Strategic Lifetime Marketing - A Life Preserver For Your Business

Ever heard of 'Riptide Marketing?'

In the United States, riptides account for approximately 100 deaths every year. Despite its name, a riptide isn't related to the ocean tide at all. It is actually a strong flow of water returning towards the sea from the shore. More accurately, this flow of water is called a rip current.   Rip currents can occur at any beach that has breaking waves, including oceans, seas, and even large lakes such as the Great Lakes. Rip currents can tow an unsuspecting swimmer or wader out to sea at speeds up to one to eight feet per second.   But rip current themselves are not dangerous.  

Rip currents become treacherous when the panicked victim fights to swim back to shore. In the futile attempt to fight the current, the victim becomes exhausted and drowns.   Though seemingly counterintuitive, the way to survive a rip current is to simply swim parallel to the shoreline. By doing so, you will swim perpendicular to the direction of powerful pull and ultimately free of the current - without exhausting yourself. Then you can change directions and swim towards shore.

What do riptides have to do with your business?

When revenue slows down for any reason, general overhead and administrative expenses continue to flow out. Just like a rip current.   The common business reaction is to ramp up one's marketing efforts to bring in new customers and entice previous customers to return.   In the ensuing flurry of panicked activity, no marketing plan is developed or, if there is one, it is ill-planned or isn't followed. Carried to its extreme, this ultimately leads to business death by drowning in a sea of unpaid advertising and general overhead bills.

An Example of Riptide Marketing

Until recently, one of my clients was paying over $20,000 in Yellow Pages ads - every month! The return on the marketing investment? Needless to say, far less than $20,000 per month.   Now, obviously, spending money like that is not a formula for business longevity. Fortunately, with my coaching, at renewal time the company slashed its Yellow Pages commitment to more manageable and reasonable levels.

The Solution to Riptide Marketing

Strategic lifetime marketing is an approach to marketing that capitalizes on the lifetime value of your most desirable customers. In the business world, this is akin to swimming parallel to the shoreline when caught in a potentially deadly rip current. The key is to develop such a lifetime-oriented approach to marketing before a crisis occurs.   One of the first steps to developing a strategic lifetime-oriented marketing plan is to first understand your highest-value customer.

Who is your highest-value customer? Sounds simple enough but, in my experience, this is one of the toughest questions for business owners to answer with clarity and confidence. (By the way, "everyone" is not a good answer.)   You can start by understanding the demographics and psychographics of your ideal target audience:

• Demographics are quantifiable characteristics - factors such as age, race, gender, religion, income, education, and profession.
• Psychographics are less readily quantifiable, but more critical to your success - they describe what your target audience values, how they think, what they care about, how they feel, and how they choose to live. These factors directly reflect their buying habits.

The Lifetime Marketing Quickstart Action Plan

 The cure for riptide marketing consists of three simple steps:

1. As described above, first understand the demographic and their psychographic characteristics of your market.
2. Then, determine the potential of your product or service in the marketplace. Do so by uncovering your target's biggest problems and needs to which you are the answer. Once you have this kind of information clear, you'll be prepared to craft your ultimate value offering - customized to the needs, wants, and mindset of your best customers.
3. Finally, measure the effectiveness of your promotional activities.

The Bottom Line:

Without a strategic approach to effective, lifetime-oriented marketing, you are putting your greatest asset - your business - at risk. Whether you are starting a new business, introducing a new product or service, or seeking to expand your existing business, it is vitally important to first understand the mindset and buying habits of your potential and existing consumers.   With this information, you can position and package your offering in a way that attracts the consumers who are looking for the product or service you have to offer as well as the value that you offer.   This strategy will enhance your ability to get your value-based message to your target audience with greater cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and impact. It will increase your prospect-to-buyer conversion rates, shorten the buying cycle, and increase the frequency of repeat and referral purchases.

By George C. Huang, M.D.