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 

http://www.xenia-consulting.com/
Linked IN – http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1015090
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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

   a) Remember that consistency pays, not individual brilliance

All the very best for your programs

Any more thoughts – feedback welcome

Regards
Atul 

http://www.xenia-consulting.com/

Linked IN – http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1015090
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=129562663721686
Twitter - https://twitter.com/xeniaconsulting

Sales funnel problems ! Rejuvenate your business with focused lead nurturing programs

Marketers world-wide spend a lot of time thinking of innovative means to create/capture new leads for their business. In most cases, they are blind-folded by their sales targets and focus only on those leads that have the potential to offer immediate business opportunities and ignore the rest.

As a result of this, businesses are under continuous pressure to create new business leads, while the ones that have been created and that could have future potential are ignored. This is a classical problem faced by many. Companies build subscriber bases, opt-in marketing lists, but don't do enough to continuously and meaningfully engage with this subscriber base.

Focused lead nurturing programs offer an easy solution to these scenarios. While your sales team works on closing potential hot leads, the marketing organization or an outsourced marketing partner can focus on creating and capturing new leads and nurturing existing leads to levels, where they are ready to do business with you. This needs sustained and focused marketing efforts through a variety of customer engaging channels.  Some of the channels that are commonly used to manage this connect with your subscriber base are :
- Electronic direct mailing campaigns
- Opt-in Newsletters
- Announcements/ PR about articles/white papers being available etc.
- Generic tools/metrics/free downloads that are relevant for the customers

While you are not actively engaged with all your leads, as a business, you should make sure that when these comapnies/contacts are ready to do business with you, they have reasons and options to engage with you.

What do you think?
Suggestions/comments welcome

Atul
http://www.xenia-consulting.com/

Linked IN – http://www.linkedin.com/companies/1015090
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=129562663721686
Twitter - https://twitter.com/xeniaconsulting