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Replenish
Your Supply of Customers Every Week To calculate how
many new customers you need, take your closing ratio as a guide. If your closing
ratio is two in five, you must replenish your funnel with at least 2.5 new
potential customers each time you close a sale. If you close 50 sales each week, you need to add 125 new potential customers every week. You should approach marketing as if it was a war, using targeted attacks to succeed against your larger competitors. Such an approach makes sense because the number of marketing choices available these days can be a bit overwhelming. With so many options, how do you allocate a limited promotional budget? A systematic approach to marketing is more critical than ever. Step One: Write a Marketing
Plan. Before writing it, do three things:
What should the plan include?
As an example, consider a
hypothetical appliance and electronics company - ABC Home Center. ABC Home Center Marketing Plan: ABC wants to motivate people who are remodeling existing homes or building new ones to take advantage of ABC's custom design, selection and sales services for new Kitchens and Home Theater rooms. We'll do that by stressing our ability to assist customers to plan and execute innovative designs, our dedicated and knowledgeable salespeople, and our high quality products. ABC wants to reach quality conscious males and females, both singles and couples, age 34 to 59, with sufficient discretionary income for projects from $10,000 to $30,000. We will use a wide variety of marketing tools, including the toll-free number, postcard mailings, magazine ads, Cable TV a Web site, printed brochures, newspaper ads, and radio spots; we'll also use articles written for home improvement publications and marketing arrangements with a network of cabinet shops, architects and builders. Our niche: we provide very high quality products with exceptional customer service. As a company, we radiate excitement and conscientiousness, blended with proven expertise in Kitchen and Home Theater design. Because we want to grow our company substantially, in we will invest an aggressive 5% of sales in marketing and will secure 50% participation from our suppliers. Step two: Create a
Marketing Calendar. But it's the fifth column that's key. That's where you sum up the results of the week's marketing by giving yourself a letter grade. Like the marketing plan, there's nothing fancy about this: just choose a grade from A plus to F minus. How do you decide what deserves an A and what deserves a C? The more you know about the way marketing is traditionally measured--for example, a 2-3% return is considered par for the course in direct mail--the better you can set goals and gauge the results. The important thing is to start with assumptions that can be tracked, tested, and modified. Before you make each week's expenditure, ask yourself what results you expect and when you expect them. When that time comes, give yourself a grade based on how close you came to your goals. In the beginning of a marketing program, you'll have to rely on your gut reaction in many cases. However, as time goes by you'll more and more often have hard sales and profit figures to back up your intuition. Step three: Launch the
Attack. Step four: Maintain the
Attack and Track its Effectiveness. How long will it take to know if an attack is effective? After three months, you should have glimmers of insight, and after six months, no doubt. If the results aren't clear after that, the attack has probably faltered.
ABC's Marketing Calendar for a Sample Month
Why Should Anybody Buy From
You? Conclusion You now have some ideas to get
your creative juices flowing and help you sell more. Try the things that are
easiest for you to implement immediately and if they work for you, then try to
adapt some of the others to your business and watch your sales rise! If you can't seem to use any of these items, then call for help. Assistance is readily available to get you on the right track to growing your business!
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