Determining your Customer Perspective – Can you retain this customer?

This is part 3 of a 3 part series on Determining your customer perspective.

Can you retain this customer?

Do you really look at this as a consideration when developing your marketing segments and the value you place on acquiring a certain type of customer? Most of us look at repeat and referral strategies across the board for every segment. Though, I would not disagree that we should have a strategy for each but consider the segment or that type of customer that you acquire that always seems to give you the benefit of the doubt or refer business to you. Should you not be biased in how you allocate your resources to that segment? Would it not be beneficial to offer certain incentives to that segment? Is this not the measure that most determines the profitability of the customer? My first question to most new clients: Do you have customers that refer you, and why? That is the strongest indicator on the health of the brand.

A great book on the subject is The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld. The Net Promoter website is a great place to start. To calculate your company's Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.

When John Jantsch author of Duct Tape Marketing, talks about the Marketing Hourglass, he says, “The top half indeed resembles the funnel concept, but the expanding bottom half, to my way of thinking, adds the necessary focus on the total customer experience that ultimately leads to referrals and marketing momentum.”

Just considering these statements above you can see why I feel so strongly that you need to consider throughout the entire marketing process your ability to maintain and build that customer into a repeat/referral customer. The initial sale should be nothing more than allow your best advocates to experience the entire brand! If you have segmented your marketing channels into: Who you want as a customer (part 1) and Who wants you? (Part 2), the next logical step is, Who will repeat and refer?

Losing customers is the clearest possible sign that customers see a reduced stream of value from the company. It is simply the strongest indicator that a brand is in trouble, even if you are replacing the lost customers with new customers. New customers typically cost more to acquire having to go through, the entire hourglass and older customers are working in the bottom half of the hourglass. Since that is true, repeat customers tend to produce greater cash flow and profits than newer ones. Referral customers are also more profitable because they typically enter the hourglass not at the top but at a much lower stage.

Ask yourself, does retention and referrals matter? Put numbers to it. How much does it cost to obtain new customers, to retain old customers? Consider, do the repeat/referral customers have different purchasing patterns? What makes a repeat customer attract other customers?

How would you go about in gaining a repeat customer? I believe customers evaluate you based on three areas: Value for the price, Quality, Service. If you provide metrics that are very responsive to these areas and continuously educate to receive input from your customer base, you will go a long way in retaining clients. However, these measurement metrics must not be at the expense of your customers’ time and resources.

You should consider ways of making them a part of your operations, service, sales and marketing processes. As an example, you may notice less frequent contact or payments extending. Look at these as signs to engage your customer. Building quality measurement systems into your process may be the most important ingredient in your marketing hourglass.

Related Posts:

Determining your Customer Perspective – Who do you want?

Determining your Customer Perspective – Can you satisfy these customer segments?

The Eagles always understood!

Referral Machine Guide

Technorati Tags: Buyer persona,Duct-Tape-Marketing,Net-promoter-Score,Referral,Repeat,Target Market

Build a Referral Program for your E-zine

I have made just about every mistake possible in e-mail marketing and I am still learning. I have a list of 2500 but only get open rates of 20%. But I also have a client that gets open rates of over 50%. That list is only 600. Who has the better list? Without a doubt the one with 600 and it creates business. Why? It was created solely with direct sign-ups.

People want to increase e-mail mailing because it is free. But e-mail is not free. It takes effort, great content and current material. E-mail is struggling as a medium, it is still push marketing. But I have this junk mail theory, if it is cool enough, it is not junk. If an e-mail is worthwhile enough, it is not spam.

I believe an active small list allows you to target your message better and therefore have a more interested party. I would have a tendency to recommend not increasing their list but segregate it into more accurate groups. I think what makes a great list is creating more of a direct message to individual groups within the entire group. Than grow it by doing this:

A suggestion, create a referral program, it is referral week:
1. Segregate the list into groups.
2. E-mail only twice a month with more precise content.
3. Personalize as much as possible
4. Ask for referrals(forward e-mails) and if your friend signs up???
5. Become a guest writer on another's e-mail. Leave them write on yours. Each of you, of course would get a link to that persons. Ask for a signup to yours inside the post.
6. People that have customer traffic, create an offer to acquire their e-mail, especially at point of sale or a computer that could print a coupon.
7. Get and post testimonials about your newsletter, everywhere.

If they want to create a better list, make a better offer to get the name or better yet content that someone wants to read. If you want to grow your list do it from within not by trying to acquire more.

And then to start blogging.

