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.

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.

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.  

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.

The Argument for IT Outsourcing for Your Small Business

Using IT outsourcing for your human resources department will take your business to new levels. While the HR department is valuable for their human component, you can let technology do some of the work for you and save both manpower and time. What are some ways the HR department can utilize the power of technology? One way is through crowd-sourcing.

Crowd-sourcing is offering jobs to people via job boards or other portal sites and hiring out specific tasks to be done by independent contractors or workers. So how can you harness the power of technology to work for you as a HR department? Here are a few tips.

1. Use talent management software. Using software to pool your resources to find the best workers is an ideal way to maximize your ROI and find the best people for the jobs. It matches personality traits, employment history, and even background checks, to make sure the people you are getting are trustworthy.
2. Keep records of current and past employees in a computer database. By keeping a database of employees, you can pull up records anytime they are needed, or to call back former employees when you need more manpower.
3. Post projects and jobs on job boards. Job boards are a great technology you can use to connect your needs with potential workers. Many are based on a bidding system, so you get to decide how much you are willing to pay as well.
4. Network with crowdsourcing companies. Crowd-sourcing sites assemble hundreds of qualified workers together to browse through jobs they are qualified to do and you get to select which ones will be able to do the job you need. 
5. Use technology to do digital interviewing, communicate with and receive completed jobs from independent, outsourced workers. The use of tools such as "Google hangout," online chat, Facebook, and others provides a way to do "live" face-to-face meetings and collaborate with people from around the globe with no airplane fare, and immediate connections.

How To Utilize The IT Talent Pool

There are many ways today that IT outsourcing used including organization of your human resources department. But the potential is only beginning to emerge regarding crowd-sourcing. With more and more employers opting to hire only the best workers for specific tasks, and hiring out smaller jobs to independent workers, they are learning to maximize their investment by paying for only the work that is done, rather than paying full-time employees for down time.

In addition, they tend to get workers who are the most specialized in their category, and are likely to get the job done the quickest in general, since they are only paid upon completion of the task. This saves thousands of dollars in employee pay per year, and this is a growing trend among corporations and big business today. Utilizing outsourced workers often gets you the best talent and the best rates and you are only paying for the time they actually worked, rather than all of that down time you pay for among your employee pool. Plus, there are no worries about employment insurance or taxes. Outsourced IT people work for themselves and they are responsible for paying and keeping up with their own income and taxes.  So it puts the paperwork in their hands, not yours.

And IT is not the only category you should consider outsourcing. Many more companies are turning to independent contractors for virtual assistance jobs, administrative tasks, and other jobs. It's becoming more and more the smart business option for entrepreneurs.

Motivating Employees and Maintaining a Healthy Work Environment

Many employers struggle to find ways to motivate employees that do to require a lot of time or money. There are many options depending on your business and your resources, but here are some super easy was to help your employees feel more motivated, appreciated, and willing to work.

• Create a nice atmosphere. Your employees will spend a lot of their waking hours in the office building so you need to make is as comfortable as possible.  Keeping employees comfortable goes a long way in making them happy and productive.
• Brighten up wall space. Use the walls of your office and building in an effective manner. Post announcements, community events, local sales and discounts, or motivational posters on the walls. Staring at blank walls all the time can be so boring so brighten up the place some.
• Use food as incentive. Don't underestimate how having smaller breaks throughout the day can motivate people to work and make their work time more productive. Also using food in seminars and training can go a long way, too, in getting employees involved and keeping them motivated.
• Recognize employees individually. If an employee has gone above and beyond their job or if they have done wonderful work, you need to take the time to recognize them on a personal level. Stop by and congratulate them, or ask them to your office to praise them in person.
• Recognize employees for group work. Just as it is important for individuals, groups need to get a word of praise when they do a good job. For any and every department, you need to make time to say a special word of thanks to the hard working teams in your business.
• Create social events. Having a few times during the working year for special social events can really help people relax, get to know each other, and have some fun. People are more excited to get involved and work together in the office when they’re on good terms outside of the office.
• Keep attitudes in check. This goes for the attitudes of the employees as well as the customers. Sometimes the customer is not always right and you should stand behind your team when they are doing their job and suffering from the undeserved attitude of impossible-to-please customers.
• Consider your approach. Whether it’s delivering bad news, reprimanding employees, or any other task you face involving your employees, your approach can make all the difference. Take the time to consider how you are approaching the situation before you say or do anything.
• Evaluate difficult employees quickly. One of the most important things to do when faced with a difficult employee is to act quickly. Often you will be faced with complaints or a crisis that must be addressed immediately, such as someone falling asleep on the job or not performing up to standards.
• Choose employees and establish teams wisely. The personality and character traits of your potential employees also need to be carefully examined before you hire them. You should have a list of the desired character traits in mind so you can easily evaluate whether or not an employee is a good fit both for your needs as well as a good fit for your company culture.

