Author Archives: Robert Phillips

About Robert Phillips

With over 15 years in the marketing field, Robert Phillips brings insightful marketing strategies that are useful for both small & medium sized enterprises. Robert Phillips is a full time marketing consultant to growing businesses around Australia. He is also a part time entrepenuer.

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The Three-Pronged Approach to Maximizing Customer Loyalty

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Customer loyalty schemes have always made their marks on the retail and services industry. One can name quite a few loyalty schemes that are going around. These can range from retailer loyalty, to online rewards, frequent flier rewards, and other travel programs to name a few. In an industry where every inch of the market is being disputed, and every customer counts, businesses have to formulate new approaches in establishing customer retention programs.

When loyalty programs came about, they were a big hit on the market and the marketers since they’re something new. With customer loyalty in everyone’s mind nowadays, there will be a saturation of programs within a few years’ time. We foresee that these programs have very little differences with each other, and as a result, customers will be more difficult to please and participation in such programs will waver. Even though this might be the case, it can still be assured that loyalty programs will continue  to rake in targeted participation; provided that the offers are attractive enough.

Management then needs to learn a very important lesson based on the environment: loyalty schemes have their own life cycles. At first, they might be very effective, but given a few months, or even weeks, they lose their initial momentum quite quickly as the customers become accustomed to the loyalty programs.  The best way to adapt then is to innovate and venture into the untried and the unknown. There are three resources that you can tap to push for innovative customer loyalty ideas. These are your networks, data, and convergence.

Getting to know Your Customers to Maximize your Networks

If your loyalty programs are heavily reliant on customers with very specific needs; a very important point is to get to know who your customers are. These can be done thru analysis of your customers’ behavior. Take a look at your customer demographic. These can tell you quite a lot about how effective your programs are; and who’s engaging in them.

The next approach is getting feedback from your customers. Getting to know the reasons why customers are changing to another provider or service gives you a better and more unbiased perspective of how your products and services are viewed by your customers. Furthermore, you can also ask your customers what attracted them to your product and service. You can then craft your new loyalty programs with this analysis of customer behavior as the focal point.

Engage in Online Networks

With the dawn of the internet, and its apparent ability to reach out to millions with very minimal cost can also be the focal point of your retention programs. Membership webpages, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook accounts can provide you loyal customers, given that they contain specific and relevant content for your customer base.

Do not Lose the Human Touch

Though most of the marketing and loyalty programs today are done virtually, always remember to never lose the ‘human touch’ when it comes to establishing loyalty among your member base. You can gather loyalty to your product or service by getting friends, family, colleagues into your network. You can also hold members-only exclusive events or sponsor an event to draw potential customers in person.

Gather Data from your Customers

As mentioned above, get to know your customers and their behaviors. You can come up with loyalty programs that allow your customers to identify themselves and make the data gathering work easier for you. Consider loyalty programs for customers who want to make themselves known and testify for your products and service. This not only gives you more leverage when it comes to word-of-mouth, but it also provides you data on what’s working for you; so that you can capitalize on it.

Understand your most Valuable Clients

Get to know who your most valuable customers are. It is imperative for a business to know what percent of your customer demographic accounts for the highest percentage of your sales. By tapping into these resources and coming up with loyalty programs specifically targeting this demographic, you can further increase your foothold on your customer base.

Use different approaches to come up with Targeted Offers

As a business owner, you can also analyze your customers based on transactional and demographic data. Once given a blended approach to finding out what makes your customers tick; you can then come up with targeted offers that will maximize these customer groups. Furthermore, given this analysis of data, personalization of these loyalty programs will drive more relevance to your targeted demographic.

Forming Coalitions with the Big Players

If you are a smaller player in a very big field, where the biggest names play, you can also look at forming strategic partnerships with the most established players in the field. If you are given a chance to form coalitions you might consider these things first:

Coalitions: “What’s in it for you and your customers?”

Yes, it’s true that provided a chance to form coalitions, your customers would get better rewards and quicker turnarounds. There is also what we call the ‘acquisition effect.’ Forming coalitions would greatly benefit you and your partners and might leave most of your competition green with envy. Coalitions   also works by getting more customers from sponsorships from the other partners. As a coalition, your goal is to make each other’s customers your own; therefore increasing the customer base, not only for you, but for your partners as well.

Another important benefit of forming strategic partnerships with the big brands is brand alignment. You get to align your products and services with different brands, preferably the most known ones. Always make sure to consider the other partners’ reputations. Given a reputable set of partners, aligning yourself with them will not only push your reputation due to association, but will also increase your customer base.

