Most business owners know the average purchase amount they get from their customers (amount of sales divided by the number of purchases), but few bother to understand how much value customers give over the lifetime of their relationship with the company. Advertising and marketing is vital to the growth of any company, but knowing how much a customer is likely to spend while they’re doing business with you is important for setting the proper budgets (and expectations).
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Nov
08
2010
Understanding the Value of Your Customers
Nov
25
2009
What We Hope For
As businesses, our goal is to provide something of value to our customers in return for payment (usually in cash). We’re very thankful and appreciative of our customers for purchasing from us – because we get to keep providing products and services. We take our income and in turn spend it on products and services from other businesses and so the economy works (for the most part). While we’re all in business to make money (and hopefully do something you’re passionate about), what we hope for is that we’re providing something that our customers value and are thankful for.
Aug
13
2009
Book Review: Marketing Management – The Big Picture by Christie L. Nordhielm
Most marketing textbooks are hundreds of pages long and are filled with term definitions that hardly anyone remembers. When it comes to implementing a marketing strategy, it’s difficult to remember the 4P’s (or 5 or 6 or whatever you follow) so it’s hard to put together a strategy that will work for the particular product/brand/company. Businesses are hungry for information on how to market effectively and this book takes a hands-on, step-by-step, easy-to-measure results approach to creating a marketing strategy that has been proven to work even at very large companies. Marketing Management: The Big Picture
Aug
03
2009
Who Are You, Exactly?
So many of us are so busy running our businesses that we forget exactly who we are – what our company stands for and what we provide to our customers. This can lead to some huge business problems, such as branding and reputation problems, as well as not understanding where to spend money to reach our actual customers. Taking a few minutes to think about who you are - in terms of what your customer thinks, can really help you target the right audience with the correct message, saving you both time and money in the process.
Apr
30
2009
9 Ways to Lose Business Using Twitter
Companies and inviduals alike have been flocking to Twitter. Many companies are using Twitter to enage their customers in meaningful conversations, helping with support issues and questions, and gathering feedback to improve their products and services. But some companies are just using Twitter as another broadcast medium, which can actually be harmful. When using Twitter for business here’s what you shouldn’t do:
- Talk only about your company and products – Twitter is a social media for having conversations (that means two-way communication).
- Ignore what people are saying about you – Twitter gives your customers a voice. Pay attention to what they’re saying.
- Fail to Respond – For very large companies with many followers, it can be difficult to respond to every request, but you should try as hard as possible.
- Talk about inappropriate subjects – This happens most often when personal and business subjects mix, but it could also be talking about controversial subjects. Just keep in mind that whatever you say is out there for everyone to see.
- Sell to followers – Obviously some self-promotion is fine, but it should not be the main use of your Twitter account. And you shouldn’t direct message every follower with links to your product or promotions.
- Ask for contacts – If people are interested in your products or services, they’ll contact you. If you provide useful and helpful information, people will start to follow you. People are very protective of their coworkers, friends and family, so don’t violate their trust.
- Ask people to promote your stuff - If they find what you say valuable enough, they’ll tell others. Asking for a rt occasionally may be ok, but constantly bugging people to promote you will just annoy them.
- Don’t do anything constructive with feedback – Your customers are offering feedback because they care (if they didn’t, they wouldn’t bother). If you don’t do anything useful with the feedback, they’ll stop giving it and it’ll be much more difficult to satisfy them.
- Take more than you give – If you fail to offer useful and helpful information, offer support and wisdom, and give information, your customers will stop listening and go elsewhere.
I think a lot of it comes down to acting the same on Twitter as you would in person.
(photo by hansvandenberg30)
Technorati tags: social media, brand, social networking, business, marketing strategy, marketing
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Mar
25
2009
Advantages & Disadvantages of Different Branding Strategies
On Monday, we talked a bit about various branding strategies and why you should consider picking one to help your business and marketing strategies. With each branding strategy comes both advantages and disadvantages that you should be aware of.
- Corporate Brand – For companies that only offer one benefit to a customer, they usually use a corporate brand (unless they have an overall holding company).
- Advantages: Everything the company does is attributed to its brand.
- Disadvantages: Everything the company does is attributed to its brand.
- Distinct Brand – Some companies choose to release each product or service as its own brand (ex. Proctor & Gamble).
- Advantages: Each product stands alone so failures do not affect the entire company or other products. Distinct benefits for each product can be directly attributed to a specific brand.
- Disadvantages: Each product will require its own marketing strategy and budget, with no synergy possible between products. Successes will not be directly attributed to the company’s brand.
- Hybrid Brand – When a product extends the benefit of an overall brand or company, some companies use a hybrid branding strategy.
- Advantages: Marketing and branding can take advantage of the overall brand for budgets and reputation.
- Disadvantages: Any problems or negative press for either the product or the overall brand will affect both brands.
- Umbrella Brand – If a company offers different products with different benefits, but they all extend the same value to the customer, sometimes they are all offered under an overall brand (ex. Nike – athletic gear).
- Advantages: Each product contributes to the shared value offered to the customer. Marketing and branding strategies can be at the shared value level, touting all the specific benefits.
