Archive for the ‘Customer Loyalty’ Category
A Discount Recovery
In the last two weeks of August, a muse article called “The Discount Dilemma” was the third most popular topic read by thousands of people who visited the Muse page on our Web site.
Discounting continues to be a topic of interest, especially as we are about to enter the busy 4th quarter retail season. What will drive holiday shopping? How much discounting can you expect as a consumer and will you do as a marketer?
Since I am on vacation this week, I thought it would be beneficial to take another look at “The Discount Dilemma.” So once again, as you look at price-cutting as an answer to slumping sales, or a way to gain a competitive edge over others in your market, consider the ways discounting can Read more »
Radical Change
Mention General Electric (GE) and the name that comes to mind most often is Jack Welch. Rarely, if ever, will you think of Lawrence Bossidy. Bossidy was a contemporary of Welch, but never garnered the same degree of fame. It was Bossidy, however, who guided the growth and success of GE’s financial division, GE Credit Corp. As the COO he doubled the assets to $16 billion in one five-year period.
Bossidy operated on the premise of, “Show me a great company and I’ll show you one that has radically changed itself and is looking forward to the opportunity of doing so again.” He embraced adaptability.
Adaptability should be at the core of your marketing strategy for 2010.
To be a leading brand in your market or product category will require Read more »
The Snake Oil Syndrome
In the 1800s, when marketing was very personal and done at the local level, itinerant purveyors of goods would travel from town to town, holding product demonstrations with promises of wondrous benefits to be had by using their wares. Frequently the hype far exceeded the results and the term “snake oil salesmen” came to mean quacks and frauds. “Snake oil” came to represent anything sold through exaggerated marketing claims.
It is now two centuries later and the method of snake oil marketing is alive and well. It has just been transferred from small towns to the global community of the Web. The media has changed, but the promises of greater wealth, health and beauty remain. However, the snake oil salesman is much more elusive in this global media than the fast-talking salesman who fast-tracked it out of town when customers got rowdy.
For those who sell products and services without exaggerated promises there should be concern about some of the marketing being practiced on the Web. Disillusioned Web customers will Read more »
Doing the Unexpected
Open a copy of Entrepreneur magazine and you’ll see ads for business opportunities. Flip through the pages of Vogue and you’ll find ads for designers, perfumes, and cosmetics. Most people would agree that matching the message to the media and the reader is common practice and good advertising.
After all, what better place is there to sell golf clubs than in a media source that is read, watched or visited by people who play golf?
That is giving people what they expect. Dig deeper into the research of behavior and psychology, however, and you’ll start to uncover this fascinating truth. If you Read more »
The Power to Persuade
As Washington continues to allocate funds to financial sectors and select corporations, and as it supposedly puts money back into consumers’ wallets through the stimulus package, I can’t help but observe the greatest oversight of all when it comes to stimulating the economy.
And that is advertising.
There is not a penny put in any package to stimulate advertising.
Yet advertising is the single most important industry that needs to survive if Read more »
Low-Cost Ways to Boost Cash Flow
Feeling the pinch? Looking for ways to keep your brand alive and healthy during a sick economy?
To fight the blight of a tight market, it’s time to pull out guerrilla marketing strategies. With guerrilla marketing, instead of the big-budget, splashy ad campaigns you might use when cash is flowing, use stealth marketing to motivate consumers without looking like advertising as usual.
Quite simply, guerrilla techniques are the unconventional, innovative and imaginative approach for reaching customers in ways and places that are Read more »
The Discount Dilemma
As the competition and search for customers deepens, along with economic bad news, it becomes tempting to use price to entice customers into a buying mood.
Especially when discount brands seem to be the ones enjoying growth.
WalMart, with their every day low prices, saw a 9% sales growth in 2008 . Generic and private label brands now have nearly a fourth of the market while consumer brand sales slump, despite millions in advertising.
If you think that price-cutting is the answer to slumping sales, and you’re tempted to slash and cut your way into revenue growth, there are a few Read more »
Turning Prospects into Customers
A show called “The Bachelor” has been airing on ABC for several years. While the premise of the show is about romance and finding a soul mate, it is worth watching for some very good lessons about the basics of multi-step marketing and turning a prospect into a customer.
That’s because the 25 contestants vying to be chosen as “the one” by the bachelor must continuously market themselves through a series of contacts during which the bachelor, as the buyer, keeps narrowing the decision until the “sale” is made.
And this is why the four-steps of courtship are a good way to define the marketing steps in customer conversion and retention. The stages of development in Read more »
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