In the market today where the struggle to retain customers get fiercer and fiercer every day, customer loyalty can be maximized by utilizing your business’ three major resources: networks, customer data, and coalitions. Most importantly, in pushing for these customer retention programs one concept should always be put as the focal point of every loyalty program: innovation.

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Get Referred, Rethink, then Re-strategize

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These days, running a business through word of mouth just isn’t enough anymore. Long gone are the days when an entire business strives on some solid reputation and loyal customers’ word of mouth.

In running your business, having a rock-solid reputation is definitely a must.  This is where you base your word of mouth advertising. While it’s true that word of mouth can take you places, relying on it though is just not enough these days. Certainly, working on referrals will continue to rake in more customers; but you’re missing out on one important key to becoming a successful business: constant promotion. Somewhere out there, there are potential customers who need your products or services. The thing is, these people don’t even know your business exists.

With the economy struggling, your customers’ budgets are slowly being pushed to the limit. Each person is looking to stretch the value of his or her dollar; and the customers who you thought were loyal are also looking for businesses that can give them the lowest rate with the same services or products as yours.  The main concern here is that if you rely on this customer to provide you with referrals; all of that can be gone with the loss of this one client.

With the struggling economy in mind, you always need to put customer attrition into the equation of running your business. A loss of a single customer will mean a lot to a company that runs solely on its reputation and word-of-mouth. You now need to invest on attracting more customers to try to negate the effect of customer attrition in your business.

In comes marketing your business. If you work based on word-of-mouth referrals, then it’s time to rethink your strategy. You might want to find out how customers view your products and/or services first, then capitalize on that. You can do this by having your customers answer surveys or just by asking them what they think of your business. You can also ask them to give testimonials on how your product or services was able to help them. Given this customer data, you can then use it as the focal point of your marketing strategy. You want to get the positive experiences of your customers out there in the market, so that potential customers can get to see them.

Putting all things into consideration, marketing then should be part of your daily business operations. With the environment now, you need more visibility to earn you a bigger foothold in your niche. Having this visibility will protect you from customer attrition, and get you more customers.  You just need to find out the positive points in your business, from a customer’s perspective and work your marketing strategy from there.

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The Art of Negotiation: Nine tips to get you that Win-win Situation

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As a business owner, negotiation will always be part of your repertoire of skills. This involves not only you sealing the deal, but also trying to forge a win-win situation in any negotiation. Your objective is to have a deal wherein both parties get the optimal results of the contract. Let me share some sure-fire tips that will help you manage those situations.

1. Know the ins-and-outs of your Product or Service

Always remember that when it comes to your product, you’re the expert. These customers approached you because you have something that they think they want or need.  It’s your task to make sure that customers know what you’re offering, and your product actually matches what your client is looking for. Moreover, if a potential client is trying to offer a price that’s lower than what the product or service deserves, knowing your product well has its advantages. Knowing your product’s features, advantages, and benefits can drastically turn the table around once you’ve answered your customer’s ultimate question: “What’s in it for me?”

2. Engage in Effective Communication

Negotiation, like any type of communication, is give and take. I’m sure you’ve heard of that old saying, “Communication is a two way street.” This is true, especially in negotiations. Like in any other conversation or exchange, one party speaks while another actively listens then replies. The same process is repeated until an agreement is reached. In order for communication to be effective, there always has to be one speaker and one listener at a time. With that said, take note to only speak when it’s your turn; don’t talk-over your customer. Moreover, when it’s your turn to listen, listen actively – paraphrase when needed. Ask questions if things are unclear.

3. Stand your Ground

If certain values or principles that you hold dear are being threatened, hold firm to them.  These things are much more important to you than money. Believe me, clients will appreciate you for standing your ground and will respect you for that. Everyone despises ‘sell-outs;’ and that’s what you don’t want to become in front of a potential client.

4. Caution: Low Margin

If you know you’re getting the shorter end of the deal, cut your losses right away. Treat contracts that offer very low margins with utmost caution. Though it might appear that you’re making a little, but the extra effort and cost will eventually pile up and bite you in the long-run. Know when to let a contract go. You’re running a business, not a non-profit organization.

5. Don’t Grab the First Thing you See on the Table

When starting negotiations, your clientele will start at the lowest end of the cost spectrum, most of the time. Always remember that their agenda is to get the best possible deal at the lowest possible price. It is then your responsibility to re-position your product or service to justify moving the stakes up to the higher end of the spectrum. Saying ‘yes’ to a client’s first offer might deprive you of potential higher revenue. Also, don’t forget to pay attention to the fine print.

