Where You Should Focus Your Marketing Efforts
THE MOST COMMON MARKETING STRUGGLE
Is this you?
⇢You try to put some time aside to do some significant marketing work for your business, but instead, you end up spending way too many hours on social media.
⇢You may be wondering if you are spending your time on the right things? Is this moving your business forward?
THE TRUTH ABOUT EFFECTIVE MARKETING STRATEGY
In my recent blog post, “Grow Your Wellness Business Using This Simple Strategy”, I’ve highlighted a key strategy from Marketing guru Jay Abraham:
THERE ARE ONLY THREE WAYS TO GROW YOUR WELLNESS BUSINESS:
Increase the number of clients.
Increase the average size of the sale per client.
Increase the number of times clients return and buy again.
Only three.
The truth is, acquiring new customers is important, but, retaining your existing customers and turning them into repeat clients is the tipping point to making a real difference for your business.
WHY YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON REPEAT CLIENTS RATHER THAN NEW CLIENTS FIRST
Depending on the industry, it’s five to twenty-five times more expensive to attract a new customer, than to retain an existing one (Lee Resources).
It makes sense when you think of all the resources and time you have to put in to find a new customer and get him/her to try your services, and then the number of times in a lifetime your existing customer could come to rebook your service (think of your customer’s “lifetime value”!).
Moreover, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5-20% (Marketing Metrics).
This is logical, because happy customers with whom you maintain a great relationship are more likely to try new products and spend more money with you, compared to new customers.
Thus, this is where you should put your focus to make more money:
20% on acquiring new customers
80% on cultivating your relationship with existing customers
Behind the scenes of our spa business: We surveyed our customers after their first visit for over a year.
We do a little bit of everything to market ourselves, but we found out that the majority of our clients (91,88%) came from referrals and online search (mostly Google).
After I discovered this, I printed referral cards to give out to all our customers and encourage more referrals. In terms of search engine optimization, there wasn’t much I could really add, as we already have a great ranking.
“How did your clients hear about you? You need to find this out! Knowing the answer will help you do intentionally, something that is already happening organically. The result will be exponential!”
HOW DO WE HAVE REPEAT CLIENTS AND SELL MORE TO THEM?
Here is the thing, it’s tricky because a happy customer isn’t enough.
“According to a Bain & Company study, 60-80% of customers who describe themselves as satisfied do not go back to do more business with the company that initially satisfied them. How can that be? Disconnection is the reason why so many one-time sales that are completely satisfying never translate into lifetime customer value.” Extract from Forbes
Good news: We have a solution to the disconnect! And the easy way to fix this, it’s called “email marketing”:
Send out newsletters to educate, entertain, inspire your customers – so they don’t forget about you. Keeping and cultivating that relationship is essential, and if you can connect on an emotional level with them, you will be remembered forever.
Send a customer survey as an after-service follow-up to thank them, to show your care, and troubleshoot your services. Too many business owners lose customers because they fail to live up to their commitments.
CALL TO ACTION - EASY TO IMPLEMENT MARKETING STRATEGY
The 2 simple marketing action step you can and should do from today:
Ask each of your new customers how they heard about you (ask in person or through a survey), so you can explore more of that advertising channel. Spend 20% of your marketing time developing that.
After you’ve performed your service, ask your clients for their email, send your customer a customer feedback form, and also add them to your mailing list. Now, focus 80% of your marketing efforts on those newsletters and on improving customers’ experience.
According to the research by Bain & Company, by increasing your customer retention by just 5%, you can increase your profits by 25% to 95%!
PS: WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA?
☞ According to Econsultancy studies, social media only ranks third after “Website” and “Emails” for acquiring new customers, and second after Email Marketing for customer retention.
☞ It all depends on your industry and service type, but my advice would be, try to get your social media followers to join your mailing list!
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