Caring For Your Customers

Caring For Your Customers

by | Dec 15, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Do you appreciate your customers?  Think about this for just a minute and then answer it honestly.

I’ll ask you again, do you appreciate your customers? I mean REALLY appreciate them!

We’ll assume that you answered yes. Now, here is the most important question.  Do they KNOW that you appreciate them?

Appreciating your customers is one thing. Making sure they KNOW that you appreciate them can be the difference between keeping them as a customer and potentially losing them to a competitor the next time they need the product or service you offer.

There are 4 main reasons why customer retention is so important to a company’s success and growth.

  • Affordability:  It’s 5-25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing company.
  • ROI:  A 5% increase in customer retention can increase your revenue by 25% or more.
  • Loyalty:  It goes without saying that retained customers buy more often and spend more than new customers.
  • Referrals:  Word of Mouth is still the BEST and cheapest advertising. 

This concept seems very logical and so simple that we would think every business would be doing it, right? Wrong!  The truth is that most don’t.  

Another truth is that making sure your customers know you appreciate them takes effort, and effort often-times means time and money, or both.  But it’s worth it.

Tip #11 in the 11 Ways to Show Your Customers You Appreciate Them is “Create a Thank You Video”.  Tip #6 is “Sending a Handwritten Note” and #7 is “Make a Personal Phone Call”. While both #6 and #7 are more personal, creating a video is unique and different and it can save you time. Create one video with one generic thank you message, and the rest is as easy as sending an email.

As competition continues to grow bigger and stronger, making sure your customers KNOW they are appreciated is key to continued growth.  To see all of the 11 Ways to Show Your Customers You Appreciate Them, click here.

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part 3)

Why WOWO is the Best Choice for Advertising (Part 3)

by | Nov 24, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Fort Wayne, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, wowo, WOWO Fort Wayne Radio Advertising with Scott Howard

As we move toward a new year, many business owners are attempting to figure out the best bang for their buck when it comes to marketing and advertising.

If you are in the Northeast Indiana region, specifically Fort Wayne, Indiana and nearby communities and you want to invite adults age 25 and older to buy from you, become your patient, or client, I urge you to contact me and my team at WOWO radio.

Marketing Charts dot com released a couple of articles that I’m going to use in the 3rd installment of my series this year of Why WOWO Radio is the Best Choice for Advertising.

About half of US adults say they trust the information they receive from reviews of products or services from other users or customers.

Also in this study, less than 25% of us, trust TV advertising.

One big trend that companies have been relying on is using Influencers on Social Media who have thousands of followers to convince their followers to buy the products they pitch online.  According to the study that marketing tactic only works on about 15% of us and nearly half of us distrust these so-called influencers.

Follow along with me as I relate this information to the capabilities of WOWO radio.

Besides WOWO having the largest weekly audience of adults, our news and talk format means our listeners are actively listening to the words our radio personalities are saying, compared to a music station that has passive listenership because music is often used as background music.

At WOWO, our morning news host Kayla and afternoon talk host Pat have the ability to connect with their audiences much more deeply than any other form of media as they share not just the latest news but also their personal lives too.

They have built a trust relationship with their listeners.

Imagine if that trust relationship could be transferred to your business. That would be incredible.  Pat and Kayla and the other WOWO radio personalities become friends with their listeners and in the same manner that you trust your friends to make recommendations, WOWO’s listeners trust them too.  I call it Word of Mouth with a Bigger Mouth,

Yes, many of the businesses that use WOWO also use Kayla or Pat testimonial endorsement ads and are seeing the benefits.

Now there was another article that confirmed the power of a host doing a live ad.

Host-read ads were also found to outperform non-host-read ads on several key marketing metrics. Most notably, they were found to produce some 60% higher intent to seek information, a 50% higher intent to purchase, and 50% higher recommendation intent. Additionally, host-read ads produced 67% higher affinity and 33% higher familiarity than non-host-read.

The data I just shared pertains to podcasts, but it is both reasonable and acceptable to apply this to WOWO.

Not every business qualifies for a testimonial endorsement from Pat or Kayla on WOWO.  When you contract with WOWO for this type of ad, you are category exclusive.  Ask me or my team for details on this.  We actually have a waiting list for some categories.

 

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Do Your Customers Trust You?

Do Your Customers Trust You?

by | Oct 20, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

Trust… It’s not just for personal relationships.  It’s a MUST in business too!  

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes.  Do you trust the vendors that you do business with? Are they providing you with or doing things for you that consciously or subconsciously earn your trust? If you stop trusting them, do you continue to do business with them? Your customers and prospects make their decisions based on the same criteria.

Trust is never given; it is something that must be earned!

Regardless if you own or run a B2B or B2C operation, trust is the cornerstone of your brand.  It’s not enough for you to know that you are trustworthy. The key is getting your current customers and future customers to know that you are trustworthy.  There is only one way, and that is to “prove it”.

The author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey, said, “Trust is the glue of life. It is the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships”. 

