Imagine the scene… the phone rings and a new prospect enquires about your product.  All excited, you take their address on a scrap of paper and post them a brochure.

You don’t ask them any questions.  You might record their telephone number.  And, worst case scenario you lose the scrap of paper containing their details over the coming weeks.

Whatever the reason (or excuse) you don’t follow-up.

What if they haven’t received the brochure (trust me, it happens on a frighteningly regular basis)?  What if they’re interested and are waiting for you to call?

It isn’t the customers job to remember to do business with you – it’s your job

Most customers take on average seven points of contact before they buy.  And most sales people give up at 5 points.  What’s even more scary is the number of businesses who don’t follow-up at all – despite the fact that it’s free marketing!

So what is best practice with follow-ups and how can you really make the most of incoming enquiries?  Here are our top 5 tips (most of which are free or cheap to implement and could be done very quickly):

1. If a customer calls, have a script to follow and find out as much information as you can
2. Gain permission to follow that person up and ensure they received the information they wanted
3. Answer enquiries promptly – be available by phone and email and respond where possible within 24 hours
4. Record all the information you take in a database (ideally customer relationship management – CRM – software)
5. Diary a follow-up and stick to it (and then diary another)

If people take time out of their busy lives to enquire about your product, they’re paying you a huge compliment.  The least you can do is treat that compliment with respect and try to help the customer towards a solution.

Once you have your goals in place, and you’ve started your plan of action, you’ll soon be looking at marketing techniques you can employ this year.

This week is a series of the most cost-effective techniques we use with our consultancy customers – I hope you find them useful for you in achieving your goals in 2010.

They include:

• Customer Retention Tips
• Re-connecting with Prospects
• Maximising your Word of Mouth Marketing

You can achieve most of these without spending very much money – and your returns will be higher than many other forms of marketing.

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you will recall a story in the last week or so about using a building as a marketing tool.  I’m going to use Dakota again in this example of typical buyer behaviour, because it’s a great example of what your customers are sometimes doing behind your back.

It takes on average seven points of contact between someone finding out you exist and them buying from you – but you need to bear in mind that you may not be aware of some of those points of contact.

For example…

1. Our first point of contact with Dakota was driving past the building and noticing what a gorgeous building it was and wondering what it was / what they did.
2. Our second point of contact was driving past it again and having a similar discussion
3. Our third point of contact was looking at the website and agreeing the rooms looked really well designed – and the website was fantastic.  (It was only at this point that we discovered Dakota was a hotel.)
4. Our fourth point of contact was further discussions and visits to the website to look at prices and offers.  At which point, we agreed we would visit on a special occasion.
5. Our fifth point of contact was mentioning the hotel to a friend, who confirmed she’d stopped there and shared a testimonial about the hotel.
6. Up to this point, Dakota had no knowledge we were a prospect – we’d never had any contact with them.
7. Our sixth point of contact was trying to book a break online (which wasn’t that easy, as they seem to specialise in single-night bookings).
8. Our seventh point of contact was a phone call during which we booked a two-night break – and they finally made some profit from us.

This whole process took two years, but is very typical buyer behaviour.  Do you know how long your customers have been watching you – and do you know what people are saying about you behind your back to influence the sale?  Are they supporting, or undermining your marketing?

It’s critical you have as much control over this sales process as you can.  Now we live in a digital age, people can watch you from a distance – the question is whether you’re showing off your best side.

It was with great interest that I watched the latest Dyson advert and noticed a very significant change…

At the end of the advert, they no longer quote their website, but ask people to ‘search for Dyson online’.  No doubt I should have seen that one coming and it’s a very interesting change.  If customers and prospects type ‘Dyson’ into Google, they will receive all sorts of information – both good and bad – about Dyson.  And that’s much more useful to a prospect than the companies own website.

It allows them to read reviews, testimonials, complaints and get a very honest impression of the company and their products.  And, honest is a key word in that sentance – if the internet can be used as a tool for keeping companies honest and actively suggesting prospects read up on their credentials and check them out, that can only bode well for the consumer – and it keeps our industry more ethical.

