There are only three ways to grow a business: (1) Increase the total number of customers (2) Increase the average ticket amount, and (3) Increase the frequency of repurchase.
Every business marketing strategy should be measured by it’s ability to directly impact and improve upon each of these three factors.
Increasing only one factor will produce linear business growth. Increasing all three will produce geometric business growth.
Marketing Strategy #1. Increase total number of customers
Increasing a total number of customers is the first step most business owners and managers take to grow their business.
Losses can occur when inexperienced sales personnel are put in charge of designing and implementing a marketing campaign – investing corporate resources to find and acquire more customers.
Executed correctly, marketing strategies cost efficiently produce new prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy products or services. The main goal of a marketing strategy is to give sales personnel prospect traffic to convert into paying customers.
Rewarding existing customers for referring new ones is one easy step business owners can take to increase their total number of customers.
Taking care of existing customers can also lead to unpaid referrals.
Marketing Strategy #2. Increase the average ticket amount
Owners and managers spend most of their time operating their business and searching for new customers. They often overlook the customers they see regularly. These repeat customers can often be taken for granted and left to conduct entire transactions without ever being asked if they would like to buy more product or service.
Complacency, expecting customers to buy a minimum amount of product or service without ever being asked to buy more, can be the undoing of a business. This attitude can eventually cause customers to spend less money. Customers who aren’t continuously offered compelling reasons to keep buying more of the same products and services from one business will eventually look for new reasons to buy from another.
Cross selling and upselling, systematically offering customers more value via additional products or services at the point of sale, are two simple steps business owners can take to increase their average transaction amount.
Marketing Strategy #3. Increase the frequency of repurchase
In an established business, an average customer purchasing pattern develops and (like the average transaction amount) is usually taken for granted and rarely improved upon.
A customer’s repeat business is earned by the business who gives the customer what they want. Without having institutionalized marketing strategies or processes for consistently offering customers more of what they want, repeat business is earned less frequently.
Frequently communicating news and offers to past and present customers via telephone, mail and email generally increases their frequency of repurchase and is one more step owners can take to grow their business.
(Originally published on MarketingPrinciples.com)
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