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So how does one maintain existing relationships today? CRM redefined.

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:10:38 +0000

Realtor Case Study: In the past CRM consisted of sending out a semi-personal newsletter to an existing client, say 3 or 4 times a year, some personal phone calls and perhaps a direct visit with the Christmas calendar or barbecue apron in the summer. Established customers appear to be so busy today that even some of those attempts to maintain relationships are perceived as interruptive-type marketing. So what’s the answer?

Facebook does offer a very superficial type of relationship whereby friends/customers peek in on your business or your life to see what’s going on. They do this on their own time schedule and perhaps your marketing should not only focus on the new widgets, but also share some personal information to attempt to build a personal relationship and provide solutions to their problems.

This begs the question which to choose: a business relationship providing a service for a consumable versus the personal relationship where you know the first name of the client, perhaps their children’s names and some personal element like they like to play golf. What is the right mix? Of course that totally depends on your business. If you are automotive repairs, and you acquire a high level of trust to garner customer loyalty, then it is important that the service rep actually knows the customer’s name, recognizes their car, has a work history and shows a high confidence level of maintaining their vehicle. If you’re a fast food outlet then of course the relationship is much more based on consistent quality of service and product, and no-one is really expecting a personal relationship.

I believe all services could increase client relationships. For example, when you walk into the fast food restaurant and on your smart phone it shows you your last five orders, you can click it and beat an order before you even get in line.

So the question that challenges us all is what is the future of CRM functionality with tomorrow’s social media explosion?

Opinions please

Death of the Salesman …do customers still trust you?

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 01:06:41 +0000

Remember the good old days of selling: “Hi there, let me show you the latest widget with all these wonderful features and how many do you want?”

Okay, it was never quite that easy. One really should have asked the customer what their needs were and shown them the widget that actually fit those needs.

Well today marketing has really, really changed.

Today the consumer is experiencing a marketing overdose to the point of decision paralysis. Fifteen years ago, how many marketing pieces did you see in a day? Sure you got some flyers and a few ads in the newspaper and perhaps you almost believed that you had won the Reader’s Digest million-dollar sweepstakes. But today while I’m sitting here with 92,000 unread e-mails, most of them are marketing spam. Did I ask to get 1,000 Viagra ads? Actually how did they know, are they profiling my age group? Well the point being that the consumer is so shell shocked with this overabundance of marketing that it is actually paralyzing decision making. An interesting study that flew by my face indicated that 43% of consumers consult a friend before purchasing. Another study ..before deciding whether to purchase recommended products or services, (81%) will go online to verify those recommendations..WOW talk about distrust! source

Bottom line? The consumer DOES NOT TRUST TRADITIONAL MARKETING!

In fact, I have concluded that some of my best high gloss traditional print marketing actually creates major red flag resistance to the consumer that I have no relationship with. If I am not getting introduced then I actually wonder if the non-threatening salesman posture and the marketing material would be better off in a manila envelope with a dog-eared piece of lined paper.

What is the CRM function of today?

Today the consumer does not want to be overwhelmed by client retention marketing so you need to back off and provide the answers to their questions when they’re ready to consume.

When they come looking you need to have the solution and be easy to find.

Andmac interview “SEO strategies and the value of backlinking”

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 22:30:52 +0000

There are many different aspects to marketing products successfully online. One of them is the proper implementation of good SEO. Gone are the days of just inserting a pile of keywords into the Meta Data fields of your searchable web pages, or inserting blocks of keywords using a font colour that is the same as the background. These days you have to have great written content on your web pages that is hyper relevant to the line that you are in and not only appealing to the humans that visit but just as importantly to the little web spiders that are sent out on a regular basis to scour the World Wide Web for the search engines.
Another equally yet often overlooked, or not thought of, area of concern is to make sure that you are seen in as many places as possible aka backlinking. This increases your importance to the search engine’s web crawling spiders, but only if you do it right. This means being mentioned in the right places not just anywhere that you can get yourself mentioned. If you have your site listed or mentioned on a page that has a poor or, worse yet, black sheep type of reputation then you are going to be judged accordingly. On the flip side to the coin is that you can also gain higher marks by being seen on sites that are considered leaders or golden type sites.

Having other places where you can be found and where you can update/inform your prospective/current customers is also another avenue you cannot afford to waste or squander, like having a few social network persona going with sites like Twitter and Facebook, or having a company blog with regular updates to RSS feeds can and will also raise your importance.

The point I am trying to raise is that to a search engine’s web crawler if you walk like a duck talk like a duck and quack like a duck then you are probably a duck. But if you are a duck and resemble a wolf then you aren’t going to get the hits you deserve. The main reason that this has become the norm for site rankings is because of the exploitation of the way search engines used to rank a site and anyone who was around when the Internet first spread its virtual wings can remember what it was like when you searched for something only to find that rogue and spam sites were at the top and the real deals were at the bottom or not seen at all. That has changed and, even though sites that are around today who practice the “black” arts of the Internet can slip through once they are found out, which doesn’t take too long, they have all their hard work go to waste because of it. That isn’t to say that things are perfect but they are improving considerably and as time goes by they will become more and more adept at weeding out the bad, allowing the respectable to flourish.

http://www.podbean.com/podcast-audio-video-blog-player/mp3playerdarksmallv3.swf?audioPath=http://billcoughlin.podbean.com/mf/play/9eics4/recordforall64kbs.mp3&autoStart=no

GAP gives away 40,000 blue jeans on Facebook deals. Does this make sense?

