5 Steps to Boosting your Customer Lifetime Retention Strategy

It used to be that that sales strategies focused heavily on consistently and aggressively seeking out new customers. Although building new customers can never be ignored, nurturing and  keeping the customers you already have can generate bigger returns. Customer retention and holding a customer over a lifetime gets more sales.

5 important tips for your customer lifetime retention strategy:


1. Build a Relationship

The sales process is about building a relationship, which means it is based on trust, not on closing a deal. Sales take more time, but repeat sales come faster when a relationship is built with the customer.

There are three main techniques which go a long way to build a relationship with a customer:

Honesty - Many customers respond to a company that offers transparency. Even if the customer makes a smaller purchase or buys with a competitor, be honest about the product. Be honest about what the future holds for the customer with your company, and be honest about the competition. Even if one sale goes to a competitor, the customer will remember the honesty and be more likely to come back in the future.

Sharing - Share tips and skills beyond the sale for free. For example, demonstrate the product or service for sale, teach the customer how to use it, and offer free advice and resources in the future.

Partnership - Offer a partnership with the customer, such as, "I can offer this and you can benefit me by offering this." Customers love a give-and-take relationship, because they feel they are getting as well as giving. If the customer has a business, find out how the businesses can be beneficial to each other.


2. Brand Loyalty

Yes, brand loyalty exists, and it must be created. The three parts of brand loyalty are high quality products, high quality services, and excellent customer service. Find a way to make all three of these happen to make customers loyal to your brand. Referrals, reviews and recommendations of your products to your customer's circle of friends and business associates are crucial in the modern marketplace.  According to research data,  85% of small businesses get their customers through word of mouth.


3. Cross-sell and Upsell

When products are bundled, the lifespan of the customer is increased. Consider fast food combinations for a moment. Many people do not walk out with burgers; rather, they walk out with a combination of food, simply because the bundle makes the offer a better price value. Offering a bundled product can also help your business sell above your wholesale price, increasing profits. Customers will return when it's convenient for them to purchase everything they need in one simple bundle rather than having to make many separate purchases.


4. Incentives and Rewards

Don't rely on constant discounts, it won't work. Instead, offer special services that come with the product or free gifts. Building up points toward a reward are also attractive; consider grocery stores who offer points toward gas stations as an example. Use incentives to maintain customers over a lifetime, but be careful. Evaluate what works efficiently within financial growth goals. You don't need to hurt your bottom line offering incentives.


5. Increase Customer Service through Touch Points

Using different means of customer communication and being responsive to customer service enquiries increases the chance of a customer coming back. This means being connected and approachable via phone, email, Internet and social media. Customers need to feel like they are an important and valued part of your business; giving them the ability to choose when and how to contact you boosts that feeling. Don't forget to ask your customers for feedback too. They are the ones that can provide significant feedback to benefit how you can evolve your business offerings for continued growth.

5 Communication Tips From The Pros

Communication is the first line of defense. It's not about talking - it's about effectively using words and listening to persuade others. The best leaders of the world were also excellent communicators; in fact, popularity in leadership is bred from effective communication. Whether the communication is happening one-on-one or with a crowd of supporters, many of the most persuasive leaders have followed a number of the following tips.

1. Personal Relations

Try using organizational conversations over corporate communications. Use a dialog in communications, not a monologue. The conversation cannot be one-sided, even during a speech presented to a group of individuals. Personalized conversations are much more effective, according to Forbes Magazine. Many of the most successful people are also accessible; they are willing to have a natural conversation with any one of their supporters.

2. Give, Don't Take

Focus on what will be given to the other person, not on what you will get out of the conversation. Whether in one-on-one conversations, or during speeches, the audience must take something away to become faithful to your cause. The most influential people throughout history have left podiums with audiences stunned into action. Consider what you will be giving away, and look past what you will receive, especially when you are trying to persuade a person or group to your ideas. If you receive something from the conversation, consider it a bonus.

3. Listen

This was mentioned before, but it's important to have its own point. Listen to the other person well; use different listening techniques. Active listening is the best way to give the other person the impression that you have truly heard what was said. Repeat points, and ask questions in response to statements. Again, this will help you provide information for the other party to take away from the conversation, and it will help you understand what information you must bring to the next conversation.

4. Use More Empathy

This practice can be difficult for those without a natural tendency for empathy, but it is important to gain the most insight into the other person's needs. Put the ego aside; use candor instead of inflated promises. When this technique is practiced, you can later follow through on your promises, and trust grows with those that support you. When an ego-inflated conversation ends, the other party expects results that cannot happen. Deflate the ego, use empathy to truly understand what your supports need, and use humility when making promises to those who support you.

