BABY COME BACK! Luring back the lapsed customer

I wrote about segmentation here, and now I want to expound a little more about a specific segment that I think it's important we address.

The lapsed customer.  Who are they?

• Perhaps they are one-time only purchasers (assuming they can purchase more than once).
• They could be customers who fall into groups that may be less-than-ideally served by your business - such as people who always choose the lowest price vs. a good value.
• It's conceivable that these customers had a bad customer service experience with you at some point.
• Maybe they are customers that never got assigned to follow-up with, and they fell through the cracks.
• It could be they've been "captured" by a competitor and have become loyal to them.
• Or maybe they've simply moved away or are no longer in need of your service for reasons completely out of your control.

Note that not all customers in this segment are completely gone.  Some just have one foot out the door and are still transacting, but just not as much as they used to.

Lapsed customers fall into two basic groups:  customers you have a chance to win back, and customers you don't.  Put the customers who have disappeared off the face of the earth and those who are less than ideal belong in the latter group, so don't bother to try.  The rest fall into the first group - those you have a chance to win back.

Next, set out to win them back and hopefully, keep them.  Here's a few top-line ideas for things to try:

• Contact them and ask them how you can serve them better.  This can draw out some of the reasons that they have dropped off that are within your control that you may be able to address.
• Offer a "come back" special that's really attractive
• Look for ways to connect with them on a more personal level - invite them to business mixer functions, leads groups, and community events.  This is especially cool if you can acquire "VIP" treatment for them at the event.

The mission is to find a way to reconnect, and reestablish these customers as established customers.  They liked you at one point - find ways for them to like you now. Their business will follow.

Got any great ideas or stories of how you brought 'em back? I'd love to hear them!

Everybody Is Not The Same: Basic Ways to Segment Your Database

Hello, Ms. Small Biz Gal.  You've built yourself a pretty nice database there.

You have a good clean list, you are recording basic info like important milestone dates (first date of contact, first transaction, last transaction, birth dates, anniversaries, etc.).  You can tell the difference between prospects and actual customers, and you can, in some ways, record sales to your customers.  (You're awesome, by the way - and miles ahead of lots of your peers.)

Let's say, for the sake of this post, that you're contacting all these folks via email, although this is valid for any of your channels in which you talk directly to customers.

Hypothetically, you're going to tell them about a great new deal you have going - you're going to give a discount to new customers. This is what you want to send:

Hello, new customers!  We're so excited about the opportunity to add you to our family, we'd love to offer you 10% off your next purchase with Ms. Small Biz, Inc! Offer expires in a week, so hurry in - we can't wait to see you!

Is this the right thing to send... to the entire database?  If you think about it, you know the answer - which is NO, of course not.  This is only good for your prospect list!

So why are you sending this out to customers that aren't prospects?  How do you avoid making this mistake?

The simplest answer is to use a very basic database segmentation.  And here it is:

Of course, for your business, what a "new" customer might mean may be slightly different, and the same with "lapsed".  And of course, you can sub-segment each group any number of ways, if you have the time, tools, and strategy to manage that complexity well.

In our hypothetical case, the email above can be sent to the prospects only, and not the rest of the group.   Simple.

Lots of people violate this every day, by not taking the time to create the basic segmentation above - I'm always surprised as I get this from people I think should know better (aka, other marketers).

Truly, without this basic segmentation, it can make your direct marketing far less effective.

So, Ms. Small Biz, take a moment and assign the segmentation to your database as noted above, and keep it up as you onboard new customers and as their status changes (yes, there are tools for this).

Need help?  I can do that, y'know.  Let me know!  Drop me an email!

DOTC: Imagery Is Everything

Images in your social media and on your blog will be far more engaging than those without.  Don't believe me?

Let's ask the experts.  Hey, Hubspot?  What do you think about using images in social media?

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33800/Photos-on-Facebook-Generate-53-More-Likes-Than-the-Average-Post-NEW-DATA.aspx

As a result, our study revealed that photos on Facebook Pages received 53% more Likes than the average post. We also compared each businesses' average comments-per-photo to their overall average comments-per-post and found that photo posts attracted 104% more comments than the average post, too.

 How about you, smart guy Jeff Bullas?

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/05/28/6-powerful-reasons-why-you-should-include-images-in-your-marketing-infographic/

Engagement rate on Facebook for photos averages 0.37% where text only is 0.27% (this translates to a 37% higher level of engagement for photos over text).

Be sure to click the links and read both articles - good stuff.

Okay, so where do you get the stock photos?  You can't just Google a few keywords and take images from the internet willy-nilly.  If you are doing that, stop now! You have to have rights to those images - and they can cost a lot of dough, especially when the rights are restricted to one medium or another.

Ah, but this is a DOTC post, so I'm going to give you three sources of FREE images. 

Free Stock Photos are AWESOME!
Yes, Hubspot, yes, they are.

First, and my favorite, is Morguefile.  All sorts of great and interesting images to use, and usually, it doesn't even require attribution for use.

Second, Hubspot has offered some really nice images for your use, here and here.  They also put out a bunch of nice holiday themed ones here.  Go download these immediately, I use them all the time. 

Third, I use www.freerangestock.com.  Most of these images require you to notify the creator you used the image and you have to attribute the image (but not all).

Yes, there are others, but these are the ones I use most often.  Most are fine to use in all applications except to place on items to sell (so, you can use it on your blog, but not sell them on a t-shirt).

So now you have no excuse not to make your marketing a lot more interesting!  Let me know if you have any favorite free image sources you like!

