Today we have a guest blog from Elizabeth Andreini:
The easiest companies you’ll ever
market (& sell) to are…your customers
of course! But yet that seems to always be the group that gets the least
attention by marketing (and sales). Don’t make that mistake!
Not too long ago I found myself at
a company that was suddenly agitated because their customer retention rate unexpectedly
dropped by almost 10% in a single year. Customer subscription revenue was a
significant part of their total revenue, and actually had more impact than new
customer revenue, so the impact to the bottomline was significant. The company
hadn’t been paying attention and consistently marketing to their customers
because they had been so busy chasing new business. Once the revenue started to
drop it took them a while to respond, and by that time the damage was done.
While they couldn’t have saved all those customers, neglect had taken its toll.
An unfortunate story and a hard
lesson learned.
Once this company started to look
at their customer base more thoroughly, the other lesson the company learned
was that it was not selling new products and services to their customers, many
of whom didn’t even know about other solutions available to purchase. The
business was not only losing current revenue, they were leaving new revenue on
the table! While retaining your customers is important, what is often even more
frequently overlooked is that these same customers are the most fertile ground
for new sales.
Your company may not be in that
same situation, but are you doing the best job you could to stay in touch with your
customer base and consistently market to your customers? Chasing new customers
or market segments while neglecting your customer base, leaves your customers
unappreciated and makes it easier for your competitors to acquire them.
So focus on chasing after current
customers! Market to them! Make keeping your customer base informed about all current
and new products and services a priority. Invest time and energize your
customer base and you may find they actually help you sell new customers too!
As
the CEO, five questions you should ask your marketing (and sales) departments:
1.
What is our customer retention rate and how could we improve
it?
2.
How much time and resources is our company spending marketing
to our customer base compared to chasing new customers and new markets?
3.
How are we keeping our customers informed about new product
and services offerings, and are marketing and sales working together to
encourage purchase?
4.
How can we help our customers be better evangelists for our
products and services?
5.
What else do our customers need that it would make sense for
us to provide them?
ELIZABETH ANDREINI
As the President of Accelerate Marketing, LLC,
Elizabeth Andreini, is the “secret weapon” CEOs turn to at key growth points
when they need to transform marketing and product management to grow their
customer base, increase revenue & scale their business. In addition to
providing experienced executive insight and strategic guidance, Elizabeth often
works as an interim CMO or VP to provide the hands-on leadership needed to rearchitect
marketing and product management and improve execution from the inside.
Elizabeth
Andreini, founder & president of Accelerate Marketing, LLC
Accelerate
Marketing, LLC
206-769-3420
or elizabeth@accelerate-marketing.com
Twitter:
@acceler8mkting
LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethandreini
We are a Grow50™ member firm.
