Archive for Buying Behavior

23 Jul 2010
Advertising • Buying Behavior • Direct Mail

Interruption Response Depends on Age

Chart of interruption preferences

Interruption Preferences

Retrovo, a seller of consumer electronics, publishes a report titled, “The Retrevo Gadgetology Report”. They found that almost half (49%) of those under 25 years old did not mind being interrupted during a meal with a text or electronic message, but only 27% of those over 25 felt that way. That means that 73% of those over 25 don’t want to be interrupted during a meal. In general only 33% of those under 25 agree with the statement “I don’t like interruptions” while 62% of those over 25 do.

Clearly, we need to really think about who we are trying to reach as we craft marketing messages and choose communication channels. Direct mail is desired communication, even among younger adults.

| No comments | Tags: , , , ,
06 Jul 2010
Buying Behavior • List • Marketing Strategy

Business to Business Data Management

The Wellesley Hills Group published a study about trends in Lead Generation. They found leads generated by companies fall into one of three categories, 25% were ready to be contacted by a salesperson, 50% of the leads need more “nurturing”, and 25% were not really qualified to be leads.

We want to help you with nurturing your sales leads. Before you can sell your service or product to an organization you will need to educate your customers about what problems you solve, provide some specific information, solidify your reputation, give some specific answers and perhaps tell about a case study.

Direct mail is a great way to communicate some or all of this information because not only will you be guiding your prospects through a stepped process to get them ready for your sales staff, you are also putting something that can be touched and felt into their hands.

| No comments | Tags: , , , ,
21 Jun 2010
Buying Behavior

Empathy Improves Response

The Boston Globe reported that 62% of patients receiving intentionally fake treatment from friendly, empathetic doctors reported relief from their irritable bowel syndrome. This high number compared with 44% of a group that got the same fake treatment from impersonal, businesslike doctors.

Science is confirming that people respond much better to friendliness that demonstrates an understanding of their needs.

How can we help you translate this to your marketing? Do you want to append your customer list to get a better understanding of who they are? Can we help translate what you already know about your customers into new messages?

| No comments | Tags: , , ,
18 Jun 2010
Buying Behavior

Other Ways to Look at Status

A recent briefing from Trendwatching.com listed “Statusphere” as a trend to watch. They defined the term as recognition and respect for fellow consumers who are no longer solely obsessed with owning or experiencing the most and/or the most expensive. Those who stray from the “consuming more” path now have eminence too. It is a recognition that status can also be about acquired skills and knowledge, eco-credentials, generosity or connectivity.

The post stated that “because man’s vanity, ego, his yearning to be recognized, seen, admired, heard, envied and lusted after knows no boundaries, there will always be new ways to help him/her stand out from the herd.”

What can you do to use this for your business?

Who are your customers are trying to impress and how? If you find your brand is still mainly focusing on BIGGER, BETTER, HARDER, but your customers aren’t, then you perhaps you should consider other ways to help your customer gain status from skills, green credentials, generosity and connectivity.

If you already serve a diverse crowd of status seekers, figure out how you can help them to better show off their new status symbols or better tell their status stories. While showcasing, visibility, and stories are used to respond to consumers desires for status with MORE. Helping your customers tell stories or show how they are generous, green, have knowledge, skills and are connected may be the message that gets them to act.

Do you need to tell customers how you can help them have more status in new ways? Something that can be touched and felt, sent directly to your desired audience can tell your story in ways that can’t be told with a screen.

| No comments | Tags: ,
02 Jun 2010
Buying Behavior • List

Loyalty Programs

DMNews reported the efforts of some well know brands to maintain customer loyalty. Retaining customers has taken on renewed focus for many companies recently in an effort to combat reluctance to spend during the recession. Some loyalty programs have become more elaborate and offer more rewards and discounts than in the past.

“Target is looking for ways to make it easier for our guests to find additional savings,” says Target spokeswoman Leah Guimond. “We’re currently testing a new rewards program in select markets that offers guests a percent off all purchases made with their REDcard.”

