a good chance they'll come back again and again, and bring their friends, it's definitely worth it. Plus, it's all tied up with reputation management. Even if they don't need you again, keep in touch and they'll remember you when friends & family are looking.
So before spending a fortune on Yellow Pages, print advertising, pay per click, telemarketing and so forth .... think how little it could cost to keep some of those hard-won customers and get more of their business.
For many hard-pressed SMEs, if just 30% of the marketing budget went on customer retention, I am confident profitability would increase. Not only that, so would word-of-mouth referrals and long term customer loyalty.
I'm not saying you should inundate your customers with 'offers' emails every week, though lord knows it must work for some, we all know companies who do it.
But the task of selling to an existing customer is far easier than finding, wooing and persuading someone from cold. It's also cheaper, and the good news is ... done well, this kind of customer loyalty marketing just gets more effective over time.
Shame the same can't be said of targeting the cold prospects, who, in the face of mounting junk mail and spam issues, are becoming more immune to direct mail, cold prospecting and broadcast advertising.
Why bother about generating customer loyalty? One big reason is the more loyal the customer, the less likely they are to be sensitive to price increases.
Hang on ... marketing which allows you to put your prices up, rather than demanding you lower them? Now there's a novelty.