5. Know Your Subject Matter

This may seem rather simple, but there are times when people talk about subject matter in which they are uneducated. Every successful leader has been well educated in their chosen topics; this is why political leaders have advisers. Make sure you are well educated on the topic in which you wish to sway your audience. When the audience begins asking questions, you want to be their source for answers. It also helps the audience trust that you know what you're doing. It is okay to ask for time to research any questions that are just too tough or unique enough to warrant more education. In fact, these questions allow for future communications, which helps gain trust and support.

Take these tips from the world's leaders in gaining support in everything from politics to sales. Whatever your reason for needing communication, using these tips from the pros will bring your communication skills closer to success.

3 Winning Tips That Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Michael Jordan’s Game Play

There’s no argument Michael Jordan’s days on the court puts him as one of the most skilled athletes in the world. Many fans will affirm that Jordan is the best basketball player of all time, playing the game with a rare efficiency that little to no other will come close to ever comparing with. From the moment that Jordan stepped onto the NBA court, he always excelled and dominated the sport of Basketball like few athletes ever have or will. Jordan is credited with having turned the Chicago Bulls into a dynasty. Many claim that he was always great at electrifying crowds with his skill, energy, professionalism, and style. Today Jordan is easily still one of the most recognizable athletes in the world, which isn't a bad accomplishment for a man who was once cut from his own high-school basketball team.

Jordan’s success off court has been recognized as equally as successful, both for his successful entrepreneurial endeavors and ownership of the Charlotte Hornets, as well as his Nike brand partnership and other endorsements. 

So what can entrepreneurs learn and embrace from this All-Star MVP player and most-marketed sports figure? Here are 3 valuable tips that entrepreneurs can apply to “winning like Mike:”

Play to Win

Michael Jordan’s winning achievements are undeniable. Of all the players in history, he is number three all time in points scored, he's had fourteen All-Star Game appearances, and more. He's achieved a myriad of different titles and impressive awards, including six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards, and that isn't all. His skills, determination, and passion is what many say kept him going and helped him to achieve the highest accomplishments possible within the game of basketball and life. Jordan made the sacrifices that were required in order to help push his team toward success and the finish line.

Jordan’s attitude was not to settle for anything less than being the best. It was this winning mindset that helped him to achieve the highest accomplishments possible not only within the game of basketball but in everything that he chose to do in his life.

Develop your business “game” and play to win. Get to really know and understand your market, consumers and competitors. Differentiate your business in a way that stands out against the competition, attracts consumers and gets people talking about your business – both online and offline. Nurture your loyal consumers, ask for their feedback and learn from their feedback to keep your products and services relevant. By being connected and attuned to your consumer, you’ll know how to keep a winning plan in place to scale and continue to drive your success.

Learn From The Failed Shots

For all the shots that Jordan made he missed many, including game winning shots. Did this deter his determination? No. Jordan embraced his failures, learned from them and turned them into his success. He never deterred from playing to win.

As an entrepreneur and business owner, you will have knocks and challenges and strong competition to contend with. You’ll even have outright failures that might leave you feeling deflated and even second-guessing your motivation to continue moving your business forward.

If success is not growing at the rate you expect or want, or you are experiencing a decline in business, do not define yourself with failure. Evaluate what is not working in your business model, learn what you can do differently and keep going. A failed shot does not mean that you are out of the game!

Lead and Inspire

Jordan led The Chicago Bulls to six NBA Championship wins. He did it not through focusing on his solo talent, but by recognizing the power of teamwork.

If you want your business to grow, you cannot rely on your talent alone. It takes a team of talented professionals each with their own individual skills working congruently toward your winning vision. The ability to lead and inspire your team through example and action is critical.  This way every one on the team will know exactly what they can do to make their mark on making success happen.

Making Sense of and Using Big Data

Businesses are collecting more data as well as having access to unprecedented amounts of data from other sources. This has led to technological revolutions such as data warehousing and big data tools and technologies. This data holds useful information and patterns that can help businesses and firms to achieve their goals and improve their operations.

However, making sense of all this data and using it meaningfully can be a challenge given its sheer volume. To leverage this data, firms are increasingly turning to various models to meet various objectives like optimization and prediction. The insight that can be drawn from these models, as well as business-related benefits, is what is driving more and more firms to seek ways of making sense and using the available data.

Motivation for leveraging big data and large datasets

Depending on the firm’s objectives, large datasets and big data can be used to meet various objectives. One company may be interested in streamlining and increasing the efficiency of the supply chain. A manufacturing firm can use demand optimization in manufacturing for increased sales and profits. A retail chain may be seeking ways to optimize the use of shelf space to maximize profits. There are as many uses of big data and large datasets as there are good ideas on how to leverage them.