Simply said, the more people trust you the more they will buy from you, and the more they will recommend you to others.  

In today’s competitive world, you can no longer assume people trust you. You must prove it, every day. No one thing is more powerful in building and growing a successful business than TRUST!

Rule #1 to building trust has always been Under-Promise and Over-Deliver.  In the year of COVID, the new #1 rule is Safety, creating an environment where your customers are safe to shop. According to nearly every recent survey, being safe while shopping is a top concern.  

If you would like to see 10 Ways to Build Better Trust within your business, click here.

We suggest you gather a group of trusted employees or friends and discuss ways to build trust within your company and then, exploit them. If you would like help implementing this in-house workshop, contact me. I will be glad to help.

And if you would business tips like this delivered to your email inbox every week, subscribe to my Sound ADvice newsletter in the box below.

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Timeless Marketing Principles that are Pandemic-Proof

Timeless Marketing Principles that are Pandemic-Proof

by | Aug 11, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo

As we zoom thru the last few month of 2020, many businesses are wondering what’s next?  and how do we survive?

The answer is simple.

You need to rely on timeless human relationship principles for your business survival and success.

By the way, I purposely used the word Zoom a moment ago because of it’s two-fold meaning.

Zoom as in, going fast is a timeless concept.  But Zoom is also one of the most popular video meeting platforms this year and for many businesses, it’s helped us keep the humanity alive in this crazy pandemic.

So what are these timeless human relationship principles that are also timeless marketing principles?

  1. Trust must be your foundation.  Do what you say you are going to do.  Be trustworthy. Do not by flaky or unreliable. My wife and I visited a restaurant twice this year before the pandemic and both times we were very disappointed.  Why did we visit the 2nd time if we were not thrilled after the first visit?  Because the place was new and had potential, so we were willing to give them another shot. Unfortunately our 2nd visit wasn’t better, it was worse.  We won’t be back.
  2. Invite people. You have to let others know you are open for business. While humans are a curious creature, we are also creatures of habit and in order for us to change our habits, you need to invite us.  I’m not going to show up uninvited to a friends house these days and unless a business invites me, I probably won’t be showing up there either.
  3. Appreciate people.  This is what I call the kindness factor.  Be sincere.  Thank the people who spend money with you.  Thank the people that say nice things about you.  Be kind to everyone.  None of us like to deal with rude people, so don’t be one.

These three principles were true last year, before the COVID-19 pandemic and they are just as important today.  Do you want some practical advice and guidance on how to implement them in your business? Contact me.

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Experience Matters

Experience Matters

by | Jul 28, 2020 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, Sound ADvice

It’s been said that a business owner wears 15 different hats: owner, manager, purchasing, advertising, marketing, human resource officer, receivables, payables, accounting, estimator, budgeting, hiring and firing, job superintendent, trainer, maintenance, customer complaints, inventory control, baby-sitter… and I’m sure you can come up with many more.

Running a business has never been easy and the challenge of attracting and keeping customers in today’s competitive world has become even more difficult and a never-ending process.  There’s more competition today than ever before. It’s no longer just the new competitor that pops up across town but the hundreds, and potentially thousands, of like businesses that consumers have access to via e-commerce that you are competing with today!

To compete and remain relevant, we must be sharper than ever. We must ensure that we do not give our current customers a reason to look elsewhere and we need to be more attractive than ever to your potential new customers.

E-commerce has made things easy and less expensive, and of course “easy” and “cheaper” are two of purchasing’s great decision-makers.  So how do you compete in today’s world?  It can be summed up in one word – “EXPERIENCE”!

If the customers’ shopping and buying experience really is the difference-maker, how can you make sure you create an experience so profound that they will continue to choose your business over any e-commerce company or local competitor? It’s never just one thing; it’s all the little things that add up to the “I won’t go anywhere else” factor.

Tip #2 in the 11 Easy Tips to Creating a Better Customer Experience is having a clean parking lot. Sounds simple right? How many parking lots have you seen broken and crumbled, or that have wrappers and cigarette butts scattered about? Often, the parking lot is the very first impression a customer has. Keeping it clean and attractive is one of the things that will add up and help create that WOW experience. The same rule applies to bathrooms, only they need to be spotless!

Tip #6 is “Focus on the Customer”.  Everything you do and every strategic move you make should be focused on making a better “experience” for your customers.  America’s most successful grocery store owner, Stew Leonard, focused the entire experience on customer satisfaction and went as far as creating the quote and living by it, “Rule 1: The customer is always right. Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread Rule 1”.

Running a business tomorrow is not going to get any easier. Getting customers to know you and feel best about you is key to getting them to consider doing business with you. Then, giving them an “experience” that keeps them coming back and telling others about you is vital to future growth and success.

Pay attention to the little things and create an “experience” that your competitors can’t compete with!

If you would like to see the 11 Easy Tips to Creating a Better Customer Experience click here .

And to get these Sound ADvice business and marketing tips in your email, fill out the box below.

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