Are you missing out on the easy stuff?

Good things happen in businesses all the time, but it’s the companies that make sure as many people as possible know about the good things that reap the rewards. If you’ve landed a great new contract, have employed someone with some valuable skills and experience, managed an installation that is a little different, done something really nice for a customer or simply taken delivery of a brand new product range and you haven’t used the information to promote the company, then you are missing out.

On many occasions it’s about having the time to make the most of the opportunities. If you have the opportunities, then why not get in touch to have a chat about using some of my time.

Are you running promotions that aren’t grabbing attention?

Once upon a time, many marketing years ago, people used to get excited about saving 5% and 10%. Not these days though. The rise of online shopping has put paid to that. However, some businesses still seem to think that offering a few quid off a product or service will create an avalanche of sales.

Generally, it doesn’t. The message then is ‘to be brave’. If you really want to get people to notice an offer, then really make it really worth their while.

For some people, this is a difficult concept to grasp. Why would you want to spend time and money running a promotion that means you are not making the margins you would normally expect?

But, there is a bigger picture. The real question to ask yourself is how much is a new customer worth to the business. Not just for that single first sale, but over a lifetime.

If you’re good at what you do and can sell more than one product to a customer and keep them with you for a month, a year, a decade, then a new customer is going to be worth quite a lot more than you think.

Which, in turn, means that you could make that offer a good deal bigger and better than you first thought. A bigger, eye-catching offer will bring better results and that, of course, is the whole point.

If you want a few ideas on how to put together an offer that will get the phones and the tills ringing, then get in touch.

Are your customers really still your customers?

If you’ve been in business for a while, then you will have a number of customers. They could be in the 10’s, the 100’s or the 1000’s. But, how many of them are really still your customers? How many of them are likely to buy again from you?

How many of them have only bought just the once from you? And, if so, why is that?

The plain and upsetting fact is, that many of the names you have on your customer list are just that, names.

They are no longer customers and one of the reasons may be that you haven’t done a great deal to encourage them to stay with you.

How often are you in touch with the people who have bought something from you and what messages are you giving them? What reasons are you giving them to get back in touch and to buy the next product?

Staying in touch can be one of the things that slips down the ‘to do’ list in a busy business, but it’s also one of the things that can make a significant difference to the bottom line.

If you want to talk about how you can get closer to the customers you have worked so hard to get in the first place, then….well, get in touch!

Are you going through the motions rather than making a proper show of yourself?

If you spend money buying space at exhibitions and events, are you getting value for money or are you missing a trick?

Do you just arrive on set-up day with the same stand, the same products and the same promotional items or do you approach every event with a specific strategy, a stand design that will stop people in the aisle and a show offer that they cannot resist?

It’s easy to get into the routine of doing the same things time after time and then wondering afterwards why it wasn’t the best use of your time. But, do the same things and you will generally get the same result.

In any exhibition or event, there will be companies that do really well and others, with pretty much the same products and services, under-performing by a considerable distance. Why would that be?

It’s usually all down to planning and creativity and making the effort to get active before, during and after the event.

If you don’t have the time to plan and get creative, then why not contact me to talk about how you might be able to use my time and make a real difference when you exhibit next time. Make your next event a real show-stopper!