How to Easily and Automatically follow-up with Prospects and Keep in Touch with Your Customers…
Filed under: Ireland Marketing Tips, Irish Business Tips, Our Marketing services
Phew! After over 8 months development I’m delighted to be able to announce that our new Marketing Automation Software is now live.
Designed with small business owners in mind it allows you to you to integrate online and offline marketing and setup multi step campaigns across 4 different media – Email, Postcard, Letter and SMS.
For example imagine that you own a restaurant and are looking to maximise revenues by keeping in touch with past diners and sending them timely special offers.
You could use autopilot marketing systems to do all this for you. Your diner would complete a table top comment card and fills out their contact details and birthday.
These details are entered into autopilot marketing systems the following morning by admin staff.
You would set up a number of marketing campaigns.
Now your customer will automatically receive the following:
- Birthday letter – Sent 5 days before contacts birthday with a special birthday offer
- Birthday SMS – Sent on contacts birthday to wish them happy birthday
- Valentines postcard – Sent on 07 Feb 2010 with a special offer for valentines day
- Halloween offer email – sent 5 days before Halloween.
You can use autopilot marketing systems to set up drip marketing campaigns or date driven campaigns for any different type of business.
To find out more and to sign up for a free trial then visit autopilot marketing systems
Only cut the stuff that doesn’t work
Cutting marketing costs might be the first reaction to a downturn. But, those that thrive during tough times take advantage of the fact that their competition is cutting back. They actually forge forward and spend more on marketing (only on stuff they know works) in order to eat up market share while others are struggling.
I bring this up because I’m curious about what you are doing during the recession. What specific actions you’re taking to increase sales in these tougher times?
The recession can actually give you the benefit of lower advertising and marketing costs which allow you to test different marketing strategies more cost effectively so that when the recession ends you will be in a strong position to know what works for your business.
Note that I also said only to spend on marketing that works. All to often business owners are not aware of which marketing they are doing which produces a positive ROI. One part of gettting smarter with your marketing is learning how to properly measure and track what you are doing. It doesn’t have to be complicated but unless you do it you are shooting in the dark.
Irish retailers how to cut thousands off your rent bill with simple marketing
On a recent family shopping trip to the Outlet in Banbridge we got some great deals on clothing and shoes for all the family. Coupled with that we found the service of the staff in just about all the shops to be streets ahead of their equivalents in Dublin.
Still the reason for this article is not to extol the virtues of the Outlet but to highlight a very simply step that one of these retailers took which can have significant impact on their bottom line. And it is so simple that just about any retailer (or other business) can adapt it for use within their business.
When I was in the Clarks shop buying shoes I brought them up to the cash register and the assistant asked me simply “Do you want to keep the shoes looking their best?”. I wasn’t expecting this question and so entered into a discussion with her and ended up spending and extra £3.50 on a small shoe shine kit.
With these 10 extra words she was able to upsell me to buying a shoe shine kit when previously I had not even considered this. This is a very simple and effective strategy and one similar to the fabled McDonalds phrase of “Do you want fries with that?”.
Lets look at the impact this can have to a businesses bottom line. Lets assume that this store serves 100 customers per day and out of this 20% agree to the upsell that is an extra revenue of £70 that day that the store wouldn’t have otherwise got. It may not seem like a lot but over the course of a year based on a 6 day week it comes to £21,000. Which I’m sure would go a long way to helping pay the rent or a staff members wages.
So how can you apply this to your business? When your customers are already about to buy and have their wallets in hand is an excellent time to ask them if there is anything else they need. After all you are there to serve them by meeting their needs, you owe it to them to make sure you have met as many needs as possible.
In these challenging economic times it is all to easy to admit defeat or whine that rents are expensive, but sometimes implementing a simple strategy, like this upsell, could make a significant difference to your bottom line.
Do some marketing every day
One of the best pieces of advice for any business owner is to make sure you do at least one thing each day to market your business. On your task list each day should be one marketing activity.