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 13:51:58 +0000

Examining the true cost and value of customer acquisition

The world has just changed again, when GAP gives away free blue jeans just to get more exposure one has to re-evaluate the marketing concept and compare that to traditional marketing methods and cost of customer acquisition.

Since I really don’t know what the blue jeans cost Gap, their cost of distribution and the life value of a GAP customer, I will analyze the restaurant industry instead.

Let’s say you own a newly established brand name franchise restaurant. Now you need to establish a full client base of loyal customers who will give you 10 years of customer value.

Assumptions:

Average meal = $10
Average customer patronage = twice a week = 100 times per year

10 year customer life value:

2 x $10 purchases per week = $1,000 per year = $10,000 customer life value

Do discount coupons make sense as a valid marketing tool to increase the loyal customer base?

So let’s print out $50 worth of discounts on a full-color double-sided 17 x 13 sheet. Your best price on 50,000 flyers could be one dollar a piece. If your franchise is printing say 1 million flyers at once then perhaps you can get it down to $.50 each.

Scenario number one: bulk priced franchise flyers

Cost of flyers
50,000 flyers delivered for $26,000
1000 coupons are now redeemed

Cost of discounts:
1000 coupons redeemed at $6 discount equals $6000
250 actual unique customers

Initial costs: $32,000 divided by 250 equals $128 per customer

Client Retention

Let’s say one-third of the new customers become regular long-term customers generating two purchases per week.

New Customer Cost= $384 (the real cost of acquisition per newly established long-term customer)

ROI Analysis:

You could break even within 5 years if you had an approximate 7% profit margin.

Discussions:

One problem with a heavy discount marketing campaign is that your marketing will attract many customers who are discount driven. In today’s economy customer loyalty is dramatically lower as consumers are looking for best value. So when your competitor does offer a 50% off discount, even some of your previously loyal customers will cross the street.

Scenario number two: independently produced flyers

At $1 per flyer your costs are increased to $57,000 a year and your customer acquisition is $684. Remember to factor in that you are not paying the monthly franchise fee.

Actual real world long term customer acquisitions

This will vary greatly depending on the service offering the built in needs and the total service package. For example if Starbucks or McDonalds set up an outlet in a high demand area the conversion could be even higher. But if the product or offerings are hum drum, the customer may only come back twice a year or not at all and the conversion rates will tank.

For this review we accepted a 30% conversion rate to long term customers. Well the reality is that I would be surprised if in most cases we achieved more than a 5% conversion rate; meaning the true cost of acquisition would be x 600% of the costs above.

Summary

A discount marketing campaign can certainly make sense to help build out your client base but in reviewing the true costs one should consider other marketing options.

Future discussions

A loyalty card program; a 3% rebate in order to create customer loyalty.
A charity sponsorship program; a 3% rebate in order to create customer loyalty.
Higher customer service to protect your customer base.
Permission marketing programs with event reminders.

So what does tomorrow bring? Facebook talk?

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:59:24 +0000

I have always lived five years in the future and birthed many companies and organizations. I even lay claim to the first online computer dating program back in 1976. Boy those were the days, IBM 360′s, a university network, and three dates for five dollars, that is until the powers that be shut me down.

Today the business world is in shock. Groupon is the fastest growing company ever… WOW, like why did I not think of that first! . In recent years my business developments have failed and failed and failed. Millions are spent on development only to have Google control the search engines then charge you for ads. I often theorize that it is not in their best interest to allow good stable SE postings if they want you to buy ads.

I remember back in the day when Hotmail had a huge following and I’m thinking. … this has incredible marketing potential. Sure just give away the mail service and then you own the attention of millions. Now Gmail, Google Docs and now Google Talk. Can you just imagine that all the telecoms directors must be working overtime on creating a viable business plan that accounts for Google’s free phone calls or the fact that Facebook messaging is changing how people communicate. Alexander is probably rolling over in his grave as we speak. , , , , Stagecoach, telegraph, fax, mail, telephone, email, Chat, Text, FB Messaging.

So what does tomorrow bring? Facebook talk? The sky is the limit, when everyone is at your party the entertainment or the music you choose is heard by all.

Business Futurists Unite. Are you a marketing consultant? Share your clairvoyance! Help business owners plan ahead!

Bill Coughlin intranetsites — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:50:47 +0000

What is the future businesses model?.

The business foundations that are based on generating new leads, client retention and customer life values have changed dramatically in the last year.

The customers’ control (ownership) of Google, Facebook, Groupon, YouTube and other social networks has changed forever the world’s business model. Facebook’s Deals now unleash incredible marketing potential and probably destroy many of the new Groupon clone startups .

All existing business plans that are based on yesterday’s models of lead generation, customer acquisition and customer life value need to be rewritten.

As a futurist my vision has never been cloudier. This blog is designed to discuss the future business models. Personally I don’t think there is anyone who can accurately predict the changes over the next 12 months let alone in a five-year business plan. So I’m inviting you to join the discussions to help the business world evolve.