Every customer is different, so why treat them all the same?

To start treating customers as individuals, look at how and when they buy. This will help to start putting them into groups and understanding the needs of each group. For example:

1.  High volume / high value buyers…who place frequent large orders
2.  High volume / low value buyers…who place frequent small orders
3.  Low volume / high value buyers…who place occasional large orders
4.  Low volume / low value buyers…who place occasional small orders

Groups of customers who have similar needs or who behave in a similar way are known in marketing as ’segments’. You will probably need to use different marketing techniques and approaches to reach different types of customer. 
 
Now you can identify why each customer segment buys your products and services and what ‘benefits’ they are seeking.  This in turn will help you to target existing and new customers more effectively with specific products and services. As a result you can make better profits. For example, low volume/high value buyers may be more profitable for you than high volume/high value buyers who may continually squeeze you on price. 
 
You deliver benefits through what marketing people call the ‘”marketing mix”. These are essentially the tools of the marketing trade. Your goal here is to define your “unique selling proposition” (USP) – something that truly sets you apart from your competitors.

The basic marketing mix consists of:

1.  Product – the goods and services you are offering, including packaging and service content, such as warranty, after sales.
2.  Price – what the customer pays. Remember that there are different types of prices, such as list prices, discounted prices, and many different ways to arrive at prices. Price may be used to communicate the position and values of the product/service.
3.  Place – how and where the customer obtains the product/service. For example, a catalogue company may allow customers to buy through the catalogue itself, on the company’s web page or through off-the-page advertising.
4.  Promotion – the means and mix of activities used to promote the product or service, for example, advertising, direct marketing, PR, exhibitions and trade shows.

So, take some time to review your current marketing mix and identify if its giving you the best results.

Quite often good public relations (PR) is an essential component of any small business marketing strategy.  Get it wrong and it could cost you a heap of business.

A friend of mine in Sydney sent me this link a few days ago, which demonstrates that even the experts  often get it wrong! 

Take a quick peak here

WARNING:  It’s great viewing but some of the language is blue, so it is not for the faint hearted!  You’ll find some of the best on-air gaffes and links to videos of them all.  

Let me know what you think by posting a comment 

How much do you know about marketing?

I come across so many business owners who simply confuse marketing with sales and focus solely on “selling”.  Yes, I know that the end result is to make a sale but there’s more to selling your product or service than making a sale.

Let’s start with a definition of marketing that I have used for more years than I can remember:

Marketing is “A management activity that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements, efficiently and profitably”. 

>>> Note the words:  “identifies” “anticipates”; “satisfies”; “efficiently”; and “profitably”. <<<

Customers’ needs are anticipated and identified by undertaking marketing research and segmentation and then a marketing mix is developed to satisfy customers – efficiently and profitably.

Businesses that adopt this marketing concept, centre its activities on the needs of its potential customers.  Its financial success will depend on satisfying those needs.

A marketing orientated business will develop a structure designed to identify and interpret customer needs; to create goods and services appropriate to those needs; and to persuade potential customers to purchase those goods and services.

This involves integrated marketing, i.e., using different marketing variables in a balanced and co-ordinated manner.

Additionally, all parts of the business will need to appreciate that they have an impact on the customer, and are therefore an essential part of a marketing process.

Are you ready to focus on your customers?  I hope so.

My friend just sent me this link click here and it cracked me up. As an Internet Marketer, you may feel like nobody outside your online buddies understand exactly what you do all day at home. And, sometimes you feel a bit like an alien trying to tell people stories about your day-to-day life.

Well, Jimmy D. Brown hit a home run. He’s created 15 comics about what it’s like to be an Internet Marketer. Some will make you laugh out loud and some will make you groan, but all are worth taking a minute to peek at.

Totally free and totally funny.

Check them out here:

Your customer service level is a significant measure of how well (or how bad) you serve your customers. Thus, it is a crucial determinant of how well your business will do – particularly how good you are at retaining customers and generating repeat business. Indirectly, it also contributes to your referral business – how well you serve existing customers will influence their inclination to refer you to their friends, family and acquaintances.

The following are five ways by which you can test your customer service level. This list is not exhaustive, but this should give you a fair idea of how good you are at serving your customers.

Can you readily fill orders through your inventory?
If you have great customer service level, then you should easily be able to fill your customer orders. You should keep careful note of what your customers order and whether you have the item they are requesting at the time you receive the order. If you are almost always “out of stock,” then you are failing to serve your customers the best way possible.

In a business with diverse number of products, if you are able to fill the order for approximately 95% of the time then you are doing fine. If you are a business that offers only one product, 100% fulfilment of normal orders (barring abnormally large orders) should be your goal.

Can you deliver your customers’ orders in time?
Another factor that you should measure to test your customer service level is the efficiency of your service or how fast you are able to deliver the product or service which has been ordered. If you are almost always missing your target delivery dates, then your customer service delivery chain needs major work.

You should compute the proportion of customer orders that have been delivered on time to the total number of customer orders. This calculation should be time-bounded. For instance, for a month’s total number of orders, what percentage has been delivered on time? If you register that 95% of the time, your customers receive their order at the designated delivery date, then your business is doing fine.

Can you successfully resolve your customers concerns?
For great customer service, you need to respond to your customers’ inquiries and resolve their concerns. A simple way of testing this would be to measure the proportion of the number of customer inquiries that have been effectively resolved to the total number of customer inquiries received.

Do you respond quickly to your customers’ mails/emails and phone calls?
How fast you respond to customers is another means of measuring your customer service level. If you are able to respond to your customers within 24 hours (less is even better) of receiving their call, correspondence or email, then you are doing great.

Do you pass according to your customers?
Finally, your customers themselves can tell you whether you pass or fail when it comes to fulfilling their needs. You can actually conduct a customer survey. The survey should focus on customer service issues so you can measure how well you are able to serve your customers from these customers’ point of view.