Stop Marketing. Start Selling (an experience)

Where do you put your marketing efforts?

Where do you spend your money?

Are you getting a just good or an exceptional return on investment?

Maybe you spend too much time and money marketing your services.

Is that possible? Yes. Yes, it is. And here's why. Let's look at some quick stats.

• 5X - How much more it costs to acquire a new customer than to retain one.

• 60-70% - Chances of selling a product or service to an existing customer

• 5-20% - Chances of selling a product or service to prospective customer

• 50% -Chance that an existing customer will want to try something new.

• 31% - How much more a repeat customer is willing to spend because you've earned their trust.

Do these figures seem a little lop-sided? If they do, the next set of stats may just be alarming.

• 88% - Companies that do not put primary focus on generating sales from their existing customers.

Now, you might say -- if I keep churning my existing customers they won't be my customers for long. And yes, you're right, unless you're doing it the right way, by building loyalty to your brand.

Yes, brand loyalty does exist in 2018. In fact, it thrives. And brand loyalty is what drives repeat customer sales. But what makes a customer loyal in a world of so many choices. Customers speak loud and clear, And it will come as no surprise to you that it all about the customer experience.

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The Fashionistas get it

I've always been on the frugal side myself, but those self professed shopaholics out there will likely be the first to "get it".

You know that shopping is an experience, regardless of what you are buying -- new boots, a manicure or whiter teeth. Everything from the feel, look and smell of the store to the ease of using their website to the little extras they give you to say they "get you".

But it goes beyond that. There is showing your new treasures to all of your friends, the joy you get out of wearing them for the first time when people ask where did you get that. You develop an identity around your brands.

They become a part of you.

You don't have to be a athletic shoe or t-shirt company to become a part of your customer's identity as a brand. You just have to deliver the right experience.

And the Home-Builders Get it

Disney World knows how to create an experience. But we're not talking about creating a false reality.

It may work for the Disney Princesses, but that's not what customers want out of an everyday experience with a brand unless princesses are your target audience.

Rather let's think a bit more practically and discuss home building.

While the experience demanded will vary based upon your target audience, at the very core of it all, customers want consistency and reliability. And this is something every business can and should offer.

These must come first or any icing on the cake is icing on a rock -- and it's not an emerald. You can put a nice coat of paint on that drywall, but if your 2X4s are rotten, a house won't stay standing for long,

Consistency and reliability are your foundation and framework.

Customers need to know that you can:

• provide them with the quality that they expect every time

• provide their friend with the same consistent quality if they refer someone because it's their name on the line in their social circle, not yours.

• do what's right when you get it wrong, which should be rare.

The Wiring of Customer Experience

Only after laying a framework can you begin to build a customized experience that makes the customer feel that they are a part of your brand.

The wiring of the experience is the connection that you create between yourself and your customers.

This connection could be a philanthropic endeavor or a shared focus on something like fitness, nutrition or children's education. Whatever it is, you have to share it and make it easy for customers to share it on a regular and consistent basis. This means being unobtrusively present in your customer's lives.

In the "olden days" this presence would have been a jingle that gets stuck in their head, constant commercials interrupting their favorite shows or really clever commercials that everyone is talking about months later.

While these methods still have some merit, they are really about acquisition of new customers and not the experience that makes customer retention so profitable. They persist because they do work for quick revenue boosts.

But the effects are very fleeting because they are focused on that new lead and a quick sale that costs you more than it makes you if you are not nurturing loyalty.

Today there is a much better way to always be present in your customer's lives to stop marketing and start selling more to your existing customers, doubling or even tripling their CLV ( Customer Lifetime Value ).

But don't forget entirely about new customers. When you improve the CLV of your existing customers, it is like a magnet that draws in new customers much more effectively than other methods.

Installing that Wiring (not the faulty kind)

Multi-channel Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing have completely changed the way we connect with customers.

Okay, yes, they are still forms of marketing, which contradicts my title, but these marketing concepts have changed the face of marketing for the better .

Instead of running ads to interrupt their lives, we can be where they are on FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat, Google, Email.

Instead of just randomly appearing at an inopportune time, we can now time our touch point so that they are most effective. In other words, we can be there when customers are looking to buy and subtly yet consistency in the background the rest of the time reminding them that it's time to buy.

Developing quality, engaging, shareable content that helps connect you with your customers is the way to reach everyone, new and existing customers. Distributing that content requires strategy.

Put custom content creation to work for you. Create that customer experience that fosters loyalty and generates leads.

If you need help developing and implementing a marketing strategy or are looking for great content to propel your existing inbound marketing strategies, contact me today to get started on building a strong foundation on customer loyalty. The rest is just icing on the cake.

~Leigh~