Competing with big businesses is seemingly like a losing proposition. How do you compete with a business that has a bigger budget than you do? How do you compete with your limited resources against one with seemingly unlimited resources? However, this can be done quite affordably enough and successfully. Business Success to this level is a process. The big was not big when it first started.
Once upon a time, these big players were small players like you. How do you start growing your company in size? Lifetime Marketing.
A business is only successful if it is able to effectively and constantly answer the needs and wants of its target market. But where does lifetime marketing come in? Right at the heart of that statement. Lifetime marketing means capturing the lifetime value of your customers. Lifetime marketing means creating and efficiently executing marketing designs that cater to the needs and wants of the customers, which is aimed at capturing their loyalty.
Every other marketing effort should be working towards this outcome. If not, all these will be put to waste; a waste of effort, time, money, and resources. So how do you start this project or program? First, you have to learn to think of it as more than just a project or a program. The whole business, you employees should breathe lifetime marketing, which means everyone should breathe and breathe customer needs and wants and their expectations.
Have you ever heard of the saying, "The customer is always right."? I do not agree with it but it does have a point. The customer has the right to be considered right because they are very, very important. Marketing, down to personal selling should always communicate to the customer that they are valued, important, and that they will be very well taken care of, and that their loyalty will be rewarded. Customers love to feel that their individual is of great value to the company.
Done right, lifetime marketing will result in lifetime loyalty, dramatic increase in sales, and qualified referrals. Do not get me wrong. This is not a quick fix. This takes on a lot of commitment; this entails a change of way of thinking, of seeing, of doing.
The problem with most businessmen is the Out of Sight Out of Mind Principle. The moment the goal has been set, they forget about it or leave it up to their people to remember. However, the Lifetime Marketing way of thinking is living the principle; Out of sight, inside mind. To avoid losing focus, keep the core value of your new paradigm visible. Put up a sign in your bulletin board. Get the consensuses of everyone including your sales personnel, especially those who get to deal with your market directly. They influence your success directly too.
So now that everyone is aware of your goals (hopefully including all your departments), as the manager or business owner make a strategy, one that is specific to a fault. This strategy should be time bound, specific, and realistic. Make more when one is done with the core value of customer being first. Never forget your new view of how the customers affect your business. Marketing, like motherhood is a never ending process. The reason is because the market is constantly changing; so will their needs and wants. You need to be keen on these changes so that you can adapt. Like motherhood, marketing is a constant effort. Lifetime marketing also means total commitment at all levels of your business. Inconsistency will bring your efforts apart, thereby making it useless.
Communicate to your customers is the highest personal level. Communicate and address their needs, wants and expectations by giving them value. Give them value in their individuality and you will be able to gain their collective trust. Trust in your business is very important, they have to trust you. They have to know that you will not only deliver on your word, but deliver their expectations.
There are some companies who charge higher than what their immediate product or service is worth but nobody ever complains. The reason behind this is because the customers expect good service, perks, plus and more plus. And these companies deliver these on a silver, hassle-free platter.
By Summer S
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