If you’re operating a business in a geographical area, maybe a town or a county (or two), it’s quite possible that you’d like one or two (thousand) more local customers. Wouldn’t we all… and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to want a steady trickle (or a flow would be nicer) of new customers every month either.
One of the best ways attract these oh-so-important revenue-providers, is to figure out how they think and what motivates them to act, by slipping into their moccasins and taking a stroll around in them. Buyers interact with your brand and proposition in a number of ways before they become willing and loving members of your customer-tribe.
The interactions look like this:
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Awareness – they need to hear about you.
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Consideration – whatever you tell them needs to get them thinking about how much they want or need what you’ve got.
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Decision – you need to cause or help them to make a positive decision and act on it.
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Retention – once you’ve got them, you’ve got to do things to keep them.
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Advocacy – then get them telling anyone who will listen about how fabulous their experience was and how much they love you.
So, what’s the trigger – how do you turn this into you acquiring new customers?
Awareness: Hearing about you needs to be a frequent thing, not a one-off, otherwise those who don’t convert into customers this time will forget by next time. Hence the expression: use it or lose it.
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Make some choices about what your advertising mix is going to look like. What are the options on advertising platforms to reach people with?
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When should you use them and how should you vary them?
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How well does each one reach your target audience?
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What can you afford and how often should you advertise – monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly?
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How long should you advertise for – a month, two months or three at a time?
Consideration: What you tell them is all about your value and USPs versus your competition – see our blog: Three secrets for winning new customers (and 3 Truths to help you do it!)
Decision: Helping them make a positive decision and acting on it is all about the variety of relevant and enticing messages you put in front of them. For them to get in touch you’ve got to get them excited and give them a reason to get in touch. And then, you’ve got to keep giving them different reasons until they decide the time is right for them.
Retention: Doing things to keep them is all about your plan. When someone spends money with you for the first time, they become a customer. To convert them to a client they’ve got to buy again. Then you want them to buy again so that you can build a lifetime of value from that client… the more the merrier. Winning them is the (relatively) expensive part. Keeping them is the cheap part and is where you get maximum payback and value. So, you want to plan all the things you’ll do to make it happen: rewards, volume-discounts, newsletters, happy birthday gifts, telling them about new products and services and 25 other things. It helps if you have their email address as a starter I guess.
Advocacy: getting them to recommend you to their best buddies and total strangers alike is all about satisfaction. It’s in your interest to satisfy them because if they have a bad experience, they’ll tell 10 people and never use you again. Make them happy and they’ll tell everyone. If you reward them for doing so (discounts, gifts, free coffee, a thank you card) they will become hardcore advocates and grow your customer-tribe forever.
For most things in life and definitely in business there’s something called a Kicker, an Accelerator or a Closely Guarded Secret. Whatever you refer to it by, if you know what it is, you’ve got a significant advantage. If you don’t, you’ll lose – and you won’t know why.
The Kicker to be aware of here is The 5% Market.
5% of your potential or repeat customers are in-market at any time. In-market means in-buying-mode. The clever money knows that this relatively small percentage isn’t enough to put food on the table but that they can’t be ignored because they’re low hanging fruit. Ripe, juicy and ready to go – if you can find and reach them.
What’s even more interesting is the percentage that nobody pays attention to. That’s those that aren’t in-market but who could be tipped in with just the gentlest nudge and that’s where your messaging comes in. I don’t know what percentage they represent but it’s chunky.
Let me give you an example to illustrate what chunky might look like.
Let’s say you sell new cars. Advertising a picture of a shiny new car is all well and good but the targeting for who you want to attract is V-E-R-Y broad. Really scattergun stuff. It will probably appeal to less than 1% of the 5%. Let’s look at an unusual piece of targeting for new car sales – people who do not want to buy a new car. Yes, I know, sounds crazy, indulge me…
Jack or Jill are driving around in their old smoking jalopy and once again it’s time to fill up with juice, petrol or diesel. They pull up at Tesco and start filling up. A strange thing happens while they’re doing this. They’ve got somewhere between two and three minutes if they’re filling up and unlike at any other time, they look around and start thinking. Guess what they look at. You’ve got it: the jalopy. And their thinking gets critical, fast. Driving it, they put up with. But looking at it, they start finding faults – lots of faults.
If there is a piece of advertising on the fuel nozzle in their hand that shows them a quick, easy and HIGHLY AFFORDABLE way (finance) to get out of their old sharrabang and into a shiny new buggy, they won’t care what the car is. That’s awareness and consideration in one hit. If they aren’t sold there and then, put some other reasons on the other fuel nozzles at the bank. More consideration so they can make their decision. To reinforce their consideration, offer different models and cast your advertising campaign for long enough to catch plenty of fish. And once you’ve caught them, work hard to keep them coming back for more and telling anyone they meet about how you two met and why they’re still madly in love.
It’ll be like a love story…