Archive for retailing tips
David Oglivy on Advertising
Posted by: | CommentsDavid Oglivy is an advertising legend. I consider his book “Oglivy on Advertising” to be one of the most important in my library. There are a lot of people in the advertising and marketing business that consider what he says about “Creative Advertising” to be heresy. I happen to agree with him.
Since I serve small businesses, I agree with his philosophy that ads should be direct response and generate a ROI and sales. Look at it this way, if your business was close to failing and you had two months to turn things around, would you try to be creative and build your brand or would you want your ad to generate immediate sales? Why wait for a creative brand-building campaign when you can have a creative brand-building campaign that makes you money today?
Small Business Marketing Tips – Are you contacting your customers?
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As a marketer, one of the things business owners say that continues to astound me is, “My customers don’t want to hear from us.”
I normally like to ask how they know this. Think about it… they never contact their customers but they somehow know the customers don’t want to hear from them. One of my niches is the independent insurance and large numbers of them seem terrified about contacting clients.
As part of my service, I conduct customer surveys for clients. I always ask those I’m surveying if it would be okay to contact them with updates, sales, new products or services they may be interested in. Over 90% of them say, “Sure!”
Why the big disparity? There are a couple of factors at work here. One is “Salesman syndrome,” which is having a negative image of themselves as a salesperson. Another thing is that it’s an excuse to avoid taking the time to do the work. Finally, it’s ignorance about the benefits of keeping in touch with clients.
The Direct Marketing Association did a study about this issue. They showed that for every month that passed without a company contacting a customer, there’s a 10% reduction in loyalty to the company. If you don’t contact your customers for 6 months, 60% of their loyalty is gone. Wait a year and they most likely could care less about your company!
That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? Let me go back to the business owners who tell me their clients don’t want to hear from them, they also tell me they have incredible client loyalty. Let’s add things up – No contact + no follow-up + no thank you notes + no special offers to clients + no email communications + no newsletter + no phone calls = client loyalty.
For some reason, the math doesn’t work for me and it won’t for you.
Small Business Marketing Tips – What does your store look like?
Posted by: | CommentsI frequently walk into stores to introduce myself and my services to the owner. Some people cringe at cold calls but I look at it as a chance to get out into the real world to talk to business owners. You can’t really get the full effect on a phone call.
I’ve got to say I am frequently blown away at the condition of many of the stores. The number that are absolutely filthy, dark, dreary and poorly organized is amazing. I’ve seen these stores in all types of areas so they aren’t limited to certain types of neighborhoods. There is not a single store I’ve entered that’s in this type of condition where the owner says business is doing well.
What got me thinking about this was a local florist I called on that was not only dirty but was actually quite dark and dreary with garbage laying on the floor, display cases with windows so dirty it was hard to see the flowers and a display of candles that were so dusty and dirty that they had zero chance of being picked up, let alone being sold.
I realize that we are all products of our environments and “clean” can be a relative term but when you are running a retail business, the reality is that you will turn away large numbers of potential clients if you don’t take the time to get your store in order. Large retailers spend a fortune on merchandising and store layout and often hire talented designers to lay things out.
Why do so many local companies totally miss the boat? I don’t know if it’s lack of knowledge, a lack of ambition, if they are lazy or just sloppy. Either way, the lesson is that if your store looks like a garbage dump, you will attract shoppers used to shopping at dumps.