Whether you have five employees or five hundred working for you, apply these simple yet powerful principles into your management plans and you'll soon see how more effective your business can be.

Using Yahoo Answers for Free Advertising and Backlinks

One of the main activities of any blog or website is, wherever possible, to take advantage of free targeted traffic; this is why webmasters spend so much time trying to find ways of improving their position in the Google search results. However, there is one very simple method of getting free traffic which is often overlooked by webmasters: Yahoo Answers. The bottom line is that Yahoo Answers is the largest community of knowledge sharing on the Web and getting some of this huge audience interested in your products or services can yield huge benefits.

Not only is Yahoo Answers a great method of generating targeted traffic, it is also a terrific source of free advertising. If you add this free publicity technique to your marketing strategies, you will soon discover how incredibly powerful it is.

One of the key aspects of this strategy is that it is all about participation; so, the first step you need to take is to sign up (by visiting answers.yahoo.com) and to complete your profile, adding as much information to it as you are happy to share. It is also a good idea to upload an avatar; probably not your logo; perhaps your photo; or some other friendly graphic associated with your brand.

Next, you need to familiarize yourself with the Yahoo Answers platform: browse through the categories of question which are relevant to your niche; and decide which types of question you are interested in answering.

Before you begin to answer any questions, however, you should have a clear idea of what you want to promote. This way you can home in on those topics that will be relevant to the site you want to promote via Yahoo Answers.

Your first public activity will be to answer lots and lots of questions; try and aim for the maximum allowed, which is twenty questions per day. The reason for this is that Yahoo operate a system of points and levels: when you sign up, you are a level one user and Yahoo allocates you 100 points; in order to reach level 2, you need 250 points; and, until you reach level 2, you will not be able to include backlinks in your answers.

You are assigned 2 points for every question you answer; so, if you answer the maximum of 20 questions, you will earn 40 points daily; and, in four days, you will have reached level 2 status. However, if any of your answers is picked as the best answer, you are awarded an extra 10 points; and also, every time you yourself vote for answer, you are awarded an extra point. So, as you can see, achieving level 2 status is not a tall order, and it is definitely worth the effort.

Once you have reached level 2, whenever you reply to a question, you have the possibility of including a website link in the "Source" box accompanying your answer. This is an easy way to get some free advertising and to encourage visitors to find more information on the subject discussed in the question.

Even after you have reached the coveted level 2, it is still beneficial to supply the best answers you can. Answers which are picked as best answers will achieve a higher rating in the Yahoo search results and will inevitably bring more traffic to your website or to your affiliate offer. So spend some time studying those answers, which have been picked as best answers and try to analyze what made them appeal to the person asking the question.

Due to the large number of people who may reply to questions, it is also important to be the quickest to respond to questions, which are still open for answer. You should also do your best to answer each question as thoroughly as possible and be sure to address the person who sent the question by his or her first name (if possible). This will increase your chances of being chosen as provider of the best answer.

Yahoo Answers includes a spell checker; so be sure to use it whenever possible to minimize errors; or type your answer in Microsoft Word, check the grammar there and copy and paste into Yahoo Answers when you are happy with it. Take your time to get it right; do not forget that your ultimate goal is to be selected as the best answer.

Once you are up and running with Yahoo Answers, it simply becomes a question of optimizing your efforts to ensure you get the best results possible.  Here are the key points you should keep in mind.

• When choosing which questions to answer, look for recently posted questions with either no answers or only one or two.
• Ensure that the URL you post in the source box contains the topic mentioned in the question: for example, if the question was about "acne cures", your URL might be something like "mysite.com/acne-cures.html".
• Try to include your niche keyword within the body of your answer; this is useful for search engine optimization.
• You can even include a backlink within the body of the answer (using an HTML a tag with an href attribute); but do this sparingly and make sure that it appears totally relevant to the topic being discussed.

Compared with many advertising techniques, using Yahoo Answers may seem like hard work. However, the rewards can be huge: it is not only the Yahoo search engine, which will pick up your answers (and links). Google can also index your answers; so be sure to answer as many questions as you can every day.

