Market Your Business without Breaking the Bank - Series Three

This is the Third in a Series of entries on Marketing Your Business without Breaking the Bank. The information is from a talk I presented at the Womens' Business Center Breakfast Table entitled Marketing without Breaking the Bank.

Onto the Series

Another strategy to help you improve your business is by Strengthening your Customer Loyalty and Growth. Doctors, sports trainers, physical therapists and our mom and dad teach us the basics about our health. If we spend time lying on the couch our muscles become soft, weak and unforgiving to us. Well, the same for our customers. If we aren't spending time with them, caring for them and helping them they will be unforgiving and go some place else for a little TLC.

3 Keys to Pumping the Iron

1. Communication

Increase the quantity or quality of your communications to your customers and let them know they are valuable to your business. You can highlight a customer in one of your newsletters, blog posts or put them in one of your brochures. Recognize their patronage to your business.

2. Create

Create specials or events just for your customers. If you're a retail business and have a list of key customers invite them to a pre-sale offer and open the store early just for them to browse and shop. If you have a membership program offer an upgrade to your customers for a limited time or at a discounted rate.

3. Leverage Partnerships

If you have complementary product or service business in your area that would interest your customers go speak to that business owner and suggest partnering with them in a introductory discount program that benefits both of your sets of customers.

Know, Listen, Learn and Thank

When you think about how you can show your customers you care it can be as simplistic as getting to know and listen to them first. When you do this you will always learn a little bit more about what makes them tic, what they care about and how to please them. This could give you some insight into what they may appreciate you doing for them to strengthen the relationship.

Thank You

I didn't forget this from the last paragraph. I purposely wanted to leave this as my parting thought for you. The two most important words we can all say to our customers is "Thank You". I find these two words dying in many retail businesses right along with the associate counting out my change. Both frustrate me to the point that I wish D-Fens (the character Michael Douglas played in the movie Falling Down) would accompany me shopping to point out to the associate behind the counter the obvious lack of care...well, maybe I don't want to go to that extreme... If you have a way to thank your customers let me know, I'd love to hear about it and if you'd like, I'll post it in a future entry.

Thank you for reading.