Best Buy’s Rewards Zone program not only offers more rewards to its most loyal customers, but it focuses on keeping in touch with those consumers. “The rules require that we have a valid way to connect to the customers and we’ve introduced a high-value tier that gets additional benefits,” says Bob Soukup, senior director of loyalty at Best Buy. “This lets us reward those customers who are interested in having a relationship with Best Buy. It also lets us concentrate extra attention on our best customers.”

Hilton, worked on increasing enrollment in its loyalty program by reaching out to a different audience than it did before the recession. Rather than its frequent-traveling, elite customer base, the hotel conglomerate shifted its focus to more casual travelers by “being more active with promotional activity, both added-value discount offerings and loyalty program offerings,” says Jeff Diskin, SVP of brand management and marketing at Hilton. “We want to engage with all travelers primarily through our HHonors [loyalty] program, to facilitate the dialog we can have through different channels when they’re connected to us and be able to drive promotional activity and business where we need it,” Diskin adds. “In the past 15 months, we’ve pretty much had an HHonors-based promotion every quarter. What that’s done is drive enrollment, so now we’re getting the business they’ve booked for the promotion and then using that database for some really directed offerings.”

Brand marketers are also realizing the power of loyalty marketing in driving the bottom line. J&P Cycles, a multichannel retailer of aftermarket motorcycle parts, used the insights it gained from members of its Gold Club loyalty program to adjust prices on “tens of thousands” of its SKUs, says Rich Brecht, senior contact center manager for the company. “As the economy really took a dive, we found a lot of our feedback was coming on shipping charges and price,” Brecht says. “So we lowered the Gold Club shipping minimums, and if a customer didn’t order this product from us today because it was cheaper elsewhere, we started aggressively logging that to adjust prices.”

Marketers without existing loyalty programs are now taking a second look. Printer manufacturer Epson is considering a loyalty program to encourage buying ink direct from the company. Such a program was tested and killed in the past, says Chris Nickel, manager of CRM and direct response marketing for Epson, but momentum has begun to build behind the idea again.

Is there a way that we can help you implement a loyalty program using your existing customer information? Just letting your customers know that you appreciate their business may be the reminder they need to stay loyal to you. A “thank you” card sent in the mail can go a long way.

| No comments | Tags: , , ,
18 May 2010
Buying Behavior • Marketing Strategy

Customer Lifetime Value

BNET recently posted an article titled, “Treat Your Customers Like Lifetime Investments”. They told the story of most retailers having a dismal year, with larger companies laying off employees and closing stores, and a smaller operations shutting down altogether. At the same time, Zane’s Cycles, a Branford, CT bicycle retailer, increased revenue 20 percent. How? Years ago, Zane’s established a service-focused company culture that keeps customers coming to the store in good economic times and bad.  “When we changed from trying to force our customers to buy what we had to creating a relationship with them based on providing them with whatever they needed, then everything changed,” CEO Chris Zane says.

The 29-year-old store sets itself apart from competitors by offering free lifetime service and parts on everything it sells, as well as 90-day price protection. Zane has tracked sales and customer data over a number of years to discover the average customer’s “lifetime value” — the gross revenue he or she will bring in over time. “The lifetime value of a customer [for me] is $12,500,” says Zane. “That gives me $5,625 of profit. My customers are valuable, so I treat them that way.”

How can you turn your customers into lifetime fans? Here are Zane’s tips:

  1. Focus on customer relationships, not one-time transactions. Discounts and sales may lure in one-time buyers, but they won’t keep them coming back. On the other hand, Zane’s policy of giving away anything that costs under a dollar helps create raving fans.
  2. Give your employees permission to do whatever it takes to keep customers satisfied — even if the customer’s request might seem unreasonable. When a customer recently complained that a new bicycle from Zane’s had made a grease mark on the back seat of her car, an employee offered to treat her to free professional detailing. “It becomes a much easier existence for our staff. There’s no worrying if you’ve made the right decision, “  Zane says. “You just do what the customer wants.”
  3. Make every customer interaction fun, informative, and positive. That’s every interaction — even when it’s clear they’re not going to open their wallets that day. Zane’s customers are treated to free coffee and soft drinks and encouraged to linger in the store.
  4. Stand by your products with service and price guarantees. In a lousy economy, that may sound like a recipe for bankruptcy, but Zane says only small numbers of people actually take advantage of the guarantees. And the pay off is customer loyalty and trust.