Of course, the companies that already lack scruples will be pushing their own ‘independent’ reviews into the online space – but it becomes more difficult to hide the people who don’t like them – especially if they’re numerous.  (If you doubt customer power, just look at ‘you broke my guitar’ and see what happened to United Airlines when they refused to take one disgrtuntled customer seriously.)

The marketing world’s a much more interesting space now customers can talk back!

Whether your prospect meets you face-to-face, walks past your shop window, or visits your website, you have just seven seconds to catch their imagination and leave them wanting more information.  Within that time, it’s imperative you get three key points across:

• Who Are You?
• What Do You Do?
• One Benefit of Finding Out More

If you can’t cover those three things within seven seconds, chances are your prospect has already ‘left the building’.

Your literature needs to achieve the same goals, as your brochures / business cards etc. may be passed to a prospect when you aren’t there.  What do they say about you and your business?  How can you be sure to answer the three key questions listed above?  (For some top tips on your business card design, see yesterday’s post.)

Tomorrow’s post will cover more on elevator pitches, so you can create the right first impression when you meet face-to-face, but in the meantime, have a think about whether your shop window, website, or company literature are doing the best sales job they can.

What is a brand?

Logos and straplines conjure up all kinds of images in our minds.  If I mention ‘Mercedes’, your mind will already be thinking about your perceptions of the brand; it’s culture, typical customers, strengths and weaknesses etc.  But, all a brand is is a collection of lines and colours and sometimes letters or words.  Don’t you think it’s strange how much we read into something so simple.

Brands are often seen as something that’s only important to big companies, but, do you not think that people who see your logo make up their minds about your company from the outset?

This follows on from our discussions of first impressions from last week.  For many of us, our website or shop window may have to make the first impression on our behalf.  We may not ever get to the stage of meeting that prospect, because they may be turned off before they make the initial contact.

So can you afford to ignore branding and the messages it sends to your prospects?

Your competitors can provide a wealth of knowledge about your industry and your customer base – they may have spotted opportunities you haven’t, or have found new ways to produce or market their products that save costs or increase profits.  Understanding them can therefore be very beneficial and, at Showing Off, we include a competitor review as part of our consultancy system.

One of the key things we look for is strengths and weaknesses – often your competitors have different strengths to you and, by understanding that, you can focus on the things you do well and create some meaningful unqiue selling points for your business.

When you’re researching your competitors, there are a few common mistakes to avoid:

1. Hiding Your Identity.

Whilst this was a well-used (and fun) way to capture competitor information, there are now certain laws that protect companies from this.  It’s much better to ask a customer to call, or contact the owners yourself and agree to meet and share information that could benefit you both.

2. Copying Your Competitors.

This is a common trap business owners fall into, because they see a competitor doing something they aren’t – and they don’t want to be left behind.  But, beware – unless you know their marketing is better than yours, and producing a great return on investment, why assume they know something you don’t?

3. Dissing The Competition.

If you only research your competitors in order to tell customers how bad they really are, then please don’t waste your time.  You will only serve to destroy your credibility, as noone likes the kid that tells tales on their friends.  This is a very basic rule of marketing, but I never cease to be amazed by the amount of companies who ignore it.

James Dyson put it into perspective in his autobiography when he commented that comparing yourself to your competitors in a public arena only serves to promote them – using your own money.  And why would you want to do that?

4. Treating Competitors Any Differently to Prospects

Your closest competitors can often be your very best allies, and can also be a potential source of business, so we recommend building a relationship with them if you can.  You often find you both have expertise in different areas and can work together to provide more value to customers than you could on your own.

For example, if you run a hotel, would you rather turn a guest away when you’re full and let them look for a competitor on their own.  Or could you suggest somewhere they could try, that you know will offer a similar level of service to you?

In some industries, I appreciate this is very difficult.  They may be very traditional and extremely competitive, but working together at some level may be worth a try – it’s definitely the best way to do business.