Battling the challenges of a deeply wounded economy makes it absolutely imperative your marketing dollars are spent wisely. Integrate these five marketing strategies with your current marketing program to increase customer acquisition and customer retention.
Develop a holistic CRM system. Make your customer relationship management do more than organize and track customer information. Use your CRM tool to:
a) Reduce costs (Use your marketing budget to get more business from your current, best customers)
b) Identify new sales strategies (Turn input received from customers into a new offer you deliver through a single channel, such as an email only discount)
c) Create tailored products and services
d) Create opportunities for all customer facing employees to cross-sell and up-sell
Implement a lead generation program. Reach your target audience by developing a quality in-house file (using your CRM system) and by doing things like publishing an online magazine, newsletter, distributing search optimized press releases, hosting virtual trade shows and consistently engaging with social networks.
Promote with email. Make your email marketing communications compelling by adding case studies or, success stories that reveal the steps you took to solve a particular problem. Place links to company videos and images that show you in action and you’ll create a connection that makes your audience more receptive to further marketing communications. You’ll also increase your click through rate.
Get customer feedback. Surveys help you get the information you need to serve your customers more efficiently. They also establish another customer touch point. Add an incentive such as freebie customers value. Then create a survey.
Sharpen your marketing copy. Aim for promotional content that attracts, engages, and inspires. SEO copywriting can help you rank higher in Google and Bing, and ultimately monetize your online presence, but remember it is people who make purchases, not search engines. The wiser choice is to humanize your search copy so that it makes sense first and foremost to your target audience. In fact, if you aim for likeability and trust in all marketing communications you’ll have an easier time nurturing both online and offline sales.