I try very hard to follow this advice within my own business. So even when I am knee deep in client work and business is booming I try to do at least one thing to keep the pumps primed for the future.
So what can you do today that might pay dividends in the future? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Identify a potential joint venture partner, contact them with a view to opening a discussion about working together
Write an article and submit it to an article directory with a link back to you website in the resource box (we recommend this to really leverage your time http://www.betterbusinessresults.com/resources/uniquearticlewizard.html)
Set up a Google pay per click campaign to drive targetted traffic to your website
Send an offer out to all of your past customers
Post on your blog (you do have a blog don’t you?)
Write a press release and submit it using something like http://www.prweb.com/
Cut out and send an article of interest to a past client
I’m sure you get the picture. What have you done today to market your business. Doing one small thing each day will equate to over 200 things in a year – do it, it will make a significant difference to your bottom line.
Why 1 is not the magic number
One may have been the magic number in Jill Scotts song, however when it comes to the marketing of your business it really shouldn’t be.
In order to build a firm foundation for your business you need multiple marketing channels, this way if one suddenly stops working then your business can continue. How many different marketing methods are you using in your business? If it is just one or two then you are taking a big risk.
The Power of Free Samples
I was at the farmers market last week at the Liffey Valley shopping centre and as we passed by the fruit and vegetable stall the owner was offering everyone within ear shot free samples of fruit slices. We were lured over and before we know it we had purchased €15 worth of fruit that we had not originally set out to buy!
This reminded me of the power of offering a free sample, which works on an number of different levels. First of all the law of reciprocity where we tend to feel obligated to someone once they have given something to us.
Secondly by allowing your prospects to try your products or services for nothing you are eliminating the uncertainty and risk of them trying you out, which means one less barrier to them becoming your customer.
Finally by offering a free sample this allows you to engage with your customers and determine exactly what they might need so that you can help them.
What free sample can you give your prospective customers?
A good example of Irish Businesses Targetting their market – but poor execution and follow up
At the beginning of this year we couldn’t decide whether to move house or simply convert the attic. With two young children we needed more space. In the end we decided to apply for planning permission for the loft conversion (we needed to change the roof line to make it viable so needed permission) so that if we decided to stay then we had it or if we moved then it was something extra of value to offer a prospective purchaser.
In the end we decided to move but something interesting happened when we got our planning permission approved.
I started to receive direct mail in the post from builders and engineering companies offering their services. As a marketing expert I was pleased to see that these companies had taken the initiative to at least send me something, this puts them well ahead of the pack compared with most business owners. However in every single case each of these companies only ever sent one mailing piece. There was no multi step marketing campaign and no follow up by phone or anything.
I thought that this was disappointing, after all they had gone to the trouble of adding me to the list and sending me one piece. Clearly they don’t know that it takes on average 7 contacts between a business and a prospect before they agree to do business. How much more effort would it have taken to send out a sequence of mail pieces and perhaps follow up with a phone call.
Also most of the mailing pieces were weak with no real offer than call us for a free quote, no reason why I should pick them, and no testimonials, guarantee or other reason to compel me to call them.
Most of the companies concerned were offering services that would generate thousands of Euro worth of business but hadn’t bothered to spend anything more than what looked like 30 mins to knock up a basic letter and sometimes a brochure. If you have gone to the trouble of finding a lead then why not go the extra mile and craft a really good sales piece and multi step follow up campaign?
Give your customers more than they were expecting and get feedback
I recently left my car in for a service at Liffey Valley Renault and thankfully not much needed doing to it.
Two things from the service stood out to me as being good service. First of all as soon as the car was ready for collection I received a text message to let me know. I think this is a good use of technology in keeping customers informed.
The second thing that impressed me was that they washed the car for me for no additional charge and without me requesting it. This is a very good examplae of giving the customer that little bit more. Even though this costs very little I thought it was a nice touch and it made me wonder why no other garage I’ve been to does the same. The little things can make a big difference.
