Where are you with your Marketing? I am going to ask you to give yourself a score, 5 being the best ever and 1 being not so good at all. Successful marketing is, in large part, about marketing to your existing customers.
On a scale of 1-5, how many of your existing customers are presently using the goods and services of your business? Now in our industry, we call that a usage rate. What kind of usage are we having in our facilities? What is the usage in your business, of your existing customers? How many of them are using your business right now, or what is the number that could be using your business right now?
If you have, for example, a database of 2000 customers, and 200 customers are using your business right now, what would happen in dollars and cents for you if you simply got the other 1800 to come back and start using even a little something? What would that look like on your P&L? My friend that is marketing 101, marketing to your existing customer.
What I am going to propose to you right now is to reconnect. Marketing is about connection; it is not just about making a promotion all the time, marketing is about connection. If you have ever been on a cruise, you would select your cruise director, the person that makes things fun, the person that makes you want to come back again. Marketing 101 means market to your existing customers first. How many on the database, how many are using your goods and products and services right now, on a scale of 1-5? And if that is your biggest challenge, I am going to want you to email that to me so that I can help you with it.
Marketing 101 also says market to people who once were your customers. I am going to have you look right back in that database again and say, how many people used to be my customers but stopped being my customers? Okay, now let us put a dollar value to that. What would that dollar value look like if those customers who have been your customers in the past decided to be your customers again? Do some fun, creative marketing to bring them back again! On a scale of 1-5, how are you doing with the people who once were your customers? How are you doing with getting them back?
Marketing 101 also says market to people who have thought about being your customers. On a scale of 1-5, how regularly do you communicate with the people who have thought about being your customer, but didn’t become your customer yet? And again, what would that dollar value look like? Are you marketing regularly to that person who once thought about being your customer? Are you giving them tips? If they thought about being your customer, they want to know what you offer; they want the benefit. What if you are just giving them tips on a regular basis, free of charge? Then, when they thought about whatever you offer, they would think of you first.
Lastly we would market to people who haven’t thought about being our customer yet. We can still give them tips, and in this day and age, we can do so absolutely free of charge, with a cost of absolutely nothing.
I would just propose to you that in the times we are living in right now, let us really wrap our hearts and heads and checkbooks around the ideas of Marketing 101: marketing to existing customers first, then market to people who once were your customers; after that, market to people who have thought about being your customers but didn’t; and lastly, market to people who haven’t thought about being your customers yet.
Notice I didn’t say don’t market to that last group. I just said, let us be wise and do this in order. If all you are doing is marketing to people who haven’t thought about being your customers yet, maybe you don’t have the advertising dollars to spend in your area, and you are finding people just aren’t investing the new money, then go after the people who have already invested, who already trust you, who already have a relationship with you. There is money to be made there and a difference to be made there in those lives.