6.  Learn to Read Between the Lines

Learn to read your potential customer’s body language. Though they may not directly say it, you can still gauge where you are when it comes to the customer’s favor. Some positive signs that you are being highly considered are quick return calls, appointments are strictly kept, and  they get back to you as they had promised.

7. Consistency is the Key

Consistency is the key to any business negotiation. If you had used a certain format for a business letter or presentation; stick to that structure during the entire negotiation process. Being consistent in even the smallest of details projects that your product or service quality will stay as consistent as your letter or presentation format.

8. Don’t Jump the Gun

Does the idiomatic expression, “Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched,” sound familiar? A lot of things can happen during (especially the wait time) negotiations. Only include your contract in your financial projections once you’ve actually signed the deal.

9. Take no Shortcuts

The representative you’re talking to are bound by some rules and regulations, and so are you. Don’t try to pull a fast one by doing deals that are outside standard operating procedures (SOP).Engaging in such practice doesn’t only count against your integrity, but might also rake you in some points when it comes to serving years in the slammer.

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Be a Cut Above the Rest: Staying afloat in a Cut-throat Industry

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Whatever business you’re involved in, whether it’s a brick and mortar shop or an online virtual store, we bet you that there are a thousand more businesses just like yours. In an environment where the only rule is survival of the fittest; and the atmosphere is where individuals are jockeying for position for every square inch of the market, there is always that pressing need to identify what separates you from the rest of the pack.  You’ve got to prove that you’re a cut above the rest!

Adapt a Selling Mindset

Any successful sales person will tell you that products sell because of benefits. All products have their own selling points; but without any clear-cut value-add, it’s assured that they’ll only gather dust on a shelf.  It’s the exact same thing for your business.

In adapting a selling mindset, there are three acronyms that you should always remember: F.A.B.; Features, Advantages, and Benefits.  The old sales adage goes, “features tell, benefits sell.”  Features tell your customers what you do; benefits, on the other hand, tell your customers what’s in it for them. Don’t make a mistake of sticking with your product’s features

Always make sure that it’s explicitly known how your product or service will benefit your customers. Instead of telling your customers that you “provide human resource consultancy services,” you can add benefits into the mix by telling them that your company “provides human resource consultancy services to ensure employee productivity, maximize workforce potential, and increase organizational performance.”

Create your own Identity

Given the plethora of similar products and services, you’ve got to be creative in crafting your own identity. Even the biggest and universally known brand names spend millions of dollars a year just to make sure that they are known and their presence felt.

In establishing your own identity, it is not necessary to spend lots of money doing so. You can just start out with small things. Maybe you can reconsider the packaging or the design of your product to look more of a ‘winner.’ You might also want to rethink your company logo or your website/blog to better appeal to your target market. Think of the ‘Swoosh,’ the sexy-curved bottle, or the Prancing Horse, and you’ll get what I mean.

Use Numbers to your advantage

Another way to catch attention is to provide the numbers . Treat your business like it is publicly traded. Share how many satisfied customers you’ve had or how many customers have actually been helped by your product. Remember that “Burgers Served…6B” sign? It tells the customers that business is good.

Update, update, update

If your business has a website/blog, a Twitter, or a Facebook account ; always make sure that content is updated; ideally, on a daily basis. No one wants to follow a  “dead stick.” No website or social media updates equate to customers assuming your business already went belly-up. Furthermore, when updating, make sure to come up with very interesting content as well; craft something that will get your readers to buy your product and service.

Consistently get Feedback

Nothing beats feedback from a customer; whether good or bad. Feedback gives you a real feel of how your business is viewed by the people whom you aim to please.  You can personally do an after sales call to the customer after a few days to find out how he or she finds the product. You can also send out a customer satisfaction email once a sale has been made. These practices, might take you a little bit of time at the start, but will give you long term benefits, especially in product and service improvement department.

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Engaging with Customers in 5 Steps

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We live in an age where the customer dictates the essence of your business in any convresation. These are the steps you may follow in improving your relationship with them.

These days, customers could readily and out rightly reject your marketing styles especially if you do not have the right strategies to engage them. No matter what kind of material you present to them, everything else still boils down to the fact that your success heavily depends on their discretion. As they say, “they’re the boss”. Your brand value now is gauged primarily by what they hear from friends they communicate with in Social Media Networks, or by doing self research on new products using the great resources from the web.

The following are the basic steps to give you a better grip on your customers:

Listen

Make the time to listen to your customers. Get involved in their world. There’s no way you will be able to understand their propensities and expectations if what you just keep on hearing are your own words. Put yourself in their shoes and try to view things according to their perspective. Involve your customers by soliciting their insights as to how you could make your products and services better. This should be not hard to do; even in the web, you could find so many resources to which you may listen to other people’s views.

