Monday, August 16, 2010

Some simple mechanisms to 'retain' your customers

   Every company spends a lot of money to acquire new customers, so investing a bit more to keep them is well worth the price. It's widely acknowledged that the cost of acquiring a new customer can be upwards of five times greater than the cost of retaining an existing one. That means marketing tactics aimed at customer retention should be a priority.

One smart, effective, and efficient customer retention tactic is an integrated e-mail communications program. There are many opportunities to communicate with customers via e-mail, and e-mail fits well into the communications methods engineers and other technical professionals prefer.

To make e-mail work as a customer retention tool, you need to :
1) Get out of the promotional mindset and get into your customer's mindset. Whether they are a loyal, long-term customer or have just purchased from you for the first time, your customers want to hear from you when you have something to say that's relevant to them. They don't want to be sold to again and again. They want useful information to help them do their jobs better. This will keep your company "top of mind" with them.
2) Coordinate efforts among different departments who will use e-mail to communicate with customers. This is where the integrated part comes in. Anyone who might be sending a customer an e-mail — customer service, marketing, accounts receivable, sales — must be on the same page. Their communication efforts should be coordinated and spaced apart so that the e-mails customers receive from you are relevant and timely. There's nothing like a barrage of similar or contradictory e-mails to turn an e-mail retention program into a mess of communications that backfires and turns your customers away.
3)The key to using e-mail for customer retention is to think in terms of having conversations with your customers. Stay away from the hard selling and limited-time offers and try cultivating your relationship by providing relevant information.

Here are some examples of relevant information:
  • A simple thank you e-mail for purchasing a product with links to support information or other products that are related to the one they purchased
  • An e-mail with phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or links for support
  • E-mails containing technical articles or links to articles about their industry or job functions
  • E-mails announcing new versions of products they own
  • E-mails containing customer satisfaction surveys
  • An e-mail from the salesperson just "checking in" to see if the customer has any questions or needs additional help
While none of these examples are promotional in nature, several of them still perform important cross-selling and up-selling functions. E-mails on new product announcements or related products can lead to additional sales for your company. 

Happy emailing !
Thoughts & feedback welcome

Atul 

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

6 point 'start-up checklist' before you launch into Lead Generation Programs

     A lot of my customers ask me, “What would you need from our side before you launch a lead generation program for us”. I thought this info would be useful to a larger audience, so decided to post it as a blog. Well here it is :

1) Company Brand and Messaging
  a) Be clear about what the ‘high level messaging’ of the company is going to be. Have   your boiler plates/company overview slides ready in word/powerpoint
  b) Be ready with ‘elevator pitches’ and customize them, based on the audience that you are trying to reach
  c) Have ‘calling scripts’ done and rehearsed. If you are engaging in telemarketing, you are going to get no longer than 10 secs to make a first impression. As you progress, you may or may not refer to these, but it is useful to internalize them amongst your teams.
2) Company Offerings in terms of products/services offered
   a) Have offering documents ready for what you offer in terms of products/services. These could be in the form of PDF brochures/Powerpoint presentations
   b) Make sure to incorporate “How do you do it” sections, which will give confidence to your prospective customers that you are all ready to work for their requirement.
   c) Be ready with your ‘engagement models’ and ‘commercial models’. You may not  expose them during the first interactions, but will need them pretty soon. If you do not have them ready, this will waste precious time of a warm prospect.
3) Set achievable targets from the program
   a) So that you can measure progress, analyse results.
   b) Monitor initial results and initial discussions to validate your hypothesis about the target market.
4) Have a clear plan for lead nurturing
   a) A lot of leads will move into lead nurturing programs that you will need to run for extended periods of time. Have a plan ready to continuously engage with these potential prospects that are not yet ready to do business with you.
5) Create a target prospect list and engage in primary/secondary research
   a) Cold ‘Cold calling’ will hardly achieve any results. You need to be relevant for the person/company that you are calling. Find out ‘why’ and’ how’ your products / services can be relevant for them
   b) Focus on business value to the prospective customer, not just on parameters like cost & quality.
6) Have patience – loads of it

All the very best for your programs
Any more thoughts – feedback welcome

Regards
Atul 

Monday, August 9, 2010

6 "Marketing must-haves" for your website

Organizations increasingly depend on their website as the single largest 'marketing infrastructure' tools. Here are some "must haves" for your website


1) Performance - you might design great sites, but you need to make sure that the site load time is reasonable and is not an irritant. Also you must check compatibility with common browsers. A good usability study is always an added advantage. 
2) Ease of navigation - For a visitor who comes to the site for the first time, it should be easy to get to what he is looking for. Content should be optimized for minimum scrolls and should be a mix of text and intuitive graphics. Also it should be easy for the user to download or click to get more info
3) SEO readiness - With SEO so relevant, you should make sure that you have your meta descriptions, page titles, image titles and key words well defined. 
4) Fresh content - There is nothing better than having fresh content on the site . This could be in the form of blogs, white papers, articles, PR as well as videos. 
5) Means to engage visitors - You have spend so much effort to lure visitors in. you should make sure that they stay on the site longer. There should be means to engage visitors through some innovative applications of gaming, surveys and free resources. 
6) A clear call to action (C2A) - Every page should have a clear C2A. It could be either download, subscribe, contact us etc. If they want to reach you, lets make it easier for them. 


Any thoughts/ideas. 
Suggestions welcome


Regards
Atul