May 19, 2007
How to understand and create the right marketing mix
What does it mean to create the right marketing mix? Why mix marketing? Why mix up your marketing, when everyone knows that great marketing is simple marketing, straightforward, clear, easily understood. Understanding and creating the right marketing mix, I think, is knowing how to communicate with different people differently according to their different needs. We all know that people are complicated. People, certainly, can be straightforward, clear, and easily understood-but they are also each unique, complicated, unpredictable. Understanding and creating the right marketing mix means developing an approach to marketing that take the above truths into consideration. Don't get overwhelmed! There are plenty of businesses that have proven time and time again that there are ways to tap into this seemingly daunting formula. Let's think of a few things, a few ideas, to get us started. Let's think of some ways to understand and create the right marketing mix.
Continue reading "How to understand and create the right marketing mix"May 18, 2007
How to turn your customers into your sales force
What does it mean, turning your customers into your sales force? It means the greatest thing a businessperson can do for his or her business. It means saving thousands of dollars and making thousands of dollars at the same time. It means, in essence, having a bunch of highly effective employees working for free. And not just working for free, paying you for the privilege of working! Turning one's customers into one's sales force is every salesperson's dream. It's tricky to do, and takes time and patience to keep up with it, but the benefits are massive and will dramatically alter your life and the lives of your family for the better.
1. Common sense says that turning a customer into a salesperson means satisfying that customer so well that they tell a friend about it. We're really beginning at the beginning, here. We're starting out with the most basic idea of business: create a service, maintain it well, adapt to the needs of your customers, make changes where needed, stick with what works, and so forth. Let's assume that these ancient methods of success are already working in your favor. How can you give your customers a little push, so to speak, in the direction of becoming your sales force
May 16, 2007
How to turn low-value occasional clients into high-value regular ones
First of all, what do we mean by "low-value" and "high-value" here? Poor customers versus rich customers? Classy customers versus gaudy ones? Smart ones versus dumb ones? No, no, and no. The keywords here are "occasional" and "regular." Occasional clients are low-value because they don't provide you with much income. Regular customers are high-value because they do. The great trick then, it turning low-value occasional clients into high-value regular ones, which takes us right back to where we started. Let's consider a few things.
1. Let's assume you've got a few high-value customers to begin with. You've got a few regular customers, the tried and true, the true and blue, who turn to you and only you for a specific need. Think back. Take a close look currently. What have you done, what are you doing, what do you plan do to keep these customers around? If something worked for them, chances are it will work for others as well. There's no need to go about reinventing the wheel, in other words.
May 15, 2007
How to tackle complaints in a way that turns dissatisfied customers into satisfied ones
OK, if you're running a business, you're sure to hear a complaint from time to time. You're sure to get an angry customer once in a while, a customer who thinks he's been cheated, a customer who thinks she's been treated unfairly or rudely, a customer who thinks that you've made their life harder insteadof easier like you're supposed to. It's inevitable, so the time to prepare for it is now. Preparing for it means developing techniques of meeting those complaints kindly, calmly, and satisfyingly. Sometimes a complaining customer can be turned into the stoutest, loyalist customer you've ever had in a few minutes, depending on how you respond to him or her when he or she complains.
1. When a customer has a complaint, they're usually not in the best of moods. They're usually not their best selves. They're usually a little more vicious than usual, impatient than usual, frustrated and desperate than usual. It could be that your company failed them on a particularly bad day, and all the badness of that day is now crashing down on you. Fair or unfair, there it is, crashing. Fair or unfair, there it is, your big chance, your opportunity to make a friend and find a loyal customer. How should you respond to customer complaints in a way that accomplishes these goals?
May 14, 2007
How to identify selling points with your customers
How does one go about identifying selling points with your customers? What are "selling points"? Why are they important?
1. Selling points are the particular ways in which you make a product, market a product, and so forth. Selling points are those things in your product and marketing that bring you sales. Selling points are the good parts of the story, the exciting moments in the movie, the best stretch of the song. These are things you want to bring to people's attention. The more you do it, the better you do it, the more customers you'll attract, and the better you'll be at securing their loyalty forever more.
