Top Viral Marketing

Archive for March, 2011

What Is Customer Retention 3

3.Give them gifts to acknowledge their worth to you and your business

The importance of your clients to you and your business is something that can’t be stressed enough. The survival of your business is greatly dependent on your clients support thus it is but natural to give them something in return as a sign of your appreciation. By providing your customers corporate gifts such as promotional apparels mugs pens or other promotional giveaways you are showing your clients sincere appreciation by giving them a personalized item exclusive for them.

There are two main positive effects in distributing promotional gifts to your clients. First is that receiving an exclusive business gift increases brand recall and loyalty amongst your clients. This in turn would increase both the order size and order frequency of your customers thus resulting to the growth of your business’ revenue. Second the corporate gifts that you would distribute would of course include your brand or corporate logo. Thus by effectively homing your promotional item strategy to your valued clients you are most likely to distribute a business gift that they will find useful. And a useful promotional product would of course entail frequent usage from your recipients giving your imprinted logo on the merchandise great exposure to not only your valued customers but also to their peers who are also most likely part of the market niche you are targeting.

One important question that you should address during a promotional item strategy is how much would you spend for the giveaway? The rule of thumb is to spend between 1 to 5 on corporate gift per person. This socalled general rule is a good starting point for your costing but you of course is the best to decide how much to spend since you are the one who knows your clients well. Thus the cost for your chosen promotional product should be dependent on how you value the client. For example if a certain group of your customers orders thousand of dollars worth of your products regularly then it is safe to say that these clients deserve a prestige promotional gift such as an engraved Waterman pen rather than the 3 worth mug that you would distribute to your other customers.

It is also important to know which promotional gift is best accepted by the niche you are targeting. If you want to play it safe you can always distribute the top accepted company gifts based on studies conducted by the Promotional Products Association International PPAI. These giveaways are the following:

1.Promotional Apparels
2.Promotional Pens and Writing Instruments
3.Promotional Desk / Office / Business Accessories
4.Promotional Bags
5.Recognition Awards

But if your market is more of the free spirited type such as the youth segment then it will be more effective to utilize the fun logo merchandise such as the promotional toy and games and other promotional items that fits this age group like sports and outdoor products.

With over 20000 company gifts out there there are a lot of merchandise to choose from. But again the bottom line is to choose the corporate gift that compliments your market niche. Because the more the customers find your business gift useful and valuable the more effective your strategy will be in advertising and reinforcing your brand and logo.

About the writer:  Remy is a Promotional Adviser specializing on Cheap Personalized Pens Personalized Stadium Cups and Custom Clocks and Promotional Watches

What If The Person Building Your Product Met The Customer Who Would Be Buying It?

What If the Person Building Your Product Met the Customer Who Would Be Buying It?

By Chris Stiehl author of Pain Killer Marketing

When Cadillac was audited by examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1990 the examiners picked an employee at random from 7000 employees at our Hamtramck Michigan plant. The man was putting in windshields. The examiners approached the worker and asked him who his customer was. He asked “Do you mean my internal customer or my external customer?” I could have kissed him on the lips!

He proceeded to discuss how he talks to his internal customers. He talks to the worker next to him in the assembly line at every break to discuss how things were going. And he talks to the guy on the assembly line who supplies him.

He talked to the external customer too. He told the examiners how we had arranged for each person on the assembly line to come off the line for a half hour amonth to call customers who had ordered a Cadillac. In his calls he described how their cars looked and how he had just put in their windshields. In this way the customers got excited and the employee felt connected to the customer.

Have you ever thought about the idea that all aspects of the business should be able to connect to the customer sales and profits whether the “customer” for your work is internal or external?

Years ago as I was learning from Bradley T. Gale and Ray Kordupleski leading thinkers of managing customer value this concept was known as the Big Equation of Business. The view was that all aspects of the business can and should be connected to customers and making profits.

Customers and competitors

When he was at National Cash Register legendary business leader Jerry Stead once said “If you are at a meeting and you’re not discussing customers or the competition raise your hand and ask Why not?!