Various technologies, methodologies and approaches are being used in order to leverage big data including the following:

• Conventional Business Intelligence (BI) tools and technologies

• Integrated business planning (IBP)

• Predictive analysis

• Prescriptive analysis

• Demand optimization

Conventional Business Intelligence tools use the data available to firms to examine data and determine what has happened in the past, also known as descriptive analytics. Some of the technologies used are data mining and data aggregation.

Predictive analysis attempt to predict future scenarios to determine what could happen based on models and available data. Some of the techniques used are forecast techniques and statistical math models.

Prescriptive analysis provides management with actionable information on what should be done under various scenarios. Some of the technologies used are simulations and optimization. Applications include scheduling, planning and demand optimization.

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) aligns strategic plans with operation plans harmonizing strategy and execution. IBP seeks to connect planning functions in all departments of a firm to more efficiently align strategy and operations with financial performance.

Understanding Demand Optimization

Demand optimization seeks to utilize the available resources and processes to maximize sales volumes, revenue and profits. Some of the applications of demand optimization are determining optimal solutions for:

• Meeting market share objectives

• Meeting inventory goals

• Achieving gross margin targets

• Achieving desired sales

• Demand optimization in manufacturing

Demand optimization is being applied in more fields and industries. Like most high tech and highly competitive industries, manufacturing firms have been quick to adopt the technique for increased competitive advantage.

Manufacturing firms face complex supply and demand issues involving numerous variables. These variables impact on the products as well as the business as they affect quality, profitability and yields. Some of the supply side variables management has to take into consideration include:

• Production capability and capacity constraints

• Availability of inputs and raw materials

• Multiple production and assembly sites

Demand variables that affect decision making and business outcomes for manufacturing firms are:

• Sales projections

• Promotions and marketing

• Historical orders

• In-house orders

• Contract obligations

By leveraging IBP, analytics and demand optimization, businesses not only increase profitability but also serve customers better. This is result of creating better synergy between various departments like production, marketing, sales and distribution to meet organizational objectives.

Five Essential Ways to Drive Traffic to your Website

One of the best ways to promote any business is through a company website. This allows you to reach potentially millions of customers with your products and messaging but you have to find a way to get more people to your website if you want to compete with business rivals. To ensure that your customers come back to your website on a regular basis you need to implement effective ways of bringing them back. 

Here are 5 essential ways that you can build and keep healthy web traffic.

Updates:

Keep your website updated regularly. This way you can ensure that customers who are interested in your business (whether services or products) will be kept afresh of what you are offering. This could include a revamp of the website, a new product, a special promotion, a new service or even the introduction of a new member of your business. 

Newsletters:

Producing a weekly or monthly newsletter is a great way to keep your customers updated with the latest news, services and products. To ensure that new clients sign up to your newsletter, ensure that you do a special promotion of a product or a service that is only accessible through the newsletter. 

Website Appearance:

Looks are important so make sure you have an appealing website. Having a website that looks good and is easily navigated will ensure that people have a positive experience and want to return again and again. Ensure that all content on your website is accurate and easily readable – if the content is not relevant, complicated or does not have any value for your visitors they will not be encouraged to come back.

Marketing & PR:

Active marketing and PR is extremely important in any business; if you don’t market your business, then people will not know that you exist. There are many ways in which you can market your website – contribute to social networking sites relevant for your business, comment on blogs,  Don’t deliberately advertise your services or products in there because you will annoy everyone and get your account blocked. Use your website as your signature and make genuine replies. In addition, ensure that you list your website on all the free business directories on the web. 

Company Blog:

Creating a blog for your business can help you reach target audiences globally. It also contributes to making your website more dynamic and search engine friendly. Make your blog interesting and content rich to ensure that people are engaged in reading, and help pull and attract traffic to your site. A blog is a great way of keeping your current and potential clients up to date and connected with your business. Types of content that can create engagement on your blog include: helpful articles, infographics, video clips, images, new product releases.  

Movers and Shakers: Why Companies Seek Influencers

A lot of companies seek out, follow and engage influencers. If you have a powerful network with a lot of friends and contacts, that is worth something. However, it’s not all just who you know that matters, it’s also what you can bring to the table. What you know matters, too.

Knowing that the influencers can make or break a business based on favorable or unfavorable reviews, comments made, or through biased spotlights on products and services, some of the biggest companies in the world are now seeking and using social influencers to help them promote.  For example, Disney often runs promotions to give influencers tickets and merchandise for new movie releases. American Express offers gift cards. Chevy handed a few lucky influencers the keys to a brand new Sonic for a three-day weekend.