May 13, 2007
How to design your marketing around your customer's needs
As every successful businessperson knows, marketing is the life's blood of a thriving company. Marketing is how you show your face to the world. Marketing is how you tell the world "This is who we are." Marketing can attract or repel, delight or disgust, gladden or anger your potential customer. Therefore, learning how to design your marketing around you customer's needs is an essential lesson and well worth studying long and hard to master. In a short article such as this one, of course, we can only cover a few basics, a beginning. Let's look at some ways to get those marketing juices flowing and the money flowing in.
1. First, let's think about what it means to design your marketing around your customer's needs. Designing your marketing around your customers needs means firstly that you need to know what those needs actually are. Let's say your company specializes in running shoes. You're trying to design a marketing plan for your customer's needs. What are those needs? Running shoes. Simple. What a simple, perfect way to start. But then the details start piling up. Different runners have different needs. Men differ from women. Children differ from adults. Some runners prefer a flat, consistent terrain, while others prefer running in the hills. All of these little subtleties will have to figure into your marketing design. Designing you marketing around your customer's needs is complicated, but with the right team you can hit your target without fail.
How to create the right image for your business
Ah, image. That ever-important, ever-mysterious, ever-changing, ever-confusing thing. How does one go about creating the right image for one's business? Why should one "create" an image for one's business? It smacks of insincerity. Well, in some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't. Are you insincere where a suit and tie to a job interview? Of course not. You want to show proper respect for the people you are asking a privilege of. Similarly, you are asking your customers for the privilege of their respect, trust, hard-earned dollars, and loyalty. You want to dress just right, as it were.
When it comes to a business image, however, a crisp suit and tie isn't always the right answer. Sometimes it's exactly the wrong answer. When wondering how to create the right image for your business, then, you've first got to know what you're selling and who you're trying to sell it to.
May 12, 2007
How to be adaptable to your customer's needs
What does it mean to be adaptable to your customer's needs? Well, to start with, being adaptable means having some proficiency with adapting. Adapting means-changing to fit the times, altering methods to improve their efficiency, being ready to identify and take advantage of new trends, respond quickly to customer complaints, and so forth. You want your company to be fluid, fast, fit. You want to get your company into running shape. It's a dog eat dog world, and the biggest, fastest, strongest dogs do all the eating. But of those three qualities-biggest, fastest, and strongest-the one we're really focusing on his fastest. How does one adapt to one's customer's needs? How does one know what one's customer's want? How does one realize what bothers one's customers, what pleases them, what delights them, offends them, and so forth?
Continue reading "How to be adaptable to your customer's needs"May 10, 2007
Finding the right price for the value of your product
Finding the right price for the value of your product is one of the most difficult things you'll do as a businessperson. It's a fine line, it's a rickety bridge, a narrow way. The first rule of business is to build low and sell high, right? Well, that is right-to a certain extent. After all, the customer isn't paying only for the watch, clock, radio, game, garment, picture, book, movie, toy, etc., when they make their purchase at the local store. The customer is paying for what you pay your employees, what you pay the government, you time and thought and labor, and so forth. These things do come into consideration; if a person sacrifices a great deal to produce a product that helps, comforts, delights, etc., the world, they deserve to be paid well for it-to have sacrifice meet sacrifice, as it were. But how does one go about finding the right price for the value of one's product?
Continue reading "Finding the right price for the value of your product"May9, 2007
Finding the right niche to market your product to
When it comes to marketing your business, finding the right niche to market your product to is essential. A niche is a specialized area that you can focus your marketing on. When you specialize, your business is more likely to succeed. Say for example you have a sporting goods store. In order to distinguish yourself from the competition, you can establish a niche that will set your apart from everyone else. While you may be able to purchase, say, camping supplies from any sporting goods store, your store could focus on higher-end, luxury camping supplies. Soon, your store will be known for supplying higher-end items that can't be purchased from chain sporting goods stores, no matter how well-known their name is.
This principle applies to all businesses. How you market your niche will determine how successful your business will be. So how do you find that right niche?
Continue reading "Finding the right niche to market your product to"May8, 2007
Finding the lifetime value of a customer, and focusing on that to improve marketing
What is the lifetime value of a customer? Simply put, its that value or values that will keep a customer returning to your business for life. It's the thing that's most important to your customer. Once you know what that thing is, once you've nailed it, once you've got in your pocket and possess it, you can start thinking of ways to market it, to advertise it. But first you've got to find out what it is.
