As a new business owner you’ll soon be exposed to the ever-expanding and diversifying world of marketing offering no end of 'exciting', 'interactive' and, this bit you can guarantee, expensive ways to attract new customers and hopefully sales. Wherever you'd like your logo emblazoned it's safe to say money can buy it.
But before a marketeer promises you the earth and entices your precious budget, let me ask you a question:
What’s worth more, attracting a new customer or convincing an existing customer to repeat buy from you?
It’s a mouth-watering conundrum of course and I'm sure most of you would plump for both given the choice. But one, the latter, should almost always come before the former.
Develop a service or product that encourages customers to come back, heck, even physically prompts them to, before you go splashing cash buying new customers you're not necessarily ready for – do that and sure you’ll get a short term hit, but you certainly won’t get value for money.
Selling isn’t about simply selling once. It’s about selling and then providing after sales support and repeat marketing that brings in future sales. Think about it, what would you prefer, getting £1,000 in now and never speaking to a client again or £200 orders for the next two years.
Be a long-term sales person and you’ll have a long-term business. My local hairdresser now takes a photograph of my hair when it’s been cut and emails me the pic a month later, asking ‘remember when you looked like this?’ then prompts me to make a booking. It impresses me and if I'm honest, I'm flattered that they'd like me to come back. Call me easily pleased, but lots of people don't feel comfortable at places like hairdressers and familarity goes a long way to breeding trust.
My local Indian take-away doesn’t waste money letterbox spamming menus through people’s doors, it takes the details of everyone that orders and emails them once a month saying how grateful it is for their custom and offering a 5% discount off the next order.
I’ve told numerous friends and colleagues about this business and so I’m sure they’ve achieved knock-on word of mouth sales from their clever low-cost marketing and focus on return, as opposed to new, sales.
We all need new customers, but it pays to sell closer to home – and if you’re offering a service or product people will want again, it should be a damn site easier.
Know your customers, find out what they like, when they want to buy from you, how you can make them feel special and they will buy again, and again and again... You'll also have a perfected model to fully exploit that fancy marketing campaign!
What do you think? Let us know in the box below.
