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Attracting More Customers Using Demographics

For B2C Marketers, attracting more customers using demographics is a powerful tool for any and every B2C business. Marketing is arguably the most important business cost as it is an investment to acquire more customers or clients and therefore must be carefully deployed across the marketing mix.

We’ve all heard the saying ‘half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half’ believed to be said by US businessman John Wanamaker so to win new customers and generate additional sales from existing customers, it needs to be done cost effectively.

Demographics is a powerful solution when looking for more customers or clients. Through the lifestage and lifestyle process, Customers want specific products or services at a certain times in their life so  targeting the most appropriate types of people to sell to, at the right time, will ensure that money is not wasted on selling products that don’t match the interests of your target market.

So the question ‘how can demographics find you more customers’ is supported with other thoughts like:

• What relevant markets could be targeted based on housing type e.g you may struggle to promote gardening services to people living in apartments.
• Who is more likely to want my products/ services – by gender or by age?
• What about commuters – do your products or services have an appeal to this market in which case there are probably other channels to consdider such as publications or promotional channels.

How will Effective Use of Demographics Help You Increase Sales?

The more you know about which customer type is most likely to use your product, the easier it is to develop a profile of your customer. This customer or client profile can identify all the key areas that you need such as gender, age range, housing type, education background, interests/ hobbies, family size and make-up, levels of wealth, car ownership etc. Knowing how your customers think is also important – are they instinctively savers or spenders, are they interested in convenience, are they brand buyers, do they buy for quality or expediency? This is where a quality UK demographic analysis system can help you to answer these questions.

Running a business is about serving the needs of your customers. No Customers = No business. Understanding the needs of your potential customers is vital if you want to find more of them and once known, this knowledge can generate the answers to such questions as:

• Where should I promote my product or service?
• Where in terms of physical locations do potential customers live?
• Which promotional channels should I use?
• Where should I locate my business or additional retail or service units?
• How should I talk to my customers, what tone of voice should I use?
• What key benefits do your products have for your customers?
• What are they buying from you, is it a product or is it a convenience? Are they buying a drill or a hole?

The answer to the question ‘how do I get more customers’ is to first establish what type of people you are looking for and then, once known,  you can start planning to find more customers.

Call Jamie Allen now at 07786 228553 or contact me here.

7 Reasons Why You should Profile Your Customer Database

By profiling your database you will know who your ideal customers are and give them a superior customer engagement experience. You can then use that information to both generate additional sales from your existing customers as well as being able to find new customers who are more likely to be interested in buying from you.

1. A high customer engagement achieves 50% higher revenue/sales, 34% higher profitability and 55% higher share of wallet (B2B Gallup poll)
2. Knowing who your ideal customer is improves customer service, gets better customer retention, higher conversion rates on new services/products, an improved overall customer lifetime value (CLV) and a superior customer engagement experience.
3. Knowing the profile of the Customer means that time and money is maximised to develop more business from existing customers as well as getting the “Right” new ones.
4. Developing and Retaining existing customers is 10 times cheaper than getting new ones.
5. Providing a great customer experience can help create loyal brand advocates, who are more likely to spread positive word of mouth about your brand.
6. Strengthening brand loyalty can then lead to higher spend. Brand advocates will often spend more, purchase more items and return to the business more frequently.
7. Reinforces to your customers why you’re different from your competitors and that you’re a unique entity so they continue to do business and interact with you.

Give me a call on 07786 228553 or contact me on ja@jamie-allan.com and let’s arrange a chat over a coffee.

Getting the Business

You’ve done all the groundwork – NOW get the business.

Here’s 6 of the best that will make that happen.

Your website is sorted ready for enquiries;  your database is profiled so you know who to talk to in the right market with the right message; and all your marketing has been produced, sent out and emailed.

Now you need to convert all this activity into sales leads and ultimately, paying customers so follow these rules.

1. When you follow up be persistent as it will take more than one letter, one  email, one phone call to actually get a quality response. In fact don’t be surprised if you have to make up to 12 follow up calls!!
2.  Measure all your marketing activity; make changes to messages and headlines and test new ideas through social media, email and direct response.
3. Make sure you try ALL the avenues within the online and offline marketing mix and measure their effectiveness – The choices are many including seminars and exhibitions
4. Create a referral programme for customers to pass on recommendations to their friends and business contacts + get testimonials
5. Create a video(s) of what you do in the form of “help” guides and create free information leaflets for download
6. Create interesting web content that is related to your business either from news items or within your industry and send links to your contacts

If you want some help on this please call me Jamie Allan on 07786 228553 or contact me here.

