small business ideas
For small businesses, loyalty is everything
Are you the owner or manager of a smal, local business? Assuming that you are looking for ways to grow, what does it mean to grow? Most often, gorwth is about making more money. But how? By winning new customers or by getting a bigger share of your current customers’ wallets? small business marketing idea By cutting costs or boosting sales? By selling new things? Open a new branch? Have more people working for you?
I recently had my own local business, a bar/restaurant. My answer to the above was to do whatever costs least and makes most. For my bar, that meant focussing on what we had already – a shop with customers walking in and out of it on a regular basis. If your business is a shop of some type, your answer is likely to be the same. Even if you don’t have a shop, assuming that your product or service is any good, you’re likely to have lots of customers that would like to hear from you occasionally.
small business advertising solutions Sometimes it seems that the only way forward is to find new customers, people that haven’t bought from you before. You may believe that there are plenty of people that, if only they knew about you, would surely become your customers. And you’re probably right. In your local area there probably are hundreds or even thousands of people that might buy from you – and just imagine how your life would change if you could reach even 10% of them! Getting to those people is not cheap though – that’s the problem. If you sell cars, this might not be a problem but if you sell coffee, it could cost more to get a new customer than that customer will spend – that is, unless that customer remains loyal and buys from you again and again.
This is my point – in the end, it’s always about loyalty. You will always struggle to grow until you’ve worked out how to turn a new customer into a loyal one. In the meantime, money you spend winning new customers will not lead to growth unless the new customer sales exceed that of the customers that are walking away.
So my advice is this. Don’t spend a penny on finding new customers until you know how to keep your existing customers coming back for more. If you can make that work, chances are you won’t need to spend money on finding new customer anyway, since most of your existing ones will be busy telling all their friends how great you are. Even if you do decide to find new customers, every pound you spend, will give you two, five or ten times more payback than it would have done before you had loyal customers. How do you get loyal customers? That’s a different story. Something you can do right away is think about how best to communicate with customers in a way that is convenient for them and will engender loyalty – right now, for most small, local businesses, SMS is the best option. The first three of Sendster’s six rules of mobile marketing are below. First of all, make sure you get premission! This may seem obvious, but make sure that customers know what to expect when they opt-in. Did they consent to SMS only, or also email, and how frequently? Did they opt-in to receive general news and updates about your local business or only special offers? small business advertising solutions If your opt-in is crystal clear, the chance of your messages being well-received and responded-to will be greater. When it comes to their personal space and time, people prefer not to be surprised. Are you unsure about how wide or deep your customers’ consent is? If so, use Sendster’s FREE invite to opt-in service or encourage customers to opt in to Sendster’s short code. The second rule is to personalise. As much as possible, so long as it’s appropriate. I’m not talking just about using your name and your customer’s name in a message, although this is often worthwhile. I’m talking about engaging your customers by sending something that they will find interesting or useful The fact that you have spent time understanding their preferences will be appreciated. You customers will both respond better and look forward more to your next SMS. Find out what your customers like and create ‘tags’ in your Sendster address book to record this information. If, for example, you then want to send a promotion to wine-lovers, just search your contacts for those you have tagged ‘wine-lovers’ and send to only these contacts. Rule three is to make sure there’s enough in it for your customer. Make sure that there is a compelling reason for your customer to pay attention to your mobile marketing message. If the reason doesn’t exist, your customer will regret having opened your SMS, will probably not look forward to receiving your next SMS and may even opt-out altogether from your SMS marketing. Your text must offer something relevant to the reader’s interests that they could not usually get, otherwise it will not be compelling. You can find out how compelling your offer is by requiring a response “e.g. Free bottle of wine with every meal this weekend – reply Yes and we’ll call you to book a table”. The trick is to remember that your opted-in contacts have given you permission to contact them (and could change their minds), so treat them as individuals by making sure the offers are genuinely special and would not be offered to just anyone.
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