Funmarketer Lesson of the Week

I recently spoke to several small business owners about simple yet effective ways to market to their current customer base. Here’s a quick overview:

1. Score your customers.

A popular way catalog companies rank their customers is called RFM:

R Recency – When did they buy?
F Frequency – How often do they buy?
M Money – How much do they spend?

Most small businesses don’t use all three elements of RFM in combination to arrive at a score, but the basic concepts can help you in your planning.

2. Allocate Resources.

Many different methods exist, but for most small businesses a simple A-B-C ranking will work well.

A Best Customers – probably the top 10-20%
B Second Tier Customers – the next 10-20%
C The Masses – the rest of your customers

A’s will receive most of your marketing dollars. If you are doing simple mailings, A’s might get monthly mailings, B’s quarterly, and C’s annually (like a Christmas card).

3. Communication methods:

Postal Mail
email
blog (but call it an ‘online newsletter’)
Phone calls
personal visits

For postal mail postcards work well as they are inexpensive and quick to produce.

4. Content:

Build the brand through:

Repetition – Get your name in front of them frequently.

Valuable content – Make sure the content you write is interesting to the reader and content that is easy to pass along to their friends. People talk to each other, and they like to contribute some wisdom of their own to a conversation. If you can be a source of that information, then your customers are more likely to continue to read what you send.

And that bonds them to your brand all the more.

FunMarketer Free Campaign Idea of the Week

As the economy is more and more uncertain Trust continues to be THE key theme for anybody who markets any type of service. Forget about shoving how many years you’ve been in business down their throats – everybody’s doing that. It is too sterile. Connect on the human level.

Photo: iStock #4481332

Headline: Seats Are Open at Our Negotiating Table
Subhead: Acme Insurance – Real Solutions for Your Real Life

FunMarketer Tip of The Week

Marketers should have one ally in the sales department. If you work for a company of, say, 200 people and don’t have the ear of one front-line salesperson, then change that. Find that salesperson and buy them a cup of coffee or lunch. Get to know their problems and some of their successes out in the field.

They’ll give you insights into your customers you won’t get from sitting back at the office.

Happy Marketing!

Craig Lutz-Priefert