Technorati Tags: E-zine,Email,E-mail marketing,Referral,Referral week,Referral Marketing

Referral Conversion System - Step 6

Step 6 - Referral Conversion System

Service, Product, Retail, Construction, Professional services, Employee, and Volunteer … it doesn’t matter. A referral system should include 7 basic steps that helps you identify and succeed in ways you never imagined. It is the basic understanding on how to apply the Referral Flood program to Your Business or Organization.Step #6 – What good are referral leads if they don’t become referral clients? You must map out a specific set of steps that will allow you to convert your referral leads. What I would recommend is developing a hour glass for this process just like you do a regular sales channel. If you do this, your steps in developing a referral client will become very clear. After a while, you will begin to recognize where the referral is entering your sales cycle at. Why is this important? If the referral is strong enough the prospect may already know, like and trust you. They may be ready for a trial offer. You may only confuse them by trying to build more knowledge and sending them additional information about your company. Understand the process and work it! A nice surprise would be that a significant portion of the sales cycle is skipped there by reducing your cost of sales.

Technorati Tags: Referral,Referral Week,Referral Flood,Conversion,Referral conversion,hour glass,sales funnel,marketing funnel

Lean your Marketing thru Referrals

I created a special offer this week for this program. Click to the event above and type in ReferralWeek. It will give you the special pricing. This offer expires Sunday.  This is a copy of the news release for the program:

Summary: Business901 has just released a 4-week program titled Lean your Marketing thru Referrals. This program creates a step-by-step, documented Lean Referral System based on your specific target market.

NEWS FACTS

• Build a Referral Program for your business
• Special offer in conjunction with Referral Week
• Duct Tape Marketing Referral Flood Program included
• Duct Tape Marketing Coach
• Lean Marketing Principles applied

Fort Wayne, IN – Business901 has just released a 4-week program titled Lean your Marketing thru Referrals. This program creates a step-by-step, documented Lean Referral System based on your specific target market. Develop marketing tools, letters, and offers that will help you generate a precise strategy for making referrals a core new weapon. The participants can use the templates to determine areas to differentiate their product, better define their ideal client and use present technology to accelerate the process. This program is being introduced in conjunction with Referral Week and will start the following week on March 19th. You can sign-up at http://leanreferralmarketing.eventbrite.com/.com There is a discount code of "ReferralWeek" that is available till the end of Referral Week.

The uniqueness of this program is that it takes the best Referral Marketing System developed by Duct Tape Marketing author John Jantsch and combines it with an authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach; Joe Dager. The principles are outlined in a 7-step process that will communicate the basic understanding on how to apply the Referral Flood program as part of a Lean Marketing Process. It offers several tips and tricks that will immediately jump-start a referral marketing program," says Dager. He adds, "The Lean Marketing aspect adds the value of concentrating on your customers needs and the benefits they receive. Ultimately what you are after is not a bunch of cold referrals but targeted referrals."
Make a Referral Week is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

The development of a system that will provide consistent long-term growth may be the single most important factor for your business. When asked most companies will agree that most of their business comes from referrals, as much as 50%. This 4 week program provides valuable material for developing a referral system and is implemented with a DTM coach by your side.
Week by week schedule:
Week 1 - Referral Assessment, Introduction, goal setting and action plan for the program.
Week 2 - Define Target Referral Market and Ideal referral candidates.
Week 3 - Create core referral message, offer and referral education system.
Week 4 - Create referral marketing tools and follow-up system and implementation action steps.

About Business901: Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as target marketing and organized referral marketing. As a certified coach of the Duct Tape Marketing Consulting organization, Joe provides practical, information-rich, immediately applicable direction that profoundly impacts the success of small and mid-sized businesses. His experience includes numerous start-ups, several turnarounds in variety of industries to include manufacturing, retail, and professional services to include marketing.

Referral Lead Offer – STEP 5 of 7

Step 5 - Referral Lead offer

Service, Product, Retail, Construction, Professional services, Employee, and Volunteer … it doesn’t matter. A referral system should include 7 basic steps that helps you identify and succeed in ways you never imagined. It is the basic understanding on how to apply the Referral Flood program to Your Business or Organization.

Step #5 – This is where you devise the creative offer that makes people want to refer you. Example: “Refer 4 people that become clients and yours is free.” There are numerous offers available but be creative. A gift certificate, dinner, and discounts can be great incentives. But know your audiences and try to be outlandish. The old adage of What is in it for ME, is never more important than right now. This single step may determine the success of your program so be creative, easy to understand, and something no one else would do.

This is from Business901.

Technorati Tags: Referral,Referral Week,Referral Flood,Core Referral Message,Lead Offer

REFERRAL PROCESS – STEP 4 - Education

Step 4 - Referral Education System

Service, Product, Retail, Construction, Professional services, Employee, and Volunteer … it doesn’t matter. A referral system should include 7 basic steps that helps you identify and succeed in ways you never imagined. It is the basic understanding on how to apply the Referral Flood program to Your Business or Organization .Step #4 – Most people when meeting with a potential referral source will not only increase the number but the quality of referrals if you educate them on:<?xml:namespace prefix = olstyle="text-align />

Whomakes a great referral.