P.S. A word on meme images:  they are technically illegal and use of them will risk you getting in trouble - I do not advise that you use them.  That being said, Meme Generator is an easy place to make your own.

Look at your calendar - it's 2014.

You're looking at your calendar and saying, "What? It's freaking November, you goofball!"

A party so good, you don't remember it yet.

Nuh-uh, my friend, Thanksgiving is but a pleasant memory, Christmas returns are underway, and you're not quite over that New Year's day hangover.  In fact, it's almost time for that NFL "Big Game" party (I hope it's featuring this team right here).

Because, in marketing terms, it's January (or even February or March), my friend.

If you haven't planned out January/February/March already (much less the whole year), you're already behind and you may miss critical deadlines for marketing things you want to do, including:

• Advertising in publications such as magazines
• Direct mail or catalog runs
• Display advertising
• Television and radio advertising

Look, you don't want to find yourself on January 2 saying to yourself, "Hokay, now what am I going to do now?"

Now - today - is the time to sit down, think about next year, and decide what your tactics and budget is going to be, and start engaging partners if needed.

Q1 is a period that is soft for many of us, so get on it NOW, because if you don't, you may find your leads and your business drying up, and you don't want that, do you?

Need help?  Drop me a note here: AbanicoMktg@gmail.com

Marketing Is More Than Leads

Even fictional characters know this.

When we talk "marketing" we usually talk about generating "leads", that is, new customers to our business.  It's where we spend the most of our time and energy.

This can be a huge, huge mistake.

There are more studies than I can count that show that retaining customers is cheaper than going after new customers.

Here's just a few I found with a quick search - check 'em out (but come back, will ya?)

http://www.customerforlife.com/blog/salesforce/2013/03/26/retention-vs-acquisition/
http://www.cmo.com/articles/2013/7/18/customer_retention.html
http://www.camfoundation.com/PDF/Cost-of-customer-acquisition-vs-customer-retention.pdf

The numbers vary slightly, but they all show a retained customer is cheaper than a new one.  I verified this myself in my days in the corporate world, so I know it to be true.

So what does this mean to you and your marketing plan?

While yes, you obviously need to chase leads and plan accordingly, you also need to plan and budget for a retention program for existing customers.

So what do you do with them?

GROW THE EXISTING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

Also known as upselling, there's several ways to incentivize customers to buy more:

• Perhaps they can grow the dollar value of each transaction but not change the frequency of purchase.
• Or, they can do the opposite - they can increase the frequency of transactions but the value remains constant. 
• Or, they can do both.
• Or they can increase frequency but reduce value per transaction (but grow overall revenue from the single customer).
• Or they can decrease frequency and increase value per transaction (which can also grow overall revenue).

You can try a variety of tactics - sometimes it's a loyalty program where you give a reward for increasing business.  This is the foundation of loyalty marketing and the real purpose of every loyalty program that exists.

USE THE EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE AS A REFERRAL SYSTEM

Most commonly, you'd see this as a "bounty" system, where a reward is given for so many referrals given to you by your existing customer.

If you use such a system, make sure the "hurdle" for rewards is easily reached and has enough value to be attractive (but it doesn't have to be crazy huge).  You can have more than one level or you can keep it very simple: "For (x) amount of referrals, you get (y) rewards".

You can up the ante for referrals, and if the referral becomes a paying customer, the reward is greater.

But there are lot of other ways to get your existing customers to sing your praises to new potential customers.  Ever heard the term "brand evangelism"?  This is a holy grail of marketing and advertising - think about the Nike customer who buys their branded gear and wears it out.  That's free advertising!

THE BEST RETENTION TACTIC OF ALL

Provide excellent customer service.  I've ranted on what this means before (here, here, and the saga of epic fail starting here) but just remember - it's your job to solve your customer's problem.  Do it promptly, with value, and with respect, and your customer will love you, buy from you again, and refer you.

So, as you're working your plan, do not forget to build in marketing tactics and processes to grow your business using your existing customer base.  It's cheaper, it's easier and you'll find it pretty rewarding.

Do you have a great can't-miss tactic to grow revenue and referrals from your current customers? Let me know!

FoM: Slay the Social Media Monster

There's dozens of examples out there about the ways brands (and individuals and celebrities) have had major screwups in social media.  Feel free to search for them if you're so inclined.

Bring it, Twitter.

Such tales might have put the Fear of Marketing in you - in this case, you're avoiding the Social Media Monsters.

You may be aware that there are "best practice"  (i.e. rules) for every channel.  And generally, this is true, developed over time and experience as these channels have been used, even though there's some debate on these.

Don't let these rules intimidate you or stop you from getting out there.

To paraphrase what I said in my FOM introductory post (right here) - making a social media post or a tweet or whatever is not like getting a tattoo.  It's here, and it's gone, just like that (and you can delete what you dislike if you really want to in the future).  It's so very temporary, it really is hard to screw it up permanently.

However, to avoid potential problems, this is the what you need to do:

• Negativity or sarcasm can easily go wrong, so I advise newbies to avoid it.
• Make sure you read it several times (watch for typos and grammatical errors).
• Get out there and try.  Just broadcasting things like sales or blog posts is fine to start.  You will get more confidence as you practice.
• If you post something you don't like, delete it!  It'll be gone, just like that!

You don't have to be a channel expert in, say, Twitter, to start tweeting for your business.  Just get moving.

Got a Marketing Monster you want to slay?  I can help!  Drop me a note in the comments or email me at AbanicoMktg@gmail.com