Having Clout Equals Success

Why would they do this?  Feedback, of course. Word of mouth referrals have long been the key to successful enterprises, even before the rush of social media became a big hit. From solo-preneurs to mom-and-pop businesses; to giant Fortune 500 companies, any smart business principal understands the value of good ‘old fashioned word-of-mouth recommendations. Count that on a widespread basis and before you know it, everyone who is anyone has heard about your product, service or invention.  As a recent example, the “50 Shades of Gray” book was a recent phenomenon that began by a few happy readers who loved it and told others. Now it is a blockbuster movie, all started by a “buzz” of some avid readers.

Some influencers get formal invitations as “brand ambassadors” and get invited to special events. If rubbing elbows with band members, models or actors and getting VIP passes sounds like a cool gig, well… becoming an influencer is one way to do it.  Would you like it if a big brand or ad agency courted your attention just for having a ton of friends, fans and followers on your multiple social platforms?  Of course. Who wouldn’t?

How to Gain Online Social Popularity

Bearing this in mind, anyone can become "influential" in certain niches. There are communities for every type of interest, hobby, activity, personality.  Examples such as tech communities, video gaming, reading/writing, cooking, crafting, etc. enable you to be part of the popular “in crowd” with those things you most enjoy, while also boosting your reputation as a person to know on that topic. Companies target people like you to help promote their products and services. Being known as an expert can also give you leverage in the job market within your chosen field.

This can also be done by helping them through reviews and advertising on your blog. If you have a popular blog with a lot of followers, the big companies will begin to notice. You’ll get subscribers from media (TV, magazine publishers, etc.) and more and more offers will pour in.  It does take some effort. You have to blog about topics that people are interested in, while devoting your time to develop a niche. If you just write about a bunch of random stuff, it may not generate the results you seek.

With this in mind, you can move forward with more caution in what you choose to share or not share with your social circles. Leverage your influence by keeping the posts relevant, short, and related to your goals. Don’t promote capricious products you’re not familiar with because if they fail, this can decrease your credibility. Most importantly, keep your communications positive in their message and shy away from foul language, obscene cartoons, or anything offensive that could come back to haunt you later on.

Mobile Marketing – Why Small Businesses Need a Good Strategy in Place

Mobile devices – such as phones, tablets and Smartphones – have overtaken desktops as the best tools for accessing the Internet as well as all other web-related services. Mobile devices have also emerged as the best platforms through which a small business can deploy all its marketing tactics. In fact, mobile devices have emerged as the tools of choice for customers to read web content, check emails, and shop online.

Reports indicate that 9 out of every 10 Americans possess a cellphone. More than half of the cellphones in the hands of Americans are smartphones. Consequently, it is safe to say that the world is in the smartphone era, thus one more reason for embarking on mobile marketing. If you are going to use this form of marketing to benefit your small business, a focused mobile strategy needs to be in place covering the following considerations:

• Development of a mobile app and/or mobile responsive website 
• Investment in user specific messages and content as well as notifications
• Social media assets and integration
• A loyalty program that offers customers rewards and perks

Loyalty programs will entice existing customers to continue buying from a business. Loyalty programs are also attractive to new customers who desire to know the benefits they stand to obtain by choosing to purchase their preferred products and services from a specific business.

Cost-Effective 

All forms of marketing must have a high impact. Fortunately, mobile marketing does just that. More importantly, small businesses care about the impact of any marketing promotion on their finances. In this regard, the cost-effective nature of marketing via mobile devices is the best way through which small businesses can achieve their desired goals. Marketing via mobile devices is more affordable to small businesses.

The initial investment that the small business owners make regarding the resources and time required to develop the technology is what requires the most cost outlay. Once up and running, mobile marketing programs provide cost-efficiencies against traditional media expense requirements such as postage, printing and air time.

The cost effectiveness of mobile marketing to any local or small business is also demonstrated by the fact that the cost of developing and delivering it continues to decrease with time. The more the volume increases, the lower the costs of developing and delivering the marketing campaign grows. For a startup, this is great news considering that it needs to save a huge chunk of its finances/capital to build its profitability.

Immediate Results

The best news with mobile marketing is that the content gets to the customers immediately. Moreover, it provides two-way engagement. What this means is that customers are free to respond to the marketing message that they receive. This assists to create the environment for interactivity and direct engagement to thrive between a small business and its customers. There are no intermediaries to create complexities or distraction between the business or customers. The message gets to the customers in its purest form. Similarly, the response by customers gets to the business in it’s purest form.

Faster Response Rates

The fact that customers walk around with their mobile devices means that they will respond faster to any marketing message that a small business sends to them. Moreover, a small business can have real time access to tracking results including downloads, page visits and customer opt-ins. This information is important for a small business to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of mobile strategies as well as be able to adjust and optimize plans accordingly.