You will no doubt have heard the phrase ‘it costs 7 times more to find a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.’  But how many of us take that to heart?

Do you keep a record of the people who buy from you?

If so, do you use that information?

If not, you have an untapped pool that you can use for marketing – and it’s much cheaper than running an advertising campaign, or trying to attract new people.  And your returns will be much higher.

Here are just a few ideas of how you could use that data -to benefit you and your customers

• Send details of special offers
• Create a loyalty club
• Offer vouchers
• Send birthday / Christmas cards
• Run competitions
• Give customers useful information
• Invite people to events that might interest them

The key to keeping in touch is sending things that are relevant, interesting and of benefit to your customers… more on that tomorrow.

1. Find the time to be active online
2. Comment in the right places
3. Educate yourself about these new marketing tools
4. Constantly ask how your product or service is valuable to your customers
5. Keep in contact with your network

If you keep trying to make things work better within your network, Julie suggests success should follow…

• 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.

Earlier today, I was reading ‘The Marketer’ magazine and came across an article about Office Depot, an international stationery supplier.  One of the best ideas I’ve read for marketing in the commodity arena was a campaign they did to customers who had bought printers in the last twelve months.  They sent them a sticker with all the information of the printer type and model, a phone number and a reference to quote for re-ordering.  These were well-timed, well-targeted and removed the hassle factor for customers.  An absolutely brilliant idea.

Another way to differentiate a commodity product is through the service element and knowledge of your team.  For example, a local office products specialist we know (BSS Office Products in Lancaster) emphasise how their product knowledge helps customers choose the right solution, without them having to trawl through a large catalogue.  One example of this is their knowledge of office layouts, which can massively increase efficiency.  That’s advice you simply wouldn’t receive if you purchased your stationery in your local supermarket – but it could save you thousands of pounds.

By thinking slightly differently, you can still stand out from the crowd – even in a commodity market – and you can provide a real solution for your customers.

This has been true in previous recessions and seems to be the case this time too.  The shops are filled with Christmas gifts and toys that serve as reminders of Christmases past.  We were shopping this weekend and saw Morph gifts, talking Fisher Price telephones and Diabolos; all of which we remember with great fondness.

Memory books are also very popular stock items – photograph albums, books people can write in to record events, such as pregnancy, Christmases past and present and ‘This is Your Life’ style albums.

People buy on emotion.  And this is true in both business to consumer and business to business situations.  Could you link your product or service to the emotional reason people buy it?  If that can also be connected to nostalgia, you could have a very convincing sales pitch in the current climate.

• Intangibility

As we mentioned in yesterday’s post, services cannot be seen, or touched.  So, you have to market them in a slightly different way and try to incorporate some tangibility into your promotional methods.  For example customer testimonials, brochures and guarantees that reassure the customer of the quality of service you offer.

• Inseparability

Services are produced and consumed simultaneously, for example a haircut.  The service provider is therefore crucial in the marketing process and can make the difference between a one-off sale and long-term repeat business.  You therefore need strategies for selecting, training and rewarding staff to ensure customers receive great service that will bring them back again, and again.

• Variability

Because services are delivered by people, standards will vary between different personalities.  It’s therefore difficult to standardise what is delivered.  This again highlights the importance of your team and their selection, training and incentives.  It also raises a question of systems and equipment to reduce differences in the service provided.

• Perishability

Services cannot be stored – if a hotel room is not filled one night, that bed-night cannot be sold again tomorrow.  This increases the importance of matching supply and demand closely, to maximise profits.  You can use prices as one way of controlling demand, but we would recommend having a number of strategies to deal with this issue.

This post hopefully gives you some areas to consider if you are marketing services.  It’s slightly more challenging, but the solutions can provide some fantastic returns.  I hope it helps your business.

This is what the model looks like:

PRODUCT, naturally, concerns your products and / or services.  Do you provide the products people are looking for and what problems do they solve?

PRICE, concerns your pricing structure and what you sell your products and services for.  This area of the marketing mix is also concerned with ‘market price’ – are you cheaper than your competitors, or more expensive?  How do you know what the market is willing to pay for your product?  Can you be sure you aren’t under (or over-) charging?

PLACE, is about distribution – having your products and services available in the right place, so customers can find them.  This also concerns delivery, logistics and timing.  Distribution strategies are considered in this section – could you increase your customer base through the use of agents, wholesalers or ecommerce?

PROMOTION, is the area of marketing most people think about when they hear the word ‘marketing’.  (It’s also the reason why so many companies say they are ‘marketing’ companies, but they never actually get involved in product development, pricing structures or distribution strategies.)  Promotion is all about telling your customer you (and your product or service) exist and selling the benefits to encourage them to buy.  This area of marketing can be really creative, but it’s only of equal importance to the other three parts of the model.

Take a look at your business – and your marketing plan.  Do you have strategies to improve each area, or are you focused on the ‘pretty’ bits and avoiding the sharp (or financial) end of marketing.

Tomorrow we’ll cover another three P’s – a development of the marketing mix which is specifically relevant to organisations who sell services.