9 Tips for Startups Using Google Adwords

Google Adwords is one of the most prominent cost per click tools for customer acquisition on the Internet.  Because of its dominance in the marketplace, many startups use the tool to help gain exposure for their products.  The problem for startups new to Adwords is the sheer complexity of the platform.

Here are some helpful tips for creating successful Adwords campaigns and making the most of your budget.

1. Do thorough keyword research

There are a number of keyword research tools that are provided by Google including the Adwords keyword tool, Google insights and the Google traffic estimator.  Use these tools to understand the number of queries for a specific term, the competition for those terms and the cost of a campaign targeting those terms.

The general principle with keyword targeting and Adwords campaigns is the more specific and targeted your keyword is, the better the conversion rate.  Look at what customers want and what your startup provides, then think about the keywords to link the two.

2. Use multiple keyword match types and negative keywords

In Adwords you can set a type of keyword match to target (Broad, Phrase and Exact). Tailor the keyword match types with care and think about how your prospective customers will be looking for your product. If there are keyword combinations that don’t match the intention of your startup, remove them by using negative keywords. Also utilize category targeting and topic targeting to further target your advertisements. By being very specific you can stretch out a small Adwords budget.

3. Consider bidding on your business name

If your search engine optimization is not up to scratch, it is possible that customers searching for your startup by its name may not see it on the first page.  If this is the case, bid on the name of your business to help people find it easily.

4. Build ad groups around a theme

If you have a product that has multiple functions, create ad groups tailored to each function.  For example, if you were selling an iPhone video application that can change the format of videos, upload to Youtube, share via iPhone and add creative effects — create an ad group for each of those capabilities.  The “upload to Youtube” ad group would target people who are searching the Internet for a way to upload edited videos directly from their iPhone to Youtube.

5. Write great copy and use a call to action

If you aren’t the best at copywriting, hire someone to do it for you.  Adwords can be expensive and if you aren’t making the most of the short sentences in the advertisement, you could be wasting money.  Also include a call to action in all advertisements to help obtain a better click through rate.

6. Create multiple advertisements and test them

By split testing advertisements you can ascertain which ones have the highest click through rate and conversion rate.  Continue to refine your advertisements even after finding combinations that work.

7. Check ads for quality score

The Adwords quality score refers to how relevant your keywords, ads and landing page are to people who see the advertisement.  A high click through rate (CTR) indicates that people seeing the ad find it highly relevant to what their needs are.  It is important to maintain a high quality score for a number of reasons, but chiefly the fact that it leads to lower cost per click, lower first page bid estimates, lower top of page bid estimates and better ad auction eligibility.

8. Make great landing pages relevant to keywords

At the end of the day, your Adwords campaign is about making sales and gaining customers.  You should spend a great deal of time crafting and testing landing pages that are highly relevant to your target keywords.  It is a good idea to create multiple landing pages for different ad groups, so you can split test these pages.  Again, copywriting is extremely important and this last step of the conversion process requires a flawless marketing pitch that meets customer expectations.

A great landing page will also have a lower bounce rate, which is tracked by Google and helps maintain a high quality score.

You should pay close attention to functionality as well.  If you have a shopping cart on the website make sure it is extremely fast and easy to use, make sure the text is easy to read, make sure the landing page has a sense of legitimacy and security about it.  Mobile traffic is also increasingly important, so make sure your website looks great on everything from laptops to tablets and smart phones.

9. Use conversion tracking and Google Analytics

It is critical that you understand which parts of your Adwords campaign are successful and which parts are not.  You should use Google Analytics and track successful conversions to understand what is working within your campaigns.  If your product doesn’t have a checkout process, look at bounce rates to determine if the visitors are a good match for your startup.

Setting Expectations

It’s important to remember that Google Adwords should only be one part of your promotional campaign for your startup.  When you are starting out, expect to spend money simply determining what works and what doesn’t.  The key is to start small, test often, and work your way up to having a highly targeted and successful Adwords campaign.

The Benefits of Business Networking

If you are an entrepreneur, small business or planning to set up a new business it's worth joining a local business networking group. In simple terms this is a group of people who run their own companies (or represent a company or franchise) and work to help each other out through their connections. In order to get the most out of it helps to know what networking is and what it can do for you (and what you can do for other members).

The Right Networking Group

The first thing to consider is the kind of networking group you want to join. Some are very loose and informal while others will have a more rigid structure. Some people prefer the rigid structure because they know the rules and people have to follow certain procedures and guidelines. For example some are very strict with regard to who can be members with only one member allowed to represent one type of company.

