Trigger Marketing

There are four primary ways to grow sales:

1. Add more customers
2. Sell at a higher price
3. Encourage customers to buy more often
4. Encourage customers to buy more items/services each time they purchase

So what this means is there are two ways to grow:
1. Find new customers
2. Grow existing customers

If we look at the four points above, three of them are focused on growing existing customers, while only one is about finding new customers. But many, many small business owners spend most of their marketing dollars and energy on finding new customers. If you’ve been in business for at least a year, you’re sitting on a great asset; your customer database.

Don’t have a database?

Get started today, you’ll need it.

Believe it or not, good customers, you know the ones that you actually make a profit from, don’t mind providing you with information, providing you respect it.

Not only are we all business owners and managers, but we’re also customers. We buy stuff everyday. I know that when I find a business that I like, and that fulfills my needs I don’t mind giving them some information. In fact, I expect it.

The better they know me, the better they’ll service me and the happier I’ll be. And your good customers are the same.

You need to learn about how they buy, why they buy, how often they buy and how much they spend. Learn about their lifestyle and get ideas about what else you can sell them. How many times have you heard a customer say “I didn’t know you sell that… too bad I just bought one last week, if I’d only known.”

Now this is probably sounding like a lot of work. I know you have a tone on your plate already. Think of this way. The only reason your business exists is to find and keep profitable customers. If you’re doing something else, then it’s not a business it’s a hobby.

Collecting and storing a customer database is work, but it’s one of the most profitable things you can do for your business.

You need to start talking to, listening to and understanding your customers now, or you’ll lose them to someone who will.

You can keep focused on finding those new customers; hopefully you’ll never run out. But you’ll spend more and more money with fewer and fewer positive results.

Look at it this way; you’ve already spent a lot of money finding new customers, isn’t it worth while to try and keep them?

To learn more, download our free eBook "Seat of your pants marketing - The 10 biggest mistakes small businesses make and what to do about it"

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