Consultants love to put their own spin on things. Sometimes it’s the sales consultant coming up with an updated strategy to close more business. Sometimes it’s the production consultant using a “unique” approach to help a company increase its production throughput. Yet, sometimes it’s the marketing professional whose new model is nothing more than an amalgamation of established strategies. Unfortunately, when people mess with a good thing, it tends to get complicated. That’s why I decided to simplify the four step marketing process for small businesses, a process that will help you increase revenue, while empowering you to grow market share.
Step 1: Define Your Value Assertion
Now, there are many different ways to present this first step. Some models refer to this first step as defining your “unique selling point,” (USP) others use “unique value assertion,” “unique value point,” and so on and so forth. However, it is nothing more than a definitive statement of what makes your company, your product offering and your service capabilities unique in your market. The best rule of thumb is to define what distinguishes your company’s product & service offering in the eyes of customers. Why is this so important?
Your company’s value assertion is your “30 seconds to make an impression” moment. It’s where you must clearly distinguish what makes your company’s product, service, and approach so valued by your existing customer base. For instance, if you had but 30 seconds to make an impression about your company, what would that statement be? Do your sales people know what it should be? A great example people use is to pretend you meat one of your market’s biggest customers in an elevator and have 30 seconds to keep their attention before they get off on the next floor. What do you say?
The following video is from the post: Your Value Chain Defines Your Value Assertion: B2B Marketing Essentials
If you’re having a hard time coming up with your value assertion, then use the following simplified process map. Consider it a stage-gate marketing model – except it’s to help you define your company's value assertion. After answering these questions, you should be able to come up with a simple, well-defined, condensed, singular message to market – one that can be recited in 30 seconds – (give or take).
Step 2: Incentivizing Customers to Act
This second step needs to be handled properly. Personally, I am against giving anything away for “free”. However, this is likely because my experience has come via business to business (B2B) sales. To me, the mere mentioned of “free sample” is abhorrent. Regardless, this strategy does work in business to consumer B2C sales, and in reality, it’s not entirely free. It’s simply a means to incentivize customers to move forward with providing your company with their contact information. Now, there are a couple of issues I have with this approach from a B2B mindset. I’ll explain those first, and then provide a different angle at the end of this step.
1. This tends to create non-qualified leads: Who in their right mind is going to say “no” to receiving a free sample? Nobody. Does them accepting the free sample make them a qualified lead? It doesn’t. Does it mean they’re more likely to purchase the product? It doesn’t.
2. Salespeople use it as a crutch: Anytime a salesperson is confronted with a customer who isn’t willing to move forward, they pull out the old “free sample” routine. In essence, a company’s free offer becomes a crutch and one that often forces sales to abandon their sales proves.
3. It costs money! Bottom line, samples cost money – and the more you give for free, the more it costs you.
How can you avoid these aforementioned issues?
If your company sells into a B2B market, then try and get your customers to purchase first – with the promise of delivering a free sample after they’ve approved the product. For instance, if they want a “free sample” and that sample is needed for product approvals, then get them to buy the first unit. Once that unit is approved, your company will then invoice one less unit on their next large volume order.
If your company operates in a B2C market, then go ahead and give the free sample – on the condition that you get their contact information in return.
Regardless of what you choose to do, this second step is your opportunity to incentivize customers to act. It’s your shot to move them forward. If you see getting their contact information as a viable return, then go for it!
Step 3: Use Your Marketing Strategies
What exactly is your company’s marketing platform? Simply put, it’s those marketing strategies your company must employ to reach its target audience. If your company services a B2B market, then your target audience is likely business professionals, and companies, that congregate at trade shows, conferences, and exhibits. If they are found together online, it’s likely through professional social media sites like Linked In.
To learn more about these five low-cost marketing strategies, please go here.
If your company services a B2C market, then you’ll have to use strategies that reach a target audience based on its age, sex, demographic, geographical location, ethnicity and so on. Reaching these consumers is quite an involved process, but it’s ultimately all about using specific strategies tailor-made to reaching what your company considers to be qualified leads.
Now, this marketing platform might include using online pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, SMS mobile marketing campaigns, email campaigns, banner advertisements, social media sites like Facebook or even educational videos like YouTube.
Step 4: Provide a Consistent Marketing Message
The first step catches your prospect’s attention by defining your value proposition. It forces you to define your product’s unique attributes. The second step incentivizes that prospect by providing them with free offers. In return, they provide you with valuable contact information. The third step involves getting your product & service offering out into the market. You want a myriad of qualified leads to come flying in as a result. Now, the fourth step is where your company concentrates on customer retention.
Customer retention is an essential part of lowering your customer acquisition and retention costs. Your “automated marketing” portion will be built upon using your established marketing platforms from step 3. In this case, you’ll continue to incentivize your customers to act by using multiple email, SMS and direct mail campaigns, ones that give your best customers the right of last refusal and first shot at new product introductions.
For instance, one of the best customer retention strategies is to run a “back-end customer rebate program,” such as the one shown below. It works because it allows customers to build their reward program and accrue credit within their account, credit that they can then use to lower their purchasing costs on future orders. Step 4 means you’ll run these types of programs and use your email, SMS and direct mail campaigns to update your customers on their accrued rebate amounts.
The above table and video are taken from the post: Sample Back-End Rebate Excel Sheet for Customer Retention
Granted, I’ve kind of rushed through these four steps. However, the basic principle applies. Step 1: Understand what makes your product offering and company unique. Step 2: Incentivize customers to act – give them a reason to move forward. Step 3: Get your marketing message out into your industry. Give your customers a reason to talk about your enterprise. Step 4: Use automated marketing messages to lower your customer retention costs. Give your customers the right of last refusal and provide them with that “first shot” at new product introductions.
If you're looking for insight into how best to determine the cost of qualified leads, then please refer to the following post: Calculate Customer Acquisition Costs From Three Marketing Campaigns.
Or, if you'd like to have access to a sample marketing budget, then please refer to: Sample Marketing Budget Excel Sheet: Graph & Pie-Chart of Expenditures
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