Win Back Former Customers

Win Back Former Customers

by | Nov 25, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

What should you change to retain or win back customers?

What internal changes can you make that will create a more positive customer experience?

Are there some things that have changed but that law of “unintended consequences” kicked in and perhaps you should revert to the it was before?

How prepared are you for the upcoming year and both the known and unknown that will impact the Customer Experience and your business bottom line?

I know, that’s a lot to contemplate but it’s the kind of questions I like to ask when I’m meeting with business owners and managers.

I’ve got three stories/examples to share.

I was one of the millions of people who voted early this year. Instead of waiting until Election Day on Tuesday November 5th, I was downtown one day in October and decided to visit the early voting location and stand in line to vote early.  The line was long but it was inside.  Total time from when I arrived and parked my car to when I left was 50 minutes.

A couple weeks later I noticed that the early voting line was different.  It was shorter and people had to wait outside the building.  I’m not sure why but I was thankful that my wait was not braving the elements, even though it was longer than those later early voters.  The customer experience of voting was less favorable for those who had to wait outside.  Most, but not all voters persisted in both scenarios because they had a determination to vote then and there instead of leaving.

Another story dealing with lines is my favorite locally owned coffee shop, the one that earned the nickname of ScLoHo’s North Office for more than a dozen years.  These days I visit mostly on Sundays but have started to stop by during the week on occasion too, like the old days.

However there are times when I will walk in and look at the line of people waiting to order and decide if I want to stay and wait or leave.  When they are busy the line can be 20 people deep.  Longer than that and the line goes out the door which I’ve seen a couple of times.  I know that over the years the owners have continually made modifications and that includes expanding and also streamlining their menu.  They’ve also adjusted their hours and during the Covid years, made required adjustments as needed.  They’ve raised their prices and even added a surcharge which is a percent of your bill that goes to pay for benefits to their staff.  I know that because they were upfront and posted about it.  They are 25 years strong and despite the long lines during busy times which discourages some customers from waiting at that moment, they will continue to thrive.

I also have the Starbucks app on my phone and I keep it loaded with funds so I can get coffee on the road at places other than my favorite local shop.  There have been a couple of times that one of the local Starbucks was so busy that they had no parking avail and I’ve waited for over 20 minutes.  I know, First World Problem. I’m not the only one that has been deterred from being their customer as they’ve lost sales and now they are going to fix a couple of common complaints to their speed and pricing.  Here’s the info from MediaPost.com:

Starbucks Ends Milk Upcharge, Returns To Sharpie Roots

“Starbucks will no longer charge customers extra for nondairy milk alternatives in their lattes, macchiatos and other beverages, part of a strategy to boost slowing sales by streamlining its menu and re-creating a more inviting coffeehouse vibe at its stores,” according to The Washington Post. “Customers previously complained that the extra fee for nondairy substitutes discriminated against people with lactose intolerance or other dietary restrictions….

Customers ordering drinks with nondairy substitutes can expect price reductions of more than 10%.

“The company is also setting a goal of getting customers their orders in four minutes or less,” according to The New York Times.  Brewed coffee will now be delivered to customers at the register, and customers can customize their coffee themselves — adding milk and sweeteners — at the condiment stations that the company will be reinstalling. That should also alleviate some of the workload for baristas.”

Another change won’t save customers money, but might make them feel more connected to the brand:  “Starbucks is bringing back hand-written names in Sharpie on cups and self-serve stations with sugar and cream to try to win back customers,” according to CNN. “Baristas handwriting customers’ names and messages on their drink orders in marker will make a comeback.”

It’s part of their strategy to recreate a coffeehouse vibe at Starbucks and add a “human touch.”

The last story I have has to do with something I did about 15 years ago when I served on the Board of Directors with the Advertising Federation.  We had monthly lunches at least 9 or or 10 times a year and there was a fee to attend.  Nearly everyone else on the board worked on the creative side or at an ad agency, yet I was the one that moved us forward into the world of online payments.  This was around 2009 and the custom was to reserve with an email or phone call and then bring either cash, check or credit card to be processed at the lunch.

Eventbrite was just a few years old and some of the old school board members were hesitant to move to an online reservation and payment platform for our lunches.  I set it up and our attendance quickly rose because we improved the customer experience and provided a fresh option to make it easy for people to buy along with keeping the previous method as an option for about a year to handle the transition.

All of these stories and examples are related to marketing too because you’ve changed the perception and reality of your company to the customer.