Have you calculated the lifetime value of your customers? Can we help you create a strategy to make your customers feel appreciated?

| One comment | Tags: , , ,
14 May 2010
Buying Behavior • Direct Mail

Seventy Six

Seventy six is a pretty big number. That is the percentage of internet users who were directly influenced to buy an item or service thanks to direct mail. This fact appeared in the March 2010 issue of Deliver Magazine and they stated the source as a Channel Preference Study from Exact Target.

| No comments | Tags: ,
15 Mar 2010
Buying Behavior • Marketing Strategy

Feature the Flaw

Scott Anthony recently wrote a post for the Harvard Business Review on disruptive innovation.

Turning a flaw into a feature is a time honored tradition in the software industry. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature” dates back at least to the mid-’80s. Turning bugs into features is also a critical skill of the would-be disruptive innovator.

The heart of disruptive innovation is the intentional trade-off — sacrificing raw performance in the name of simplicity, convenience, or affordability. The trick is finding the customer who embraces this trade-off because they consider existing solutions to be too expensive or too complicated.

In other words, disruption is almost always a strategic choice. Companies with a would-be disruption on their hands have to carefully consider their target customer.

Consider, for example, what would have happened if Procter & Gamble had tried to sell its Swiffer line of quick cleaning products to people obsessed with deep cleaning. Those consumers would have looked at a product designed to clean without sweating as inferior. In fact, Swiffer initially struggled in markets like Italy where consumers considered sweating an integral part of the cleaning process!

Instead, P&G sought customers who embraced simplicity, because often their choice wasn’t a deep clean or a quick clean, it was a quick clean or no clean at all. The “flaw” of light cleaning was a “feature” to the simplicity seekers.

Featuring the flaw often requires looking at markets in new ways and finding seemingly invisible customers. Some simple questions to use to guide thinking include:

  • What are the competitive alternatives to your idea?
  • Where are you better?
  • Where are you worse?
  • Are there people who consider existing alternatives out of reach?
  • Are there circumstances where using existing alternatives problematic?

The next time someone tells you to a fix a potential flaw in your idea, flip the problem on its head by seeking a customer that would consider the flaw a feature. Does this spark any ideas for your marketing? Is there something about your product or service that you can turn into a great feature?

| No comments | Tags: , , , ,
08 Mar 2010
Business • Buying Behavior

More For Less For More

In an interesting Harvard Business Review post by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja, the authors discuss an emerging trend. More for Less for More (M4L4M) is a strategy that places an emphasis on delivering more value for less cost for more people.

More for More, the current approach taken by many Western firms, charges customers a hefty premium for often over-engineered products. Less for More is China’s low-cost strategy of creating stripped down products that cost less and manufacturing them on a large scale for global markets. Unlike these two approaches, M4L4M offers firms a new way to reconcile multiple, seemingly contradictory financial equations: deliver more experiential value to customers while simultaneously reducing the cost and delivering that value to a greater number of people.

Entrepreneurs are learning to extract more value from limited resources. They are embracing creative mindsets practiced by resource-constraints to invent affordable and sustainable solutions that deliver more value to more people at less cost. As a forward-thinking business leader, what can you redesign within your organization to deliver more value at less cost for more customers? What are you doing to meet the needs of increasingly frugal but demanding customers in a world of scarcity?

How about marketing? Are there new ways to communicate more for less for more? This is another time to consider direct mail.

| No comments | Tags: , ,
02 Mar 2010
Buying Behavior

Brand Experience Matters to Consumers More Than Loyalty Clubs

In a recent message from the Harvard Business Review’s Daily Stat, some 52% of people in a survey said their memberships in loyalty clubs (from credit cards, banks, and other companies) influence their buying decisions; but 54% said they’d give up their memberships if they had a negative product or service experience with a brand, according to the Chief Marketing Officer Council. The average U.S. household is enrolled in 14 loyalty and rewards programs.

Can we help you strengthen your ties with your customers? Is there a way that we can help you strengthen your brand?

| 8 comments | Tags: , , ,
« Older Entries   Recent Entries »