Initially management at Cadillac had been reluctant to execute this idea. They were worried about the employees in Detroit speaking with the types of customers who bought Cadillacs. It was thought that the employees were not educated enough to speak with our customers. They would not be able to communicate well with the customers. What did the employees have in common with the customers? In fact everyoneemployees and external customers enjoyed these conversations very much. Everyone felt motivated. The customers could not wait to see the car they had ordered. The employees often wrote notes and letters to put into the glove box. There were frequent stories of customers inviting employees to go fishing or to a ball game during these conversations. The employees and customers shared a lot of interestsbut primarily interests in new Cadillacs.

Cadillac has traditionally had the highest customer loyalty in the industry in part because of programs such as this. Not only were our customers loyal to Cadillac but also our employees were loyal to the customers. At the time Cadillac had earned the highest customer loyalty ratings in the industry. When a Cadillac owner traded in a used Cadillac more than 40 percent of the time the customer bought another Cadillac. We have all heard how much better it is to keep an old customer than to win a new one. Cadillac believed this as well. The investment in these loyalty programs not only increased employee motivation but also earned increased revenue and profits from current customers.

Cadillac customers felt that the company cared about them. After all an employee from the plant had called right? The excitement of these customers over the telephone was palpable. With this one simple program Cadillac had impacted several aspects of the Big Equation of Business: managements need to build customer loyalty the employees need to feel connected to the buyer the customers excitement about the new car increased revenue and increased profits.

The Baldrige examiners were impressed that Cadillac had stressed making the connection at each step in the Big Equation of Business from the employees to customers and eventually to profits. Everyone including the customer benefited from the connections being made. As of a couple of years ago this program was still in effect.

About the writer:  Chris Stiehl is an author Pain Killer Marketing W Business Press teacher at the University of California San Diego and consultant www.stiehlworks.com.

What Happens Before And After The Process Of Postcard Design?

If you think that the process of postcard design is simple think again. You may be gifted in the world of arts that you can easily manipulate the design part. But there are things that go before and after you even hit your PC to work on the design.

1. It all starts with a plan.
Designing is not all about doodling or creating images from your computer. It is more than knowing what colors complement each other. You have to know everything about the project first before you can even start on a dot.

2. Knowing who are you trying to please.
This is the reason why companies must allocate a budget on market analysis. You must know who will get the postcards in the end. Through this you can already start thinking about a lot.

You can start on the dot that you want to doodle. Just make sure that the color and the size suit the preferences of your target market. This will help you plan better and implement things more effectively.

Any ad campaign will not succeed without accomplishing this task first and foremost. You must know the people you are trying to please before you can take the necessary actions to do so.

3. The key is consistency.
As a business you need to advertise periodically. You will go through the postcard stage catalogs brochures to large format posters and banners. Whatever form you use now and in the future you must remember to be consistent.

What does this mean? You must retain the vital factors of your ads on all the tools that you will be using. For example use the same logo same font and color themes for your every marketing tool for a certain period of time.

You will help people remember you easily by relating you with the elements on your ads. By being consistent people will learn to associate you with those elements as time goes by.

4. Follow it up.
However good your ad is you must not be contented to run the ad once and not having a backup. If your postcard is successful and it brought you clients there are more reasons to use that tool again. Or if not you can try other tools. The important thing is that you help people remember you.

5. The right printing company
For print ads this is the life of your materials. So make sure that you choose the one that will give justice to your design. Choose the one that will give your project the professional look that your audience will surely appreciate.

These processes are vital to your ads especially the print ads. But most of the abovementioned can also be applied on ads done through different mediums.

You will never treat the process of postcard design the same ever again. Remember that the design part must be done if and only if youve already checked on the above list. Aim to succeed on your ads by studying your moves and learning how to implement such effectively.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;The author is a very energetic person. She loves to play badminton and volleyball. She likes taking care of dogs. She always wants to have fun in everything she does. Please visit our website
Postcard Designs for further information. For other inquiries and services please visit Full Color Postcard Printing