Look

Look at how you convey your intentions. You must be able to communicate to your customers your intent of helping them sort out their dilemma. You do not need to talk about yourself in particular because no one would even care. What customers need to see is whether you communicate to them and about them.

Act

Act, react and respond to your customers’ suggestions, comments and needs. When you communicate to your customers, you do not stop there; you rather take another mile in making sure that every legitimate feedback gets a reasonable response. It is your way of validating your good intent of helping them. The customers will surely know that you care.

Create

Create an environment and a community online where your customers will be given the proper avenue to communicate their voice. Creative conversation helps create fruitful marketing. By giving your customers the right medium, you might have provided your customers a chance to transform your business and bring it to a successful level.

Evaluate

Evaluate your business in its entirety. Study your strength and loopholes. Make sure to make up for your shortcomings and to take advantage of your strength in helping you answering the needs of your customers.

There could be a great number of ways of communicating with your customers; you may choose one or two that you are most comfortable with, as long as it addresses your customers’ requirements.

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Managing Client’s Expectations 101

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A client’s expectation that has gone awry may have nasty consequences that may burn huge costs and damage your reputation. You will find it helpful to consider the following outlines in managing client expectations.

1. Define the expectations

Be blunt and specific of your coverage. Exhaust all possible ways to make your points simple, clear and straightforward which makes it easy for reading and understanding.

2. Outline your boundaries

Make sure to slash off anything that states ambiguity, leaving nothing with misleading postulations. Point out your boundaries in clear cut language.

3. Don’t over promise

There’s the right time to be daring, and sometimes it is what is called for in any given situation, however, do not attempt to be so at the expense of the client. Never over promise nor exaggerate your capacity. If you accept a particular project, deliver what you have promised to deliver at all cost; otherwise, have the decency to decline or mention someone who you think could perform the job.

4. Provide samples of your deliverables

Clients are particular about results, and so they ask for some tested examples. Make sure to readily provide them your most valuable samples. If the clients are convinced of your work, everything else follows.

5. Be flexible with the clients form of communication

It will certainly help to ask your clients how would the communication flow will sound. Since the end result of your work must consistently agree with their principles and views, they will find it helpful that the communication method you use is patterned after theirs. This is your way of showing them your sincerity of helping them. However, do not go as far as providing options for the clients that are no longer amenable to you. Everything must be done with consideration.

6. Remember to touch base in writing

It is best if everything you have discussed is well-documented. It is therefore practical and helpful to send your client a brief summary of what you have verbally discussed. It shows your wisdom.

7. Be transparent

Do not project to your clients a perfect image of how you deal things. It is way better to be honest and frank of your real ability and capacity. This way, the client fully knows what he is getting.

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Winning Strategies For Sales Success

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Conversion rate gauges someone’s sales’ success. You will find it helpful to know how much your sales is improving by tracking it through conversion.

Total Sales ÷ Total enquiries or presentations = conversion rate (%)

By being able to know how conversion rate works, you may now learn how to start improving them

1. Improve your listening skills

Sales is about listening just as much as it is about speaking. When a prospect speaks, negative or affirmative, you may only need to give your time to listen to them air their views and solemn voice. Great listening skill allows you to pick out the words and the passion that goes with it. It affords you to time and polish your responses for the benefit of your prospects. When you learn to listen, and listen well indeed, you will start seeing your conversion rate hit the mark.

2. Understand body language

Whether you believe it or not, your body language speaks volumes about you. Your prospects may not only listen to what you say, they may also observe how your body moves. With your body language, you will be able to create connections with your prospects with far better effect than all the other factors. Body language creates an image of being one and the same with your prospects and consequently earns trust. And trust makes sales!

3. Think about your questions

Formulate your questions with the sole intent of providing help to your prospects. When you ask your questions, you already must have established and created a need, a need that your product could properly address. So ask questions that could generate informative answers. Make sure to make follow up questions on their answers of the previous question. And never allow yourself to be caught off guard by making preparations for every sales call. By asking the right questions, you already might have convinced your prospects even before you introduce your products and services.

4. Price it well

When you are already in the phase where price is being discussed, keep things simple or better yet simpler. Improve your chance of success by trimming down the price options for your prospects.

5. Ask for the sale!

You must know when to make the sale or ask for it. A good salesman knows the right time to say the magic word and when to exactly just wait for the response. Do not talk too much though; you might inadvertently scare off the prospect. Ask for the sale and then spend your time waiting for the nod.

6. Learn how to handle objections

Weigh your options when you hear objections. Do not be hasty in your responses. Listen first before you react and you will certainly turn the event into your own advantage. If you could take a grip on your bearing, and then you will be able to answer the objections with clarity and poise, you might just win those people over to your side and make the sale.