Go back to those original questions and ask yourself and your team about ways to improve as you move forward.

Success in Sampling

Success in Sampling

by | Oct 21, 2024 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Debbie Fields was only 21 years old when she opened her first Mrs. Fields Cookies store in Palo Alto, California in 1977.  Seven short years later, in 1984, the marketing “novice” had 160 stores selling more than $45 million worth of Mrs. Fields Cookies.

There are a lot of lessons we can learn from Debbie’s marketing success. Her passion and determination caused her to succeed even though she had no experience, and was told by friends, family, bankers, and others that her “idea” would not succeed.

The marketing campaign that drew customers to her stores consisted of simply going out into the streets with trays of free cookies for people to sample. If you have a great product, consider finding a way to offer free samples to your customers.

Car dealers know the value of the free test drive, and vendors at local farmers’ markets have learned they sell more produce by offering free samples.

Advertising that you offer free trials or samples also speaks volumes about the confidence you have in your products or services. Mrs. Fields did not wait for customers to come into her store to offer them free samples, she went out into the streets with trays of goodies. 

“Free” is one of the most powerful words in advertising and giving samples of your product engages “psychological reciprocity” in the minds of your prospects. 

Psychological reciprocity is defined as “a deep-rooted subconscious need to do something for those who do something for us”.

FREE! If you have a product that customers will love, click here to read the 8 Keys to Successful Sampling.

Mrs. Fields Cookies was one of the first franchised cookie shops in the country and we use to have a couple of them here in Fort Wayne Indiana.  We don’t anymore due to the changes in consumer behavior and decline of major malls that was going on for awhile but then took a big hit in 2020 with covid.

When Mrs. Fields started in the malls around the country, that was a strategic location move.  See, the rent in a mall was usually higher than a smaller strip shopping center.  Just the mall itself was a destination, not just specific stores.

So the Mrs. Fields cookie stores took advantage of the foot traffic created by the other well known stores and built their brand that way.

Some of my radio advertising partners have used a free offer that was in response to a genuine need to create increased business in the past few years.  Let’s talk and see if there’s something that might be appropriate for your business.

Building Momentum

Building Momentum

by | Nov 13, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

Are you the type of person who jumps out of bed in the morning full of energy and ready to take on the world?

Or are you like the rest of us adults who start a little slower, with a morning routine that perhaps includes a cup of coffee to perk up your senses and as you get moving you build up your energy so you’re ready to take on the new day?

This momentum concept also applies to our businesses and marketing.  When we decide to launch a business, there is a tremendous amount of planning and preparation that goes on before the doors open.

The last space shuttle took off in July of 2011 and since then, we’ve had private companies create outer space flight experiences.  But here’s some interesting data I found out about those space shuttle missions…

For many things, the most energy expelled is in the process of just getting going.  For example, when the space shuttle takes off, fifty percent of the fuel stored in those huge tanks is expended just to get it off the launch pad.

The initial effort to get anything to move is always greater than the effort required once motion has begun. Ever tried to push a car? At first, it seems almost impossible, but once it gets rolling its motion requires less effort and becomes quite predictable.

Advertising, in most cases, uses the same energy. Getting your advertising off the ground also takes a great deal of up-front effort, but once it takes hold, the positive results come with relative ease.

There are several reasons it can take longer than we would wish to get your advertising working for you.

One is the length of your product’s cycle. In the automotive market, for example, there is less than 2% of the population in the market for a car on any given month. No amount of advertising energy can make someone who just bought a car buy another.

In the HVAC business, the average person only has a need for service every 4 to 6 years, meaning less than 1% of the population is in the market for an HVAC repair person every month.

Groceries and gas are the only two things we consistently consume on a weekly basis.

Another notable reason that it takes time to get a return on your advertising investment is that people are creatures of habit. Very often they’ll keep buying where they have always bought until their current supplier lets them down.

In many cases, your advertising is simply positioning you to be the first supplier prospects think of when their current supplier does let them down….. and they will let them down!

There are many other reasons why expecting instant gratification from your advertising can be unrealistic. Like a rocket, it takes a lot of energy to get your marketing ball rolling. But, once it’s launched and gaining traction, it continues to work with much less effort.

Marketing guru, Roy Williams, in his Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure, states that failure cause number one is, “The desire for instant gratification”.

If you want to ensure the success of your advertising, click here to see all Twelve Causes of Advertising Failure to help you avoid these huge mistakes.