The theory with this is that people are more likely to use each other's connections if they are not in competition. Other organisations believe competition is healthy and indeed in some cases similar companies can work together in order to get more work and to benefit each other in a positive way.

There is no right or wrong as such. Most networking groups allow you at least one free trial visit so you can gauge whether or not the group feels comfortable and works for your particular needs.

Networking Effectively

In order to network effectively you need to approach it in the right way. It is about developing relationships and making connections. While you may get some sales on a first go what is more likely is that it will take a bit of time to get to know them and how they can help you and you can help them.

The latter is a crucial consideration. You need to think how your experience or service can benefit another member of the group and if not whether or not you know somebody who can benefit them as well. The benefit of this is that people will then encourage other members to use your services because you are prepared to work hard for them.

Over time it will then become easier for people to know you and vice versa. As new members come in equally you can do the same and help them.

Office Party

One of the problems of setting up your own company is that you are often alone. To start with you are unlikely to have employees as such. This can limit the amount of time you spend with other people and it can make you feel more isolated, something that often leads people to quit working for themselves in order to go back to paid for work.

Business networking can fill this social hole. You have an event you can go to on a regular basis and there are people you can talk to who are in the same situation. There is the chance to relax and discuss work in a way that would be more difficult otherwise.

The Main Benefits

The main benefits of business networking for a new business are-

• Increased range of potential clients
• More connections
• Get to know people in the local area
• Develop your self confidence
• Learn from experienced business professionals
• Social events

In short if you are setting up a business for yourself then it helps to get support and this is the best way to get the connections you need to develop. Look online to see what is available in your local area and find the best groups for you.

4 Key Marketing Factors that Even Experts Forget

As a marketing consultant, I have worked with a lot of different businesses. Both with past employers and my own company, I have developed many business-marketing strategies.  One thing I’ve experienced when it comes to marketing is that companies (from small to high-profile) can get in their own way of their success by being so locked into the “driving home” of what they want to push to their customers; and in the way they want to do it.  They can forget the basic crucial elements that drive success.

Here are a 4 key factors that are important to building your marketing strategies and should not be overlooked:

Listen to Customers

Many companies see marketing as a one-way street. They put their message out for customers, and then stop before an exchange can occur. They talk to consumers without listening themselves.

Proactive listening, however, can do wonders for a company’s marketing campaign. This means listening to current customers and their responses to the company’s marketing and products. This also means listening for potential new customers expressing a need that the company can fill. Online social media makes this listening easier than ever.

Connect as a Human

Successful companies are massive organizations with lives of their own. As such, it’s easy at times for marketers to present the company as a hive mind. But consumers are all individual people. Connecting with them as such means a better chance for a company to actually get heard.

For marketers, this often means approaching campaigns with authentic, simple messaging.  Do not talk over your customers’ heads with your promotional language and positioning. Talking to customers frankly about a product and what it does is what will get results.

This also means remembering that consumers have lives and commitments outside of consuming. However much they love a brand, they are not thinking about it constantly. Businesses shouldn’t expect them to. Instead, marketers should focus on making the brand relevant to daily life in regular conversation. This requires approaching customers as one group of humans to another.

Action over Argument

Marketing is a creative endeavor that requires a constant influx of ideas. Some of these ideas will work better than others. However, marketing teams can often disagree within themselves on the value of any given idea. There are two ways to go about this disagreement.

The inefficient way is for marketers to argue with one another over ideas. Even polite and relevant debate gets a marketing campaign nowhere.

The better method is to test the idea empirically for its effectiveness. This shows the whole team just how good or bad an idea really is. Argument then becomes unnecessary. Instead, marketers can move right on to implementing the idea or brainstorming a new one.

Content is King

Content makes up the bulk of any marketing vehicle, from advertisements to homepages. Marketing is often represented in terms of a funnel. At the top of the funnel is simple brand awareness. The bottom is where responses from customers occur. In the middle is the content of the marketing campaign.

Many companies focus their attention on the top and bottom of the funnel. They pour resources into spreading brand awareness. They optimize feedback avenues for customers to get in touch with them. But they neglect the middle of the funnel, which is where the real work happens. Content is where hooked customers come to learn more before responding to a campaign.

A flashy homepage with no information on it tells consumers nothing. Neither does plastering a brand everywhere without saying anything about why consumers should care. This is why good content is absolutely vital to a marketing campaign.

For more on content marketing strategies, check out 5 Quick Tips for Great Content Marketing.