Tag: dorset

Marketing is so much more than promotion

Posted on by Richard Milton

No matter the size of your business every penny you spend & every hour you commit to your marketing has to count towards you achieving your business goals.

Promotion is an important part in your marketing efforts but ‘effective marketing’, the entire marketing that satisfies the needs of your customers is so much more. You can have a great promotional campaign but if your product or service isn’t wanted or you are charging prices that are above what your target customers will pay then it will struggle to deliver.

 

To have ‘effective marketing’ you need to consider a wider range of factors than just promotion. Much of it isn’t difficult with the result being that it can transform the impact of your marketing. Here are just a few ideas:

• Start with product. Give customers what they need not what you think they need. Think wider than the actual product – consider the other features that surround your product – delivery methods and times, guarantees, installations, refunds, exchange policies – all of which can make your product or service more attractive.

• Speak to your customers. Ask them what they need and want from you. Find out what they think of your product or service and how it can be improved.

• Ask your customers for reviews. If they are liking what you do then encourage them to share with others what they think of your product and to post reviews on-line.

• Regularly monitor your sector and competitors. Consider how tastes are changing or new products are being launched and adapt where necessary.

• Make it easy for people to acquire your product. That maybe how they can find you or buy your product on-line. Make sure your website is mobile responsive and is search engine optimised.

• Develop your team. Ensure that everyone who works for you has great knowledge about your business and offer. Ensure they also have the right attitude & provide the level of service your customers would expect.

• Be responsive to your customers. Ensure you follow up on enquiries quickly – not many buy products or services from a company they have had to chase or have had to wait a long time to respond.

• Deal with customer complaints well. No doubts you have all had customers who haven’t been completely satisfied but how you deal and resolve their compliant will make all the difference to whether they buy from you again or recommend you to others.

• Measure, measure, measure. If you don’t measure your marketing you can’t understand, control or improve it. Use tools such as Google Analytics to see how well your website is working, monitor your email performance or conduct market research to understand what your target audience think about you and your product or service.

About the author

Richard Milton is founder of e-nexus Ltd – a Marketing Consultancy based in Bournemouth specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement. He is a career long marketer holding numerous senior marketing positions throughout his 20+ years in the profession.

Describing himself as a marketing strategist, Richard spends his time working with business owners, managers and marketers to help them improve their marketing decisions, investments and impact by connecting data, insight and creativity alongside his strategic experience.

 

How loyal are your customers?

Posted on by Richard Milton

What do your customers think of your business? Would they recommend you, your products or services to their family and friends? Calculate your Net Promoter Score (NPS) and gauge your customer’s overall satisfaction with your business and their loyalty to your brand.

Net Promoter Score is used by many companies to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships and serves as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research. What’s more, it’s felt by many that there is a strong correlation between a high Net Promoter Score and company growth. Your NPS can be as low as −100 (everybody is a detractor) or as high as +100 (everybody is a promoter). An NPS that is positive (i.e., higher than zero) is felt to be good, and an NPS of +50 is excellent.

Calculating your Net Promoter Score

To calculate your Net Promoter Score ask your customers, most likely in a simple survey how likely they are to recommend your company to a friend or colleague, using a scale of zero to 10, with 10 being highest. Then work out the percentage of responses that scored your company between seven and 10, then zero and six. Subtract the zero-to-six percentage from the seven-to-10 percentage, and you have your Net Promoter Score.

You can also take the opportunity when surveying your customers to ask some further questions on how and what you can improve to potentially push your NPS even higher.

Who are your top customers by Profit or Life Time Value

Posted on by Richard Milton

Have you ever stopped and calculated who are your best customers?  It sounds simple but how often do you identify and rank the customers who drive the most profit for your business?

Ranking these customers from highest to lowest by Profit or Life Time Value lets you see which individuals or groups drive an outsized portion of your business results.  When you can look at a single list and see your main customers you have the power to identify the unique characteristics of your customers and work hard to attract more.  Is it who they are, where they live, or what they buy?

Knowing that answer can be more valuable than just making a sale. By focusing your customer service, marketing, promotions and sales offers you can build the long-term value of these customers.  You can also find more existing and new customers who share the same characteristics as well as empower these customers to become advocates of your business.

At e-nexus we specialise in Strategic Marketing Planning & Performance Measurement.  Need some help? Find out how we can help your business by visiting our website.

About the author

Richard Milton is founder of e-nexus – a Marketing Consultancy based in Bournemouth specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement.  He is a career long marketer holding numerous senior marketing positions throughout his 20+ years in the profession.

Describing himself as a marketing strategist, Richard spends his time working with business owners, managers and marketers to help them improve their marketing decisions, investments and impact by connecting data, insight and creativity alongside his strategic experience.

6 questions to ask your marketing team

Posted on by Richard Milton

As a business owner, what are the key questions you should be asking those responsible for your marketing? What should you ask to get a better understanding on how marketing is contributing to the success of your business?

1 – How are we measuring the performance of our activities?
Show me the results. How many leads or sales were generated from each marketing campaign and how were they were tracked. If the question can’t be answered because the tracking is non existent or isn’t accurate, you can’t be confident that your campaign was a success.

2 – Who are we targeting in our marketing?
Sales and marketing go hand in hand as marketing leads to sales. If your marketing audience e.g. visitors to your website or your followers on social media are different from your target customers then your efforts may be wasted and you will be missing opportunities to reach out to future clients.

3 – How are we retaining existing customers?
Many marketing strategies focus on gaining new customers at the expense of keeping existing ones. Both are important, but keeping current customers engaged with the business is just as essential as building new clients in order to generate sales for the business.

4 – Who are our top customers?
How are you identifying the customers that drive the most profit for the business. How do you rank them and how impactful are they for the business? You want to find out which individuals or groups drive an outsized portion of your business results. When you can look at a single list and see your main customers you have the power to identify the unique characteristics of this group and work hard to attract more.

5 – What should we stop doing?
It’s far to easy to get into a marketing routine and do things just because you’ve done them in the past. By reviewing data and challenging your marketing efforts it is possible to identify those things you should stop doing and those efforts you should do more of to provide a greater return to your business.

6 – What metrics are we monitoring to measure success?
There are so many different metrics that you can measure. The rule when deciding what to measure is:
• Does this metric help me make a decision?
• When I view this metric does it help me understand how to get closer to my business goals?
• If you answer ‘No’ to both questions you are looking at a vanity metric and need to ignore it and repeat steps to identify better metrics to monitor.

About the author

Richard Milton is founder of e-nexus Ltd – a Marketing Consultancy based in Bournemouth specialising in Strategic Marketing Planning and Performance Measurement. He is a career long marketer, holding numerous senior marketing positions throughout his 20 years in the profession. Describing himself as a marketing strategist, performance and measurement specialist, Richard spends time working with business owners, managers and marketers to help them improve their marketing decisions, investments and impact by harnessing the power of data and insights alongside his strategic experience.

Richard’s biggest passion is to help marketers show the value of their efforts and give them the confidence and skills to be able to share the story with their senior managers. Richard helps organisations understand the importance of measurement and metrics as well as appreciate the breadth of data available to them in todays marketing world.

You can read more from Richard at his measure4success blog at http://www.measure4success.wordpress.com.  To find out more about e-nexus visit http://www.e-nexus.co.uk