Sobel Co. LLC Marketing Blog

When determining how to enhance your marketing communications, one critical component of your plan must be your budget.  If you do not have a way to track your investment in a campaign, a program, an event or even new collateral materials, you will not be able to measure  your ROI.  As a result you will be forced to “assume” that your marketing tactics are effective, and that assumption (if incorrect) can lead to wasteful activities. Instead, create a budget and plan ahead; decide what steps you need to implement in order to position your company and gain the attention of your current and potential customers.  Once you know what you want to accomplish you can determine what that will cost to achieve your goals. Balancing the expense against the results with each project you undertake can assist you in deciding what marketing programs to sustain and which to abandon.  It is important to use your marketing dollars and hours wisely - and a budget provides a foundation for accuracy that will lead to informed decision-making.

How can you ensure world class customer service? A veterinarian practice located in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago, Illinois uses software to take the guess work out of delivering on their promise of total client satisfaction.  With every procedure, an entry is made on the pet’s electronic record indicating what took place and what follow up is appropriate. The system then sends an e-mail alert to the vet with a reminded of whatever action needs to be taken, such as “call this evening to follow up on surgery” or, seven days later another e-mail may be sent that says, “Call today to follow up on last week’s surgery.”

 In this way, regardless of how busy the doctors are, or how many patients they see, they can count on receiving an e-mail message reminding them of a timely ‘next step.’ No one is over looked or forgotten, patients are cared for in a very personal way, and follow up is seamless. The vets themselves love the process because the burden is off them to recall all the day’s activities and nothing ever falls through the cracks.  What processes can you implement to ensure this kind of commitment to your customers?

When you are looking for ways to distinguish your company and have a powerful impact on your customers, there is one thing you can do that is sure to get their attention: listen. In other words, rather than promoting what you believe matters most, perhaps your great products or your great location, ASK the customers what they value and then prepare to address their key issues.  By asking important questions and carefully listening to the replies, you will be able to craft a message that is really relevant to your audience.  To be successful, your marketing initiatives should speak to the real needs of your customer base. Think about ways to interact with your customers and find out what they really want. Listen to them. Then find a way to deliver!

(By the way, a good friend once told me that the reason God gave us two ears and just one mouth is so that we could listen twice as well as we speak.)

As the holiday season draws closer, and you are begining to make the decision of print versus e-mail cards to share  good wishes with your customers, vendors and colleagues, I have a crazy suggestion.

Why not take your customer and vendor list and, starting Monday, call two people each day from now until Christmas, personally wishing them a joyous holiday season. You will most likely reach voice mail anyway, but even then, the warmth of your message combind with your willingness to take the time to make a call, will have a powerful impact. Think how surprised, and delighted, you would be if you received such a call.

We live in an era where technology is commonplace and convenient. People e-mail, they text, they Twitter, they blog, they write on each others’  Facebook walls and LinkIn to communicate. Amidst all that, why not stand out by actually calling a valued customer or vendor and let them know that they really are valued - that it is not just your brochure talking or a website promise. If relationships matter as much as we say, maybe we need at act like it more often.

This week-end I was at a new location of the fondue chain, The Melting Pot, for dinner on a very busy Saturday evening.  Since the restaurant had no parking lot, I parked on the street.  Because it was only 5:00, I had to ”feed the meter.”  But it onlky had the capability of giving one hour at a time.  Since I anticipated needing at least two hours for dinner, I knew I would have to come back outside to put in  more money in the middle of the meal.  As we ordered dinner,  our server overheard me comment to my friend, “Don’t let me forget to go back outside. I don’t want a parking ticket.”  The server leaned over and said, “I am sorry to eavesdrop, but I heard you say you need to go back out to take care of the parking meter. We will happily do that for you. Where are you parked?”  She took my license plate and car  location, which was just across the street. At the appropriate time someone went out and paid for my second hour of parking.

When we were ready to leave, I said,  ”Thanks for taking care of that for me.” The server answered, “It is our pleasure.  I did not want you to interrupt a great experience by having to go outside. It is our job to make your evening perfect.”

Think about it. When did you last make a customer feel that good? You don’t have to own a restaurant to  leverage the same concept. It is simply the best and easiest  marketing in the world - thinking about the customer and doing whatever it takes to ensure that their interaction with your company leaves them in awe. And the cost for winning my loyalty was a lot less than a major ad campaign!

Marketing, in the pure sense of the word, means facilitating an ‘exchange.’  People used to go to market, exchanging goods and services, bartering with each other.  As it became more and more important to find a way to distinguish the value of your own goods and services in a more competitive market place, branding and other formal marketing initiatives became important tools.  But when you think about it, it was the personal interaction between the buyer and the seller that really made the exchange possible. Despite our high tech tools and our sophisticated ads and graphics, not much has really changed. For professional service firms, retailers, manufacturers, contractors, nonprofits and anyone else in the market today, large and small, the real distinctive differentiator is your personal relationships.  Every business is a relationship business.  So, as  Thanksgiving draws closer and the holiday season begins, consider the wonderful business relationships  you have built with your customers.  Knowing your own organization, consider how to make those key customers feel welcome, cared for and, most of  all, appreciated. Perhaps a donation to a local charity  in the name of your customers - or some other outreach, individually or collectively - just to be sure they understand the sincerity of your commitment to them and the value you place on the relationship you share .

Satisfied, loyal customers are the foundation of every business - no matter what size it may be.  That being said, how do you know if your customers are really happy with your services and products? Is it time to ask them?

When conducting customer surveys, most companies pose questions to determine satisfaction - but it is important to also try to drill down and discover if your customers are “merely satisfied” or are “raving fans” - that is, are they happy to refer friends and colleagues to you and proud of their relationship with you?  Each company has to make a decision regarding the subtle difference between simply “satisfied” and “very pleased.”  As you design the questions for your survey, you can frame them in a way to make this important determination - distinguishing and interpreting the level of loyalty and commitment your customers have for your company.

Whatever you decide to do regarding format and text, it is important  for you and your management team to be able to digest and react to the feedback with an objective attitude,  act on relevant suggestions to improve your company and its products and services, and let everyone who has taken the time to respond know how much their insights are appreciated. In some instances, you may even feel a personal call is appropriate.

I once worked with a firm in the Midwest that never conducted client curveys because they didn’t want to hear bad news. Hiding your head doesn’t make it go away, and in fact, being proactive may help you put out a fire before you all get too badly burned.  But no matter what, you need to be prepared to accept the negative comments as well as the positive if you are expecting the results to help you make changes as necessary to help your company  be world class.