What’s in it for them to provide a referral.

How to refer you.

The exact steps you plan to take with that referral.

If people don’t know who makes a great referral they will either never refer or pass you leads that are not qualified at all. I always likened it to buying a new car. You very seldom see one till after you buy it. Afterward, you see the car at every corner. If you tell people what opportunity it is, it may come knocking.

You need to provide an incentive to refer someone to you. Don’t just assume they are going to do it. But before you can construct an incentive, be sure to understand what may motivate them. Some people will be satisfied with recognition, others discounts on future purchase and others may want referrals from you.Many times people will misunderstand not only who to refer but what to say when referring you. Defining who you are to your referral partner is extremely important. Not being a client they may not understand exactly what you do. So to communicate that, the description must be short and to the point.It is also imperative that you tell people what you are going to do with the referral. They are not going to send their friends and family to someone that is going to relentlessly pursue them. Tell your partners the exact steps you will take and do them. It will go a long way in developing the trust you need.

Technorati Tags: Referral ,Referral Week ,Referral Flood ,Referral Education

Referral Week headed by Duct Tape Marketing

Leave it to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing to make a Referral Week 2009 is March 9-13. This is one tiny effort to make a dent in this recession and shine a light on the efforts and impact of one small business helping another. A great list of sponsors to include the Duct Tape Marketing Coaches. Joe Dager of Business901, a DTM coach is proud to be part of this weeks referral and is offering his Lean You Marketing through Referral program at a special discounted rate. Type in the ReferralWeek in the code to receive special pricing. Information about Referral Week and the webinar can be found at www.business901.com.

The goal of the event is to generate 1000 referrals for 1000 deserving businesses. During the week this blog will be taken over by guest contributions and audio interviews with folks like Andy Sernovitz, Guy Kawasaki, Pam Slim, Rich Sloan, Anita Campbell, Scott Ginsburg, Michael Port and Jill Konrath all focused on telling you how to generate more business by way of referral.

In addition, A live web conference on Tuesday, March 10 at Noon CST featuring Bob Burg, author of the Go-Giver, Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and Bill Cates, author of Get More Referrals Now. This is the A-Team when it comes to teaching the strategies of referral!

Here’s how you do your part:

1. Think about the referral(s) you are going to make
2. Make your referrals - (you don’t have to wait until March 9 to do this
3. Visit the Make a Referral Week Referral Counter page and tell us who you referred and why in the comments - feel free to add URLs so others can learn about the business you referred.
4. Take in all the great educational content all week
5. Bask in the glow of small business coolness!
   

Thanks to all who have taken this challenge!

About Business901: Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as target marketing and organized referral marketing. As a certified coach of the Duct Tape Marketing Consulting organization, Joe provides practical, information-rich, immediately applicable direction that profoundly impacts the success of small and mid-sized businesses. His experience includes numerous start-ups, several turnarounds in variety of industries to include manufacturing, retail, and professional services to include marketing.

Technorati Tags: Referral Week. Referral Flood,Lean Marketing,Referrals,Duct Tape Marketing

Referral Week - Headline Event

Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and author of Masters of Networking, Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and the Go-Giver, and Bill Cates, author of Get More  Referrals Now make up a panel of what may be the worlds greatest single collection of thought leaders on the subject of referrals.

The live web conference is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10th at Noon CST and will be hosted by John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing. To register for the conference - click here

The conference is the headline event of the educational component of Make a Referral Week.

Special offer on the Duct Tape Marketing Referral Flood Package.

Technorati Tags: Referral,Referral Week,Referral Flood,Duct Tape Marketing

Referral Week - do something

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Tired of Hearing About E.D. - then do something.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of all the talk of economic downturn (E.D.) and I think, as a group, small business owners are too.

Therefore we hereby declare March 9-13, 2009 - Make a Referral Week. Make a Referral Week is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the fact that this simple action can blossom into millions of dollars in new business. Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

Th e-week long virtual event will also feature daily education programs focused on teaching small business owners and other marketers how to tap the power of referral marketing. The featured session includes a live web conference with Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and author Masters of Networking, Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and the Go-Giver, Bill Cates, author of Get More Referrals Now. (Here’s the full list of education planned for the week)

No money is exchanging hands, no sponsors are being hit up, it’s just something that we thought needed to be done. If you want to get involved in this small business happening visit the Make a Referral Pledge page and submit your intention now to make at least one referral during the March 9-13 event. (Take this step and you are automatically eligible to receive audio recordings of the entire expert series)

Once you pledge you will also find tools that make it easy to refer friends, post to your Facebook profile and blog about the week. If you would like to actively promote visit the sponsor page for additional tools. During the week of March 9-13 we will activate the Referral-o-meter to track the march to 1000 referrals as small business owners visit and describe who they referred a lead to and why. This is every small business person’s chance to be a part of the solution!