Now along with radio advertising, I have some additional ways to help you get leads for your business that work hand in hand with radio.  If you’re in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, reach out to me at Scott@WOWO.com.  As we approach the end of this year, now’s the time to develop a marketing strategy for the new year and that is a free service I provide too.

Some of this article was sent out to subscribers of my free Sound ADvice newsletter.  If you would like a free weekly subscription, just email me at Scott@ScLoHo.net and ask to be included.

Google is the Wrong Answer

Google is the Wrong Answer

by | Mar 21, 2023 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

I was in a meeting with a business owner this month and as we were doing our usual “Discovery” meeting, one of the questions that was asked was:

Where are your current customers coming from?

He answered, “Google”

Bzzzzzz.  Wrong answer.

Well, perhaps it was really the wrong question.

Google for advertising veterans is the new Yellow Pages.   

For those under the age of 45, before Google was launched last century in 1998 and became the top search engine about 5 years later, consumers would use the Yellow Pages section of a phone book to get the phone number to a business they wanted to call or visit.

Yellow Page ad salespeople trained their business customers to ask new people calling, “How did you get our number?” and a sizeable percent of the answers were the phone book.

I mean it made sense, the phone book is where I got the number, so technically the answer was correct.  This is how the Yellow Page ad salespeople sold ads, by “proving their worth” and getting the business owner to buy a bigger ad each year.  

In the old days of the phone book or today of Google and smart phones, the answer to the question is predictable.  If I’m in front of my laptop, I’ll Google it.  Otherwise, I’ll ask my phone, because I can search with my voice.  Siri, Alexa, and Hey Google are all similar current replacements for the both the phone book and laptop versions of Google.

Here’s why that’s the wrong question to ask if you are attempting to decide where your customers are coming from or where to invest your advertising dollars.

Google is the last step in a long series of steps that your new customer made to connect with you.  We call it the Zero Moment of Truth.  

All they need is the phone number, or if I’m searching from my phone, I don’t even need the actual number, I can call without even knowing the number.

The question you want to know is what are all the other influencing factors that prompted your customer to Google you?  Was it word of mouth from a friend?  Was it a 10 second video ad they had to watch before YouTube played a cat video?  Was it the radio ad, the endorsement from the podcast host?  The highway road sign they drive by daily or even the Pay Per Click Ad they saw when researching the kind of stuff you sell?

That’s what you should measure, and make it multiple choice because odds are it’s a combination of multiple influences that were the steps that lead to that final step of connecting with you because they Googled you.

Google is not the answer to your business success, it’s just the final step that connected them to you.

Trust is the Glue

Trust is the Glue

by | Nov 1, 2022 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

Trust.

This five letter word is the glue that holds our world together.

Over the years I’ve been writing, publishing and podcasting, the theme I keep coming back to is Human Relationship Principles.  And the key to all human relationships is trust.

Before I dig into the marketing and advertising thoughts regarding Trust, let’s stand back at look around our world.

From the day we are born, we place our trust in an adult to feed us and take care of us.  As we grow older, we become more self-sufficient and those needs change but trust is placed in other things and people.  As simple as putting trust in the chair you are sitting in right now.  Trust that when you are driving down the road that the person driving towards you will stay on their side of the road while you stay on your side.  That’s trust.

Trust in relationships also pertains to agreements between countries.  A level of trust has to come with signing treaties. Agreements between companies always have a trust factor.

In the most personal relationships, we trust.  Trust that the person you lay down to sleep with is not going to harm you.

Trust can be broken and how we deal with broken trust will impact future relations.

Spending money on something involves trust too.  There is a reason some people buy chips from the dollar store and others buy them from the supermarket, but no matter where you buy them, you trust that what’s inside the bag is worth the money you paid.

When we don’t know who to trust, what do we do?

We look around for recommendations.

However not all recommendations are valued equally.

Research firm Ipsos released a survey that talks about who adults trust for recommendations.

The top couple of trusted groups are unchanged from surveys I’ve seen for decades.

7 out of 10 adults trust their family members and 2/3rds trust the recommendations of friends when deciding what or where to spend their money.

This has traditionally been called Word Of Mouth and I’ll get back to it in a second.

All the other sources for recommendations scored poorly,  Under 40% of adults trust casual acquaintances. Someone who works in the store or for the company were only trusted 37% of the time.

