The Connection Between Clients and Old Shoes

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

It is a truism of business that it costs more to find new customers than it does to keep old ones.

So, why do so many companies treat their existing customers so badly? The phone company and the cable company offer all sorts of incentives for new customers to sign up (lower prices, extra channels, bundled services).

Old customers? They’re old shoes, scuffed up, with the heels worn down. Not bright and shiny like the new customers. No goodies or discounts for them.

I just cut ties with an insurance company. I’ve been with them for 19 years. They didn’t even ask why. Nor did they try to win me back. All they did (two months later) was send a note acknowledging the cancellation.

Why not do something remarkable?

What if the cable company occasionally offered a freebie to its current customers. Like a surprise 25% discount on the anniversary of the day you signed up. Or a greeting card on your birthday.

It would build trust and loyalty. And, it would be remarkable. Customers would talk about it. They’d tell their friends. I mean, have you ever heard of the telephone company being nice?

We can do better

Large corporations, like the phone company or the cable company are often slow, bureaucratic, and sometimes a bit arrogant.

Since we’re agile and nimble and all that cool small business stuff, we can do better than that. Keep in contact with your clients. Email them or send them random surprises (the good kind) just because. If they leave you, ask why. . See what happens.

How to Turn Problems Into Cash

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Jodi Kaplan

: Image by tauntingpanda via Flickr

You may have heard that New York has gotten a lot of snow this year.

Heck, we’ve had more snow this season than Winnipeg, Canada (and there’s more coming).

It’s getting hard to find places to put all of it.

If you have to go out, or if you have a car, you’ll have to face huge piles of dirty snow, and trying to figure out exactly which vaguely car-shaped lump is yours.

A big problem

Yesterday, I went out to run some errands and saw a woman starting to shovel her car out. I came back over an hour later, and she was still working on it (now with someone helping her).

Some of the more enterprising among us have turned this problem into an opportunity. I passed another car with a little flag-like sign stuck on the roof. It said, “If you want to free your car, call 212———.” Bet that guy is cleaning up (sorry, couldn’t resist).

What can you fix?

When you’re thinking about a new product or service, look around. See what other people are complaining about. Or struggling with. What frustrates them? Is there a way to profit from those frustrations?

Someone decided to use a big snowstorm to make money. I saw people asking for website critiques over and over – and making the same mistakes repeatedly. So, I created a website review ebook. I also offer a personal website review service.

Have you done this? What services do you offer based on common problems?

How to Use the Internet to Defy Time and Space

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

mug This post was going to be a bit of a rant. Yesterday, I got a small package. I didn’t look at it too closely and thought it was Canon’s broken customer service returning my camera. I couldn’t understand why they’d go to the trouble, not to mention spend $7.50 in postage, to send it back to me. No wonder it cost nearly as much to repair as to buy a new one! They’re crazy!

Touch people through the internet

In the middle of the night, I realized the box was much too heavy to be a point-and-shoot camera. So, since I couldn’t sleep, I opened it. Inside was this mug (on the right), a lovely note, and two teabags. It was a gift from my wonderful friend Jule, who I’ve never met. I’d seen the mugs on her blog yesterday and asked for one — little did I know that I already had one! She mailed it two days before!

I read the note, drank my tea from the mug this morning, and felt really happy and touched that she’d reached out to me like that.

Connecting your offline and online marketing

Of course, Jule wasn’t trying to sell me anything, but connecting online and offline marketing is a great strategy. Sending mugs to everyone you know online may not be practical, but you can combine an online and offline marketing campaign.

For example, send a postcard marketing campaign to prospective or current clients and then follow up with email. Or send them to a landing page with a special offer.

Create a social media promotion for a new product or event, and then offer a special promotion to attendees who share your promotion or hashtag.

Share your thoughts

What do you do to connect with your blog readers or clients or others you may know online but never meet face-to-face? Or do you? Do you think this is important?

A Marketing Tip from a Musical (Using Reciprocity to Get More Conversions)

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

Remember this lyric from the musical Chicago?

There’s a lot of favors
I’m prepared to do –
You do one for Mama
She’ll do one for you!

In the musical, Mama (the warden) is singing about “reciprocity.” She promises that if you do a favor for her, she’ll do one for you.

Does a musical work in real life?

Sure, people in real life generally don’t stop and break into song in the middle of the street, but using the technique of reciprocity does.

It’s a strong persuasion technique which was famously proven by Robert Ciadini in his book “Influence”.

He reported that Ethiopia (an extremely poor country) donated large sums of money to Mexico after a devastating earthquake. Why would a poor country do that? Because Mexico had supported Ethiopia when Italy invaded years before.

When you’re good to mama, mama’s good to you

The idea is that if you do something for someone, they feel obligated to reciprocate in some way. So, you offer a sample chapter of your book, or a free report, or a free blog. Then you ask (and you have to ask) for something in return.

It doesn’t have to be a request to buy something (and probably shouldn’t be right away). Instead offer something that the reader will find valuable and useful. It can be a free landing page assessment or a report in exchange for filling out a survey.

The photo on this post is licensed as Creative Commons, which means I can use it, so long as I reciprocate with a link and attribution to the original source.

Reciprocity!

Oh, and feel free to tweet or Google Plus this post.

Are You Making Bad Business Decisions Based on Assumptions?

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Jodi Kaplan

Image via Wikipedia

Are you making bad business decisions based on assumptions? Thinking you know the answer to a problem without verifying or checking your thinking?

I was a temp many years ago. This meant I went around to different offices and companies, mostly doing word processing, sometimes page layout, or even help desk (during the great DOS to Windows transition).

I had to be able to adjust to lots of different software, working conditions, and, of course, bosses. And do it quickly.

The document from hell

One day, I was called in to work on a big document which the agency described as “the document from hell.” It more than lived up to its name – many, many pages of information, set up in columns rather than a table – every time you added new data, the whole document had to be reformatted – by hand – a mess!).

Hard worker? Or slacker?

Anyway, at one point, my “boss du jour” saw me with a book. She came over, rather angry, and asked, “Are you finished with the document?” No, I said. “Then WHY are you READING?” I held up the book, which was called something like “WordPerfect Reference Guide,” and said, “It’s this, lots of characters, not much plot.” Then, not only appeased, but impressed, she asked if I would come back the next day. I declined.

The danger of assuming

The point of the story is that she saw a book, and decided that I was wasting her time and her money. The truth was, knowing the document was a nightmare, I had brought a reference book to help me work through it. I wasn’t a slacker, I was prepared. If you assume that everyone thinks what you think, or take action without investigating, your marketing is likely to fail.

Test your assumptions before you act

That’s why direct marketers test so much – to see if their assumptions are true. Does the blue call to action button work better? Or the orange one? Which offer gets more sales – the buy one and get one for half price offer, or the buy one, get one free?

Don’t assume. Test.