Another thing that impressed me about Liffey Valley Renault was that about a week after the service I received a telephone call asking me if I would mind answering a few questions about my experience with their service department. This only took a couple of minutes of my time and was done very professionally and gave them good feedback to help them improve their service and find out what their customers think about them
If you are running a business then taking the time to look for feedback from your customers is a very useful project. Without asking your customers and clients for feedback how else can you be sure you are doing things the right way?
What is the purpose of your website?
Most businesses in Ireland these days have a website, but all to often it seems business owners have put up a site based on advice from a web designer rather than from a marketing perspective.
Sure a good web designer will give you a site that looks good but unless you are trying to win a design awared often this isn’t going to be good news for your bottom line.
Instead you need to design your website from a marketing point of view. In order to do this you need to first determine what the primary objective of your website is. Your primary objective could be to capture leads from interested parties so you can follow up with them, or perhaps it might be to sell a product or service directly from the page.
Your website should not simply be a brochure with a contact us page, whilst you need to include this information you should make it more engaging and give people more of a reason to interact with you. For example if your main objective is to build a mailing list of prospects interested in your services then perhaps you might consider creating some kind of report or low value product that you could give away.
For example on our website you will see we give away a free report called “The 17 Golden Rules Of Every Successful Entrepreneur” which contains some tips and tricks for business owners to get them thinking about growing their business. By offering this to our site visitors for free we are giving them something of value and also starting to build a dialogue with them.
So what is the primary objective of your website? If you would like us to critique your website for you for Free then please get in touch or give us a call on 1850 943122.
A Good Example of Direct Mail Marketing by a Removal Company in Ireland
Last Thursday I put our house in Lucan up for sale as we are hoping to move to Straffan. Today, the following wednesday, I received a postcard from an Irish Transport and removal firm called Libra Trans giving details of their service and encouraging us to call for a free estimate.
First of all congratulations to Libra Trans for taking the initiative and implementing a targetted marketing campaign to a clearly defined target market, people moving and selling a house and therefore soon to be in need of a removal or transport firm. The card is well designed and does its job of catching attention. In the pile of other correspondance a colour postcard stands out.
I think the call to action on the postcard is a bit weak, it simply says visit our website or call for a free estimate. Personally I’m never particularly impressed when I see a company say the offer free estimates, whopee you are going to tell me your prices for no charge how good of you. I don’t think theyd get too far saying call for an estimate, it will cost you €50.
The website that Libratrans has lets them down – there were errors on the page whaen I viewed it in IE7, and the quotation request form that is pretty crucial to their operation would not load. It is kind of disappointing to think of all the leads that they must so nearly have generated but then lost by having a website that does not do the job for them.
So how else could Libratrans improve this Irish lead generation campaign? I think they could make their offer even stronger by offering something free, for example on their website they have a checklist of things to remember when packing or unpacking. Rather than having this freely displayed on the website they could create a report package and offer it to prospects who fill out a form etc. Perhaps they could make the offer stronger still by offering something of use such as 3 free packing boxes or similar. This would help them qualify the leads from the postcard mailout a bit further and allow them to capture the names of prospects rather than just ‘The Home Owner’. This would help to build a relationship with the prospect, the cost of this would be minimal and I’d be willing to bet it would increase their conversion rate over and above just offering a free quote (yawn…)
So to conclude I think this was a good effort to generate leads in a targetted fashion. I’m not sure how they compile their list, perhaps they monitor the new properties on www.myhome.ie or maybe it is possible to buy lists of all the new properties. Or perhaps they just ask their drivers to note down all of the new for sale properties they pass. Whichever way they do it you can bet it is nicely systemised and produces a good return on the investment. Lets face it the cost of a postcard and postage would probably be less that €1 and the potential business could easily be €1000 per client. It is a shame that the rest of the sales conversion process they are using falls a bit short, however even with what they have I’m sure it puts them well ahead of their competition.
Now I just need to ring them to get my free quote 
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