Nolsen Bedon, Ltd.

Customer Respect

Smart businesses make their customers feel important, appreciated and respected. Why? It’s really very simple. Customers who feel unimportant, unappreciated or taken for granted take their business elsewhere. There is a direct link between customer retention and customer respect.

Remember, when you lose a customer, not only do you lose the present but also the future business that person would have done. You also lose the added business the people that person would have referred to you would have done. That may amount to serious money, over a number of years.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Part 10

There is no better new customer for a business than someone who is referred by a happy customer. Yet, despite that fact, few businesses have a proactive plan for stimulating referrals, choosing instead to simply take referrals that come along gratefully.

The three steps involved in getting more referrals are:

1. Earn it by delivering great and exceptional service to your existing clients.

2. Ask for referrals not only directly but also by doing other things like:

Conducting referral events friends can be invited to

Running special promotions with great incentives

Displaying notices that clients are encouraged to refer

Handing out business cards and asking for introductions

3. Recognize and reward those who provide referrals with free gifts, coupons, certificates, prizes, competition entries, cards, discounts, thank-you notes or whatever is appropriate to the circumstances. Remember, the greater the reward you offer, the more passionate your clients will become about referring their friends.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Personnel: Get a marketing person on your founder’s team.

Technical people are obviously important, but you need someone who will have their eye fixed squarely on the marketplace. And don’t worry if the technologists and the marketers argue — that’s normal and should generate some creative ideas.

To succeed over the long haul, someone on the management team needs to be consistently focusing on the key question: “Is there a market for this idea?” If everyone is completely fixated on product development and building a better mousetrap and nobody is focusing on identifying who will buy the product and how, problems lie ahead. Therefore, it always makes good sense to have at least one experienced marketer on the senior management team and ideally as one of the founders.

Marketers focus well on what needs to be done to get the product sold. They think about all of the more mundane issues the technologists can’t be bothered with: Continue Reading »

Founders: Start with a group of at least three or four founders

The larger the group of founders you can put together, the better. This broadens your new company’s skill sets and access to capital. To further enhance your chances of success, put together a team of people who have already worked together on other projects and share power broadly.

In startup companies, nothing much happens at all unless you have great people involved in the management. Pure and simple, great companies are built by great teams. A strong management team can turn an average idea into a genuine winner but an average management team can kill even great ideas. This is why venture capitalists evaluate the quality of the management team first and foremost and walk away from the deal if the team isn’t strong and first rate.

This means that the more experienced your management team is, the greater your chances become of succeeding. You need a balanced team of founders, each of whom will contribute something worthwhile to the running of the startup company. Venture capital providers always bet on fantastic teams rather than on fantastic products. A founding team that has a diverse set of skills will always be a more attractive proposition than a founder working alone. If the members of the team have worked together previously either at another corporation or on a different project, then investor confidence will increase.

There is one other key point that deserves attention. Smart business leaders know when it’s time to bring in professional management. They know intuitively when it’s time to go against conventional wisdom and when it’s time to have in place the people who can add professionalism and systems expertise to the enterprise. If an investor can feel confident that the founders are willing to step aside when the time is right, they will see that as a very positive endorsement.

Startups That Work

Marketing Part 9

Customers are the most important asset of any business, and they will leave any business that treats them with indifference or makes them feel like they are not appreciated. To avoid that:

Make everyone an ambassador of customer service with responsibility to ensure that the overall experience is good.

Have a customer-service diplomacy policy in place which may incorporate commonsense guidelines like:
greeting customers as welcome and honored guests
answering the customer’s questions knowledgeably
never saying “that’s our policy” and using empathy instead
handling complaints systematically and well

Treat customer retention as a profit center rather than a cost center for your business and put your best people onto the customer retention team

Stay in touch with your customers regularly

Make it easy for existing customers to do more business with you through special exclusive offers, customer loyalty programs with great incentives and so forth

Find new ways to offer existing clients a greater variety of the products and services they like.

Make it easy for customers to refer their friends and associates with agreat referral program which delivers benefits all around.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Part 8

Surprisingly, the most effective marketing strategies dont’ always involve huge expense. Some of the most productive types of marketing will cost little, if anything. And yet many businesses overlook or ignore these opportunities.

