Top 10 Marketing & Sales Strategies
for a Slow Economy
How to Attain, Retain and Maintain Customers
by Gregory P. Smith
This economy has created both winners and losers. The quickest road to
bankruptcy is to sit on your hands, do nothing, and wait for the economy
to improve. No matter what industry you work in a "business as usual"
mindset will sink your ship. You have to be innovative, stand out, and
market your products and services in a new way.
Now more than ever you have to focus, improve, and possibly even change
what you do to attain, retain and maintain customers. Consider the
following ten-steps to make your business recession proof.
Strategy 1. Think big and audit your time. No matter the size of
your business, place a mental image in your mind as if you are the largest
and most successful person in your industry. How much time is consumed by
routine office work someone else should be doing? Spend more time with
more important tasks such as marketing strategies, improving customer
relations, and implementing new strategies to expand your services.
Strategy 2. Be different and stand out from the competition.
Jordan Furniture sells more furniture per square foot than any other
furniture store in the nation. They transformed their family-owned
business into a multi-million dollar corporation by following a principle
called "shoppertainment." To surprise employees and customers, Barry and
Eliot Tatleman dressed up like the Lone Ranger and Tonto and rode horses
in their parking lot. They built an IMax theater inside one store to
entertain children while their parents shopped. When you drive around the
back to pick up your furniture they provide you free hotdogs and wash your
car windows.
Strategy 3. Build relationships with your customers. For each
month that goes by, customers lose 10% of their buying power. Create a
customer database and contact them on a regular basis. Mail them a
postcard, birthday card, sales flyer, newsletter etc. to keep your name,
phone number, and service on their mind.
Strategy 4. Collect E-Mail Addresses. As part of your customer
relationship process get permission from your customers to use their
E-mail address. Periodically send updates and notices to your client list.
As long as you have their permission and avoid overuse, E-mail can be a
powerful and inexpensive marketing tool. Consider the Fox's Pizza Den in
Punxsutawney, PA, they ran an anniversary promotion offering a medium
cheese pizza for the 1970s price of $1.40. To get this special price,
customers had to go to their web site and register their email address to
have the special coupon emailed to them. An amazing 500 email addresses
were collected in two days.
Strategy 5. Avoid poisonous personalities. Unfriendly and
negative employees cost you money by chasing your customers away. Spend
more time and money interviewing and hiring people who enjoy helping
people. Use behavior based interviewing and screening assessments to
improve your chances for hiring success. For more information go to
www.behaviorprofile.com.
Strategy 6. Put a shopping cart on your website. Online sales
are still growing at a dramatic pace. According to Jupiter Research this
past year's holiday season generated $13.2 billion in online purchases, a
17% growth rate over last year. This increase of sales is coming from
people who want to save time, followed closely by avoiding crowded stores,
and the ability to shop outside of store hours. Make an audit of what
services and products you can offer online.
Strategy 7. Pay-per-click advertising. Many business owners are
cutting back on classified advertising in lieu for pay-per-click
advertising. Pay-per-click will insure you receive top visibility on
websites driving more customers to your door. Advertisers bid on keywords
and the more popular the keyword, the more expensive each click is. Prices
vary between a few cents to many dollars. For example, you can pay ten
cents a click for the keyword, "pool supply store." The most popular
pay-per-click advertisers are found on Google, Yahoo, and Overture.
Strategy 8. Use customer service commandments to create good habits.
Bates Ace Hardware store located in Atlanta created "Twenty Customer
Service Commandments" modeled after the Ritz-Carlton hotels outlining
specific behaviors employees are to demonstrate when dealing with
customers and fellow employees. For example, "Accompany a customer to the
correct aisle instead of pointing to another area of the store." They
print the commandments on a small card and employees carry it with them at
work. Furthermore, supervisors reinforce good customer service by quizzing
employees on one commandment each day.
Strategy 9. Take your message to the media. Local newspapers and
television are always looking for stories and topics of interest. Learn to
write a press release or call your local media outlet about a special
aspect of your business. The Varsity restaurant in Atlanta featured an
employee who had worked there for 50 years. This resulted in a two-page
spread about the employee and the restaurant.
Strategy 10. Take advantage of trends. For some this economic
downturn is an opportunity in disguise. Consider one entrepreneur who
created a special brand of toilet paper. Printed on each piece of toilet
paper is the face Osama Bin Laden followed by this saying, "Do your part
to wipe out terrorism." I am not sure if this person made any money off
his product, but he captured a lot of attention.
Related articles:
Gregory P. Smith shows businesses how to build productive
and profitable work environments that attract, keep and motivate their
workforce. He is a popular speaker and author of the book, Here Today Here
Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High-Turnover to High-Retention. He
speaks at conferences, conducts management training and is the President of a
management consulting firm called Chart Your Course International located in
Conyers, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464. More articles available:
http://www.chartcourse.com
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