Get Fresh with your Business Promotion

Are you doing the same old things to promote your business? If you are unsure where you should be investing your time and precious budget in marketing your business read this article for some fresh ideas that will help you do marketing that really hits the spot in 2012. You’ll learn how to turn your customers into true fans of your business who come back and buy again and again.

Do your customers really LOVE your business? Are they telling their friends about it, on and offline. Here are 7 tips to help your customers become your strongest advocates AND boost your bottom line:

1. Take a step back from your current marketing activity and look at the basis for what you are doing. Write down everything you know about your customers. What do they love, what do they hate, what do they read and watch? Understanding your customers’ needs and wants can really help you adapt not just your marketing but your whole business ethos so you are really offering something for people to get passionate about. And once your customers are passionate about your business, you’re on the first step to success.
2. Gather marketing materials from a range of businesses, and start thinking ‘what makes a good advert’, ‘why do I hate this flyer?’ Ask your customers and clients for their views on marketing that they love and hate too. Without copying someone else’s ad, you can now go on to take a fresh look at what you do to promote your business.
3. Unsure what really gets your customers excited or upset? It’s time for some research. Talk to people as they come into your shop, call you or engage with you online. Ask what their top priorities are, and make a list. Use online or invite a number of customers together to discuss your business over refreshments and offer a voucher in exchange for their feedback.
4. Once you understand your customer aim to delight them so that they return and they tell all their friends.  Satisfaction is achieved when the customer feels they have been given what was promised.  Ensure that what you plan to deliver is crystal clear to the customer and that what you deliver fits what you offer. The stage up from satisfaction is customer delight,  when the customer feels they have received something beyond what was promised. What could you do in your business to achieve this?
5. Once you have created the business climate for customer delight, consider how you can encourage people to spend more when they visit you. Cross selling can help you make the most of your customers. When someone has just made a purchase they are very open to your business: set up your website shopping cart to suggest another product that they may like and they may well add it to their basket. Look at how Amazon does this the next time you make a purchase.
6. Upselling is similar to cross selling and can really help your bottom line. Consider how you can boost the value of what each customer buys by offering a slightly better option, like when you ask for a burger and end up buying a meal.  An additional product or upgrade must meet what the customer needs: you know about what they need from their first purchase. Once the first product is in the customer’s basket highlight special offers, discounts and bulk buy offers.
7. Further to cross selling and up selling, look at your shopping cart to see if you can make automatic suggestions, or adapt your ‘thank you’ page or email replies to make further relevant offers to shoppers. Set up autoresponders related to each product so when someone has bought a product they get an email asking for their views a few days after their product has arrived, and offering complementary products or services. In a bricks and mortar store, think about what you can say to customers at point of sale to encourage them to add something. Watch how other businesses do this too.