No time wasters please!
01 Jan 10 - Marketing
It’s now more important than ever to carefully allocate your marketing spend to ensure that you receive a high return on investment. In this economic environment it can be difficult to acquire new customers so don’t overlook the ones you already have! Retention strategies are increasingly forming a large part of an organisation’s marketing activities and research has shown that it is in fact five times more cost effective to retain a customer than to acquire a new one.
With this in mind, Lisa Evans of iC marketing comments: "ensure you concentrate your efforts on the most profitable customers when developing your marketing plan by undertaking an in-depth review of your client portfolio. At iC our accountancy and marketing teams collectively undertake Customer Lifetime Value Analysis of client portfolios which seeks to highlight up sell and cross sell opportunities, identify the most profitable customers and develop a picture of buying habits. Meaningful data identified such as increased revenue from a particular sector, business size, promotional campaign or period, etc is used to inform the marketing plan, where communication messages and timings are tailored accordingly.”
For those who do wish to pursue an acquisition strategy in the New Year make sure you target-target-target! A scattergun approach to client acquisition is simply not going to achieve the desired results – carefully define your target audience ensuring you consider the current environment in which they operate that may influence purchasing decisions. You can segment your audience by a number of factors depending on whether it is a consumer or business you are targeting - for example, in consumer markets you may wish to target a particular social grade or in business markets a particular sector.
Make it your New Year’s resolution not to waste time or money on prospects who are not going to purchase from you and concentrate your efforts on those who are going to bring you real profits. And remember, a marketing plan should be a living document that is continually evolving over time – you should ensure that marketing activities are regularly monitored and evaluated and adapted to market conditions, as they arise.