1. Obviously, finding the answer to that crucial question will depend on effective communication with your customers. In order to discover the lifetime value of a customer, you've got to ask the customer what it is. You've got to notice what lifetime values your customers have in common. You need back and forth, conversation, dialogue, action and reaction.
Finding the lifetime value of a customer, and focusing on that to improve marketing
What is the lifetime value of a customer? Simply put, its that value or values that will keep a customer returning to your business for life. It's the thing that's most important to your customer. Once you know what that thing is, once you've nailed it, once you've got in your pocket and possess it, you can start thinking of ways to market it, to advertise it. But first you've got to find out what it is.
1. Obviously, finding the answer to that crucial question will depend on effective communication with your customers. In order to discover the lifetime value of a customer, you've got to ask the customer what it is. You've got to notice what lifetime values your customers have in common. You need back and forth, conversation, dialogue, action and reaction.
May7, 2007
How to create a strong visual identity for your company
Establishing a strong visual identity for your company is a crucial part of getting your name out. A visual identity is one of the first things people will think of when they hear your name - think of Nike's Swoosh, Ralph Lauren's polo pony, and Mac's apple.
Your strongest visual identity will most likely come in the form of a logo. However, everything you put out portrays your company's image. From brochures to letterhead to business cards, your company's product should have a visual appeal to it.
May6, 2007
Choosing to implement marketing that shows customers they are valued
How does one go about making a customer feel valued? That is, how does one go about making a customer feel cared for, important, needed, loved? If you want to a keep a customer for life, you'll find a way of answering this question correctly and sticking like glue to the answer. You relationship with your customer is similar to your other relationships. It's a matter of human beings relating to human beings. It's a matter of human feelings affecting human feelings. It's a matter of dialogue, communication, action and reaction, tone of voice, meaning of gesture, and so on and so forth forever. Whenever you're interacting with a human being, something sacred, something complex, something mysterious is going on. If your customer feels that you feel that way about them-they're yours for life. They won't want to go anywhere else. Why should they, when you not only satisfy their need for a particular product, but you satisfy their need for concern and care and sensitivity simultaneously?
Continue reading "Choosing to implement marketing that shows customers they are valued"May5, 2007
Choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback
Choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback may be the most important decision you ever make as a businessperson. It's like a marriage or anything else, any other kind of important relationship. Communication is the name of the game, communication is key. Conversation, back and forth, dialogue, question and answer, complaint and solution, etc., create lasting bonds between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends and friends, customers and businesses, and so forth. You want to know at all times what your customers are thinking. You want to know at all times what your customers are wanting. You want to know at all times what's bothering your customers, what's pleasing them, what would please them more, what would bother them less, etc.
Right now you're probably thinking: Of course! I knew all that already. The question here is one of choosing the right way to obtain customer feedback. Well, to get right down to it, the real question is one of choosing the right ways to obtain customer feedback, because the more ways the better.
May4, 2007
Choosing the right marketing plan
Every good businessperson knows that choosing the right marketing plan is one of the most important (if not the most important) building blocks when attempting to create a long-lasting, strong, firm, powerful, influential, rich, constantly growing, constantly improving, constantly branching out, constantly innovating, constantly contributing business. Choosing the right marketing plan is the lifeblood of your business. Choosing the right marketing plan means choosing the face your business wears before the public. Choosing the right marketing plan means choosing your business's "image"-that is, its stance politically, its attitude toward important issues, its commitment to charity and societal healing, and so on and so forth. Choosing the right marketing plan, in other words, is sort of like choosing the personality of your business.
If you think about a marketing plan as you would a personality, new angles and approaches and perspectives are immediately manifest. Everyone has heard the maxim "You can't judge a book by its cover"-and everyone knows it's true-but only to a certain extent. Oftentimes you can judge a book by its cover-for example, if the books cover depicts men in spacesuits fighting green, gooey, one-eyed aliens, and everyone's got laser guns, you automatically make a judgment: "Science fiction." Contrariwise, if the cover depicts a cowboy in pure white fighting a cowboy in pure black, and both of them have six-shooters, you automatically make a judgment: "Western." And so on. If you're standing in line in the grocery store and you see one of those books whose cover depicts a gorgeous, impossibly muscular, golden-haired warrior holding a gorgeous, impossibly busty raven-headed damsel in distress, you don't wonder if it's by Charles Dickens. Perhaps I'm laboring this point a bit, but only to point out that your marketing plan is literally the "cover" of your business.