To generate new business without necessarily spending money:

Train staff better on how to turn incoming telephone calls into marketing opportunities

Develop a script for telephone upselling of additional products and services

Follow up direct mail with a telephone call to answer questions and make other offers

Identify other businesses to cooperate with enhancing the impact of your existing marketing expenditure

Run small teaser ads rather than more expensive full-page ads

Set up “Take One” and contest entry boxes at places where your most likely prospects are likely to beThe point is that many people have a one-track mind when it comes to marketing — spend money. Sometimes that’s necessary, but often there are loads of things that can be done inexpensively to enhance the impact of your marketing. Make certain you take up these opportunities first, so then if you invest large amounts of money later, you’ll get the most out of it.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Part 7

Every marketer wants to handle products that are “hot” — in line with the current consumer trends. In practice, there are just seven ways to get hot and stay hot:

1. Get some prestigious recognition — from newspapers, broadcasters, publishers or industry groups
2. Release a new product — which is interesting, exciting and offers features never before available
3. Start offering a new service — which is new, better and different from what everyone else is doing
4. Align with trends and news events — by being aware of the general news environment and attempting to “enter into the conversation already taking place in the prospect’s mind”
5. Tie into seasons and holidays — which is another variation on the idea of getting involved with whatever people will already be thinking and talking about
6. Link with the release of moveis or entertainment events — which can not only be a lot of fun but can also generate loads of visibility (so long as it’s not for the wrong reason)
7. Piggyback on fads — by noting what is popular at present and doing something smart. For example, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were big, a dentist bought a collection of stuffed toys. He displayed them in his office and sent out an offer that each child who came for a special $9.95 exam could take home the turtle of his or her choice free! — while supplies last. The offer was highly successful, and similar marketing offers can be developed around any fad that may currently be in vogue.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Part 6

In practical terms, free advertising is generated by positive and favorable media attention and publicity. Naturally, free advertising is highly beneficial and desirable. How is it generated? There are several potential ways:

By joining forces with a charity
If you carefully choose a charity that is highly visible and aggressive in its promotional activities, by aligning with them you can use them as a lever to generate media awareness.

By having a flamboyant character in a management position

By being an expert source
Commission a poll or survey of some kind and announce the results. Then be prepared to explain and analyze those results in public. Before too long, you’ll come to be considerecd the expert in your field of business.

Through the use of original and creative promotions

As a guest on radio and TV talk shows
Radio talk shows are always looking for experts to take up some air time. Take advantage of that, and develop a list of previous appearances. WIth any luck, you’ll be abel to parlay small appearances into progressively larger venues.

Through the use of press kits and news releases
This is the bread and butter of the PR industry. The press kit is simply a collection of basic information about your business, product or service. The news release is somethign topical about why someone should care. Many businesses have generated millions of dollars of free advertising using nothing more than press kits and news releases.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan
 

Marketing Part 5

If your marketing is designed to get people to come to your business, take the time to make certain that what the client will see at your store or office is aligned with the image you create through your marketing.

Specifically, a good retail store:

1. Will be staffed by people who are dressed in a way that projects professionalism and order
2. Conveys a congruent, deliberate message that is appropriate to the products being offered
3. Presents goods in a logical, organized way
4. Helps the customer think creatively through the use of effective point-of-sale demonstrations that show the products in action
5. Takes the opportunity to educate the customer as appropriate — through videos and live demonstrations
6. Utilizes all the resources available — such as wall space — to promote, advertise and educate customers

If the in-person experience of interacting with a business differs markedly from the impression created by the marketing materials, customers aren’t very likely to encourage their friends to have the same experience.

Similarly, smart businesses also make a point of being seen as good corporate citizens. They align themselves with noncontroversial, nonpolitical and highly respected nonprofit or charitable organizations. By doing that, they enhance their visibility and create a profile that is in line with the marketing approach they use or want to use in the future.

The Ultimate Marketing Plan

Marketing Part 4

Whether you like it or not, most people won’t believe anything you tell them while marketing. The best marketers understand that natural tendency and address it by providing a “preponderance of proof” — so much evidence that ultimately the customer gets won over.

How do you achieve that? It usually requires a mix of:

Personal endorsements or testimonials from past clients who are happy with the results

Pictures that show definitive proof of the results — preferably in the “before” and “after” configurations

Extended testimonials that not only describe the benefits of the product or service but that also provide some background information so customers relate and empathize

Testimonials of real people rather than celebrity spokespeople who are paid to say something good

A large number of existing clients. The sheer number involved will cause customers to think something must be going right if so many people are already using that product or service

The Ultimate Marketing Plan