Some Interesting facts about Mobile Phones.

Mobile phone facts

According to the latest analysis of global mobile traffic by the network company Cisco Systems, mobile devices will outnumber humans by the end of this year. Cisco also predicts that by 2016, there will be 10 billion mobile-connected devices around the world and networks will be carrying 130 exabytes of data each year. (That’s the equivalent of 33 billion DVDs.) On the other hand, there will only be 7.3 billion humans on the planet at that time.

To get a further idea of how rapidly this market is expanding, consider this: the report also says that mobile data traffic in 2011 was eight times the size of the global Internet in 2000.

• It takes 26 hours for the average person to report a lost wallet. It takes 68 minutes for them to report a lost phone. (Source: Unisys)
• It takes 90 minutes for the average person to respond to an email. It takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. (Source: CTIA.org)
• 70 percent of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. (Source: Mobile Marketer)
• 90 percent of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7. (Source: Morgan Stanley).
• Average smartphone usage nearly tripled in 2011, from 55 MB per month in 2010 to 150 MB per month.
• The growth of the iPhone was 10 times faster than the growth of America Online. (Source: Neilson)
• Smartphones represent only 12 percent of global handsets in use today, but they handle over 82 percent of total global handset traffic.
• In 2011, the typical smartphone generated 35 times more mobile data traffic (150 MB per month) than the typical basic-feature cell phone (which generated only 4.3 MB per month of mobile data traffic).
• According to Nielsen, 30 million consumers watch television content via their mobile phones. Makes me wonder why I invested so much in my big-screen HD television at home.
• Gartner says that by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide. Which is a reminder for all those web designers to brush up on their mobile skills if they want to stay in business.
• Exact Target reports that 16% of smartphone users report that they have made a purchase as a result of a marketing message they received on their phone. 55% purchased as a result of an email they received on their mobile device. Turns out email isn’t dead after all.
• Nielsen also said that in Q3 2011, teens increased their mobile data consumption by 256% over the prior year. I hope their parents had them on unlimited data plans.
• Inneractive found that there is a direct correlation between the size of a mobile device’s screen and the click-through rate (CTR) the device yields for mobile advertising. For instance, the iPhone yields a 4.35% CTR with a 3.5″ screen, compared to a 6.61% CTR on the iPad‘s 9.7″ screen.

Call me on 07786 228553 or contact me here if you would like to talk further about mobile marketing or any other ideas.

Ignore your customer at your peril

Customers are KING

You’ve spent a small fortune on database building, running marketing campaigns, doing presentations, and ultimately winning new customers.

So now you need to keep hold of them and nurture them as if they were your own family. In fact to some extent this is near the truth as in your working lifetime you spend more time “at the office” than with your own flesh and blood.

So you have these new customers and they are all fired up, presumably, with your product or service and then something strange happens – you stick them in the “customer” database and don’t bother to sell to them again. The irrational thought is that now they are a customer, just let the “customer account manager” look after them and they will come asking for more business from you.

Unless that “customer account manager” is trained in selling, that is an assumption too far. Your customers are the lifeblood of your business; feeding you and keeping your business fit. As you look after your body so too you need to look after your customers.

Make your customers feel wanted with actions like:

1. Ask them why they bought from you
2. Ask them for referrals and encourage them with offers of “thank you” gifts
3. Keep in touch with them with a regular newsletter which is emailed to them
4. Invite them to special days – golf days, activity days etc
5. Pick up the phone and plan to speak directly to your top 20% of customers

Within your database, profile who your customers are and identify who gives you the most business and who doesn’t. Only do business with customers that really want you as their provider – filter out those who may only use you occasionally, don’t spend much and possibly takes up more time arguing over trivia. You don’t need this.

Concentrate your efforts on those customers who are spending money with you. Build on that relationship and generate trust and loyalty. Ask these customers what they are looking for within their business – in this way you can potentially look to develop this new product or service opportunity yourself. And if not, you can use your network of contacts to find someone that can help your customer.

Just a final footnote. Your future customers. Make sure that you review all those in your database who said “no thanks” on the first approach. Understand whether there is a genuine interest or just a timing issue. People remember any surly or dismissive approach so avoid this at all costs. Manage sales calls professionally so that it reflects well on your business.

Call me on 07786 228553 or contact me here if you would like to talk further about this and other ideas.