All the online resources including company websites, companies on social media, review sites, social media groups, even the social media influencers scored in the 30’s or 20’s out of 100 for being trusted enough to spend money.

Why is this you ask?

It’s all about the Human Connection.  We know our family, we choose our friends and we trust friends and family to have our back.  All those others, they’re just out for themselves, at least that’s our perception, deep down in our gut.

Marketers are looking to create advertising campaigns that will persuade us to buy what they are selling.

Smart marketers include the trust factor in their plans.

9 years ago, I joined Federated Media’s WOWO radio advertising sales team.  I had worked for other media companies and radio stations in Fort Wayne and I even worked for Federated Media earlier in my life on the air for sister station WMEE.

Why did I join WOWO in 2013?

Trust.

Ben Saurer was a young 20 something-year-old whose first real job was working in radio at a group of stations I was with and he left when he was hired by Federated Media to become their General Sales Manager for WOWO.  I knew Ben from our time together and I trusted Ben.

I trusted Ben enough to meet with him on the sly as I was working for an e-commerce company, as hour out of town, to discuss the possibility of us working together again.  Difference was, I would be working for him instead of the other way around like when we first met.

This trust factor along with trust in my own ability led to my taking an initial pay cut without a guarantee that I would earn it back; along with being the 5th person on a five person sales team.  A little background on what it means to be #5 on a 5 person team.  You’re not sitting in the superstar spot.  #5 on a 5 person sales team is a revolving door.

Nothing was promised to me, no established accounts to take over, none of that, just an opportunity that was mine to take advantage of.

All of the accounts from my past were handled by the other 4 members of the WOWO sales team.  Let’s be blunt about this.  #5 on a five person team has about a 10% chance of making it, and that’s optimistic.

During the first year, I ended up winning the Super Goal award for Federated Media’s Fort Wayne stations.  Out of about 20 sales people, I exceeded my budget goals more than anyone else when measuring percentages.  I was not the top salesperson, I was not in the top 5, I don’t know where I was actually in dollars, but I beat expectations.  That 10% chance of survival was overcome and then some.

2014 was my first full year at WOWO.  2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 were mostly growth years. And then 2019 something happened.

It was a year that exceeded expectations and budget goals again and I ended up winning the Super Goal award for Federated Media’s Fort Wayne stations again.  The difference in dollars was tremendous however. 2019 versus 2014 for me was a difference of around $500,000.

Besides winning the Super Goal award, I also won the Account Manager of the Year in 2019 for the entire Federated Media organization.  That was based on dollars.

Trust was the reason behind this success.  Business owners grew to trust me and the radio station, WOWO.  Now WOWO itself has earned respect and trust for it’s legacy that began in 1925 and in a couple of years will be celebrating a century on the air.  WOWO has had legendary radio personalities and our current line-up features two outstanding people who are trusted by their listeners.

Pat Miller hosts the Pat Miller Talk Show, weekday afternoons from 3pm to 6pm and Kayla Blakeslee is the host for Fort Wayne’s Morning News weekday mornings.

When Pat and Kayla talk, people listen.  But it’s more than listening, a relationship develops over time.  This is what happens what a radio personality is allowed to be real and share themselves on the air and as a news and talk formatted station, WOWO listeners have developed a Trust relationship with us.

The most successful campaigns on WOWO have Pat or Kayla as their spokesperson.  Their listeners Trust them,  it’s Word Of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth.

Recently I took over the sales departments at sister stations 1380, The Fan, our Sports Talk station; along with 98.9 The Bear, Federated Media’s Heritage Rock Music Station and BIG 92.3, our Classic Hits Music station.  The trust factor is there too on our music stations and here’s why…

No matter if you’re listening to Brett on the Sports Rush, Pat or Kayla talking about the news, or listening to your favorite tunes on BIG or the Bear, you are not just intellectually involved, you are emotionally involved too with your favorite stations.

Trust is an emotional connection and that is why I have seen so many businesses be successful when they invite listeners who have an emotional bond with their favorite station, also trust the advertisers, especially when the ads tie into that emotional side of us and nurture trust.

Sure, you can create some boring ads that just present the facts and hope they work.  You can create some gimmicky ads to promote what YOU want to sell, but if they leave out the human side and do nothing to build trust, your chances for success are limited.

Want to know more about how to integrate Trust in your marketing outreach?  Contact me.

https://omny.fm/shows/the-scott-howard-genuine-scloho-media-and-marketin/287-scloho-podcast-trust-is-the-glue