- Disadvantages: Any product can negatively affect the overall brand and specific benefits may be muddled in the overall shared value.
Whichever branding strategy you choose, once you are aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each, you can take those into account when preparing your marketing strategies.
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(photo by Sarah Jane @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: brand, branding, branding strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing
Mar
23
2009
Choosing a Branding Strategy is Fundamental
Choosing a branding strategy is fundamental to properly marketing a product. How you decide to brand your product or service will affect everything from advertising to pricing. You may already have a branding strategy and not realize it, but here are some of the options:
- Corporate Brand – Many companies, such as Target, offer only one type benefit to the customer (“design for all”). Even though they sell a wide variety of products, there is only one value they add. In this case, the brand is the same as the company.
- Distinct Brand – Some companies produce a wide variety of products that each have distinct benefits to the customer. There is no value in using the same brand for each product since the brand would then stand for a mishmash of benefits. Companies such as Proctor & Gamble (P&G) us this type of strategy as they brand each of their products distinctly (Ivory, Pampers, etc.).
- Hybrid Brand – Sometimes it makes sense to leverage the company name or an overall brand in addition to a separate name for the product. This usually works best when the product brand extends the benefits offered by the overall brand, and is very common in the automobile industry (ex. Ford Taurus).
- Umbrella Brand – When your company offers multiple products that each have a distinct benefit, but together offer a shared value to the customer, you may want to consider an umbrella brand (ex. Nike – athletic gear).
Whatever branding strategy you pick, be aware that it may affect the branding and marketing of your company and other products. If you only have one product right now, your choice will mostly be whether you are going to brand the product with your company or not. Once you have a branding strategy in mind, it makes marketing and advertising decisions much easier.
(photo by HikingArtist.com @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: brand, branding, branding strategy, business, marketing strategy, marketing
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Mar
02
2009
Statistics are Vital to Marketing
Last week I posted about attaching dollars to statistics in order to make sense of them (and to relate them to how your business is doing). During a discussion about the article, someone mentioned that it was a great non-marketing post. I didn’t really respond at the time, but the statement has bothered me since. Statistics are vital to marketing. Without statistics, marketing is just a hit-or-miss blanket approach without a strategy and end-goal. Statistics are how you know what is working and what should be improved (or dropped) and figuring out the next step to achieving your business goals.
Using statistics properly will show how various marketing efforts are affecting your bottom line (return on investment – ROI) so you can figure out how much to spend – and on what. You’ll also learn more about your customers, your product, and your business. Statistics can give you information about how to improve your product, how to increase customer satisfaction and what your business is doing well.
Many people think of marketing as a soft, touchy-feely pseudo-science, but done properly, marketing should be just as measureable as other business processes and should provide vital information to run your business.
(photo by chantrybee @ FlickrCC)
Feb
24
2009
Is Your Marketing Evil?
Seth Godin’s post yesterday, Is marketing evil? refreshed a subject that’s come up in my mind from time to time. Seth’s post was about avoiding marketing things that are harmful to people. He also briefly touched upon evil marketing techniques, which I think are important for all business people to consider.
Sometimes the product or service we’re selling doesn’t have any particularly harmful effects, but the way that we’re selling it isn’t as open or truthful as it should be. Tricking customers into buying your product for a quick buck may win in the short run, but it certainly won’t help your brand or reputation. Eventually you’ll run out of rocks to hide behind.
There are also products which are fine when used responsibly by the right people – alcohol is one example that comes to mind. However, some products in this category that may not be as obvious. For example, many online games can become addicting to people so much so that they avoid most interaction with the real world (disclaimer – I play computer games – both online and off. I am keenly aware of addictive qualities of some games). How do you market and sell a product that could be harmfully addicting to some people, especially when that addiction can feed your bottom line through monthly fees? Should you let people know about the possibilities ahead of time? Should you provide help for people who become addicted?
I think the important point is for marketers, business people, salespeople, and anyone else involved in selling a product or service to really consider the impact of both the product and the marketing. Using the golden rule to do onto others as you want done to yourself is a good measuring stick. Or follow Google’s lead and “do no evil”.
(photo by TonivS @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: brand, brand reputation, branding, marketing, marketing strategy, strategy, reputation
Feb
17
2009
Don't forget the Relationship in CRM
Does your company have CRM (Customer Relationship Management)? CRM used to be about a business process of managing a relationship with a customer, but now it often just applies to a piece of software that stores customer names and some information about them. During this recession, there is an opportunity to actually form relationships with your customers. As Lee Odden from Online Marketing Blog says:
As companies decide where to invest their limited marketing resources, there is a distinct opportunity to focus on investing in relationships: with their customers, prospects, employees and business partners.
So instead of using your CRM to blast out targeted email campaigns, use CRM to form long-lasting relationships with your customers. Reach out to them and see if you can help. Companies and people who connect with their customers will be remembered much more than companies that just sent out lots of advertising. Best of all, building relationships is easy on the wallet – just takes a bit of your time.
(photo by “Solar ikon” @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: business, business strategy, crm, customer relationship management, customers, marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing, internet marketing
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