May3, 2007
How to creatively package your items for higher revenues
Although in grade school you learned that "it is not what is on the outside that is important," the fact of the matter is that this principle just doesn't apply to merchandise as it should apply to people.A well packaged product will sell better than the same product in less appealing packaging.With so many near identical products in the market, packaging has become a key way for retailers to set their products apart from all the others and they make a lot more money by doing so.
Creative packaging that appeals to buyers will increase your revenues because the product will sell better.Retailers invest millions of dollars creating labels, tags and an advertisement that sets their product apart form all the others.Packaging is the same.Many times you will make a judgment about what is in a box by what is on the box. If you are interested in changing your packaging to be able to appeal more to buyers, consider the following suggestions:
Continue reading "How to creatively package your items for higher revenues"Best marketing strategies for reaching middle aged
The best way to come up with marketing strategies for the middle aged group is to figure out what things are most important to them.With many things it is wise to look at history to figure out the future.However, with today's middle aged group, you cannot rely on what was important to people in the past at this age.Our whole country has been through things that generations ago could not even have imagined.Priorities and technologies are all different then what they were even 10 years ago.So, how to market to today's middle aged?
To appeal to this demographic you need to be open minded and not try and project what you think someone of this age group may need.Instead, you want to try and do some research and give different choice of things they might want.Today's middle aged person is a lot younger at heart and still ready to do a lot of living, and they need you to show them some of their options.
May2, 2007
Steps to getting on Wal-Mart's shelves
If your company has invented products you might often dream about making tons of money selling those products to the general public. Those dreams may include getting your product displayed on the shelves of one of the biggest retail stores in the nation, Wal-Mart. But if you have tried to get onto Wal-Mart shelves in the past you have probably realized that this is not an easy task. Since Wal-Mart is one of the biggest retailers they have the biggest potential to reach millions of shoppers nationwide, this would be a huge bonus to anybody who has a product to sell. And because of how big Wal-Mart is they get numerous requests through their website and stores, as well as by telephone and mail, from suppliers hoping to get their products on Wal-Mart's shelves. Because of this high demand Wal-Mart is very selective on what products are displayed on their shelves. Here are a few simple steps to help you get your product displayed on Wal-Mart's shelves.
Step one:
First you will need to get to know Wal-Mart. Getting to know the company and its needs, as well as your company can help Wal-Mart will help you to prepare a great presentation and will help you make a better impression when trying to get your products sold on their shelves. Some things to consider doing are visiting the company's website and reading up on its history; visit Wal-Mart stores, SAM'S Clubs, and/or Wal-Mart Supercenters to get to help you learn what types of products Wal-Mart sells, the quality of their products and a general idea on how Wal-Mart prices their products. You should also compare your products with the current Wal-Mart products to make sure it will be useful to Wal-Mart customers.
May1, 2007
How to become a more attractive candidate for vendor Wal-Mart
Many suppliers dream about selling their products to huge retail establishments like Wal-Mart, but what they don't often know is what Wal-Mart looks for in a supplier. Here are some steps you can take to become a more attractive candidate for vendor Wal-Mart.
Step one:
First you are going to have to come up with a product that Wal-Mart will want to have on their shelves. Many people send Wal-Mart things they have invented, such as home-made elixirs in mason jars, but what Wal-Mart is looking for is something that their customers will want. While inventions are hard to get on Wal-Mart's shelves because of the lack of people interested in these items, the hardest possible item to get on Wal-Mart's shelves are "me too" items. These items are simply variations of items that already exist such as pencils, pens, food storage containers, and many other items. In these areas there is already so much duplication that it is really hard to find somebody to give you shelf space to promote these items. In order to increase your chances of getting shelf space you need to make the "me too" item really unique and can give the customers some type of special advantage.