You already learned the steps, now it’s time to put these to test. Do the conversion rate formula and judge for yourself whether indeed these ideas work.

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Top tips for Article Writing

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Here are some of the most practical and effective ways of writing an article that will capture the interest of both the clients and the target audience.

Provide useful information

You should be able to address your target audience’s concerns and in one way or another should offer some insights about how to go about them. The context of your article must somehow capture your audience’s interest and not entirely of your own.

Save the advertising for the author resource box

Reject any impulse to project self advertisement as the main context of your article; otherwise, it jeopardizes its credibility. Editors hate the fact that some writers do not know the difference of an article from a press release; and when they see one, they out rightly reject them. Your article’s priority is to give information rather than for advertisement purposes.

Use correct spelling

An erroneous article is good for nothing especially if its primary errors are in spelling. An error free article commands greater credibility.

Be aware of word count

Be sensitive of your readers’ need for brevity. Make your point concise and free from clutters. An ideal online article contains about 300 to 500 words. If you want your articles to really help the readers absorb the information you want to convey, then limit your words without actually limiting the ideas. This pointer is a premise to my next one…

Break up big blocks of text

You must be able to present your most important pointers with big blocks of text arranged in subheadings or bullet points. This is so you could highlight the essential ideas even if the readers are just skimming.

Use an effective framework

Sure there are a couple numbers of ways to write an effective article, but the following contains the most practical article writing framework I have been using in my writing jobs. It helps to get to know these pointers as it might help you along the way just as it does for me. .

1. Heading: Be sure to make an effective heading with a statement that clearly states the general context of the article. For example, efficient ways to lose weight.

2. Teaser paragraph: Include a brief yet beguiling article summary to give your readers the desire to continue reading the article.

3. Body: Use subheadings or bullet points in capturing the main ideas. And make sure to expound the most important things you wish to convey

4. Conclusion: make an effort to give your readers a short wrap-up that sums up the whole thing.

5. Author Resource Box: Make sure to state your identity, your purpose and your target audience. You could even include your website address or any contact details for a more comprehensive profile.

Follow the contributor guidelines

The success of your article also heavily depends on your adherence to the guidelines set forth by your contributor.

You may now start putting into practice whatever you have learned from these tips and witness firsthand if indeed it works.

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Low Cost Market Research

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How you can exactly learn and strategize in customizing your product so as to give your market the satisfaction that they deserve. Here are some of the most practical steps in accomplishing market research.

Huge known multinational brands have known for a fact that their products and services have markets that are entirely different from each other, each with varying degree of competition and expectations. This variation is due to the fact that these markets differ in tendencies and propensities; factors that are mainly contributed by demographics and geographic location.

What is true for the big corporations is also generally the same with small businesses; target markets have significantly varying expectations and needs.
There are basically no exemptions; every business is thought to be wise to conduct market research before introducing a product. Resources may be of the essence, but you may still conduct your research at the most practical cost with equally great results.

Consider potential targets

It is important to identify the potential targets. Take for example a business in photography that is making consideration of augmenting its sales on portrait shots. The business proprietor lists down all the potential targets and then grouped them according to a predefined set, which covers the corporate people, small scale proprietors, families and school children.
After much consideration, the business owner concluded that the market from the corporate group is the most viable candidate to expand the business.
That was already a head start; the business owner however must also classify the necessary points to lay down to the decision makers before he even consider committing any marketing and sales materials.
Identify the decision makers – and ring them
In the given example, it would have been safe to conclude that it is the executives who make and call the relevant decisions. A soloist however thinks way better than that. Sure it will bring no further harm to channel his intentions to the company CEO through his PA. It may not necessarily be true but PA’s more often than not are windows of opportunity of a business and most likely books the needed photographer; adding to the fact that they could be the best subject of your market research.

Be prepared

Never allow yourself to be caught off-guard. Have your notes ready way before you make your calls in a market research.
The following are some of the effective question for a photographer to ask in his market research:
• What is your impression of a good photographer?
• When was the last time you had a portrait picture taken?
• What are things in pictures or in processes that you would want to see improved or altered?

No need to jot down everything. You just need to listen with adept ears and you must be able to recognize the hints when your sales pitch is called for.

Use your insights

Make it a point to include in your marketing materials the expectations of the potential target that you happened to gather during your market research. When a potential client openly emphasizes promptness, then he makes sure to mention in his marketing materials about his habit of always being on time.

Market research does not necessarily be too costly. Any research, even the ones done in practical cost range, helps you get a better perspective of your target market.