I blogged this in its entirety. Take a look and check back with me for a few local opportunities and a special deal on Referral Flood.

Technorati Tags: Duct Tape Marketing,Referral Week,Referral Flood,BNI,Referral

Line-up for Referral Week

A great line-up of guest blog posts and podcast education awaits you during Make a Referral Week - just look at this roster of experts!

Mon 09 Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends on strategic partnering    Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid on face-to-face networking.

Tues 10 Scott Ginsberg, founder NametagTV on being more referable     Rich Sloan, author of Start up Nation on low-cost referral strategies.

Tuesday March 10, Noon CST - Special live web conference featuring Bob Burg, author of the Go-Giver, Ivan Misner, founder of BNI and Bill Cates, author of Get More Referrals Now.

Wed 11 Scott Allen, author of the Virtual Handshake on using social media for referrals.    Andy Sernovitz, author of Word of Mouth Marketing on small business word of mouth strategies

Thur 12 Ben McConnell, author of Church of the Customer on creating customer evangelists    Pam Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation on Personal Branding

Fri 13 Guy Kawasaki, author of Reality Check on the art of the referral    Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies on customer referral strategies

Check out the Duct Tape Marketing Referral Flood System

Technorati Tags: Referral,Referral Week,Referral Flood,Referral Marketing,Duct Tape Marketing

Ask Your Customers To Promote You

Want to know the #1 reason your customers don't recommend you to their friends? It isn't because they don't like your product, or because they don't care or are too busy. The real reason is either because you don't ask them to, or you don't make it easy for them to do it. If you ask them in the right way, however, the word of mouth referrals and additional business you can get from the experience will easily be more powerful that just about any other advertising or marketing you could do. Here are a few ideas for getting your customers to promote you to their family, friends and social networks in a way that won't make it appear as if you're paying them to like you:

1. Share the credit.
2. Let them be a fan.
3. Encourage online reviews.
4. Refer a friend.
5. Pass along an offer.
6. Offer useful content.

This is from Influential Marketing, and written by Rohit. Read the rest of the post gor some great examples and explanations.

Confluence Networking Nearly FULL

Confluence! Networking Event
7/30/08 Workshops at 3PM, Networking at 4PM
Free Registration Nearly-Full!
Workshops Already Full, Jam-Packed
Over 150 Registered, Stopping at 200!
REGISTER TODAY

Confluence! is a free event designed to bring together Indy’s best networkers and associations. Over 150 attendees have completed their free online registrations. Partnering with fortyfive degrees, a brand new restaurant and nightclub on College & Mass Ave, the event is expected to draw a couple hundred top-shelf, well-connected, business professionals. Confluence! networking will kick-off at the venue at 4PM and run for a couple hours. Complimentary appetizers along with a cash bar and many event gifts and door prizes will riddle the evening.

Pre-event workshops, currently closed and jam-packed, from 3-4PM will be provided to attendees interested in professional development and education. Presenting speakers and companies include Lorraine Ball of RoundPeg & Rainmakers speaking on “The Web 2.0 Phenomenon”, Linda Rendleman of Business Women Connect speaking on “Stand up and talk like a girl: Using your unique feminine strengths for success”, and Ginna Fenton of Express Employment Professionals facilitating a panel discussion on the topic of “Are you an ‘Employer of Choice’?” Ginna’s panel discussion includes professionals from the following organizations: May’s Chemical, Bingham McHale, Angie’s List, Liquid Transport Corp, Dashr Solutions, David Anderson, SPHR, and Preferred Sourcing.

Stay ‘til the end for the shocking Grand Prize raffle of a $4,000 DreamAuthentic’s Game Cabinet personally donated by Ginna Fenton of Express Employment Professionals! But that’s not all, other fantastic door prizes include a $500 gift certificate to DreamAuthentics donated by DreamAuthentics, 25 Control Sprayers, Paint Crews, and Deck Mates ranging in value from $99.99 to $199.99 and generously donated by FP’s client, Wagner Spray Tech Corporation, and 4 American Lung Association Golf Plus Privilege Books with discounts at 300+ Indiana golf courses and a retail value of $35 each graciously donated by another FP Client, the American Lung Association. Business cards will be drawn starting at 5:45 PM. Must be present to win. No stand-ins allowed.

Technorati Tags: Confluence,Indianapolis Networking,Rainmakers,Indiana Networking

Harnessing the Simple, but Effective Art of Referral Marketing - New York Times

When the NY Times looks for an expert on Referral Marketing where do they turn, Duct Tape Marketing, take a look!

Harnessing the Simple, but Effective Art of Referral Marketing - New York Times