Not following up is one of the biggest marketing sins you can commit. Here are some statistics which should scare the living daylights out of all of us!!!

48% of businesses never follow up with a prospect
25% of businesses make a second contact and stop
12% of businesses only make three contacts and stop
It’s a staggering discovery, but only 10 % of businesses make more than three contacts. It means they’re losing a small fortune – and you could be too.

Because…

2% of sales are made on the first contact
3% of sales are made on the second contact
5% of sales are made on the third contact
10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

So if you’re like almost half of all businesses and make no more than one follow-up to your prospects… you’re leaving 98% of your income on the table for someone else to come along and pick up!!!

Why not get in touch with Bath Marketing Consultancy to see what we suggest?

Any mailings you consider will fall into two categories: The first is mailings to your existing customers. The second is mailings to potential new customers.

If you do not currently do much direct mail – and you have a list of past customers, you should start by mailing these existing customers. Think of something you can offer these customers, send them a letter and measure the response. If it works, mail them again next month and measure the results. If it keeps on working, keep on doing it!

Then there is using Direct Mail to attract new customers. This is an art and science in itself – and you may want to bring in outside help – but again there are some fundamentals which you will want to follow. Here are eight of them to keep you going:

1 Remember to Test any Direct Mail campaigns for new customers on a small scale before rolling them out.

2 Consider testing renting mailing lists relevant to your target group. There are thousands of highly accurate mailing lists which can be a great way of reaching new people.

3 Always include a letter with any brochure you send – it will increase the response rate.

4 Make sure that the contents of your mailing focus on the benefits of your product or service. You want it to be about your potential customer and what you can do for them rather than just being about you.

5 Don’t limit Direct Mail to pure selling. You can use it to say ‘thank you’ to customers. You can use it to ask for referrals or to introduce your customers to a company you’ve partnered with. It’s only limited by your imagination.

6 If you repeat a successful mailing three weeks later you can expect a response rate around 50% of the original

7 Test mailing postcards – they are cheaper than a normal mailing and in some cases will produce a higher response rate

8 If you follow up a mailing with a phone call you can increase the response rate by up to 1000%

Growth in online spending in 2008 represented a considerable outperformance of the increase in total retail and in 2009 it is forecast to grow by 13.3%, despite the overall retail market shrinking by £1.7bn. But with growth slowing, retailers must work harder to stand out.

The AB shopping demographic offers retailers the most potential over the next two years .This group is now responsible for over half of all online spending.
Indeed, with their more robust finances, they achieved by far the biggest growth in 2008 and were the only group to increase spend per head – which now stands at over £1,000 per person.

There is major scope for women to spend more online – don’t we know it gents!
However, it is Men, surprising enough, that are the biggest online spenders, but the gender split of Internet shopper numbers continues to move towards parity.
Retailers must now persuade women to spend more per head online rather than the more traditional shopping activity that they currently undertake; perusing in person.

Maybe comparing online shopping habits of both genders shows men are happier to find what they want online and buy it rather than physically going to a shop. For example, in music and video, men now only narrowly outnumber women, but are still responsible for 70.6% of spend.

Bath Marketing Consultancy suggests that retailers learn how to manage their approach to utilising their websites in terms of the design, usability, delivery operations, online marketing etc in order to maximise Internet sales growth.

…….a question I was asked this morning.

Whilst surfing, I stumbled across this article from Darren Jamieson:

‘YouTube is all set to get the same marketing analysis tool that is used by the Google search engine. When YouTube is integrated with Google Analytics, marketers will be able to track their video and viral campaigns with more accuracy.

Google Analytics will greatly help the marketing department to check how many repeated visits they get, how long do the visitors stay, the number of pages viewed by individual visitors and bounce rate of online videos.

YouTube product manager, Zal Bilimoria said that YouTube is the largest focus group in the world. It is also a brand channel having a strong following that can provide remarkable insights into the customers who interact with your brand and your content. He also added that the company is working hard to incorporate the Google Analytics software. He also expects that the new tools will help the users to understand their target viewers in a better way.

According to a recent report, the BBC is in talks with YouTube for expanding their online offering. Once this deal is done, you will be able to view full-length shows like Doctor Who and Top Gear. Google Analytics can help marketers learn more about their visitors and the way in which they interact with their videos.’

At Bath Marketing Consultancy, we are passionate about online marketing and this is just another step that allows companies to really tailor their marketing efforts to their chosen audience.

There are hundreds of great marketing strategies for getting new customers. But before that, you need to nurture your relationships with your existing customers.

Become an expert at Internet Marketing; use Pay per Click Advertising. Google has upwards of 95% of the market and running ‘Pay per Click’ is the most powerful breakthrough in Marketing this century – yet very few businesses and business owners truly understand its power in the marketing process.

PPC allows you to reach people who have an interest in what you have (or what you do) and who are actually looking for it right now. As you read this, someone, somewhere is almost certainly on Google looking for what you have to offer.

PPC Advertising allows a link to your website to appear at or near the top of the search engine results they see when they do their search hence driving traffic to your website.

With PPC, the best part of it all is that you only pay Google when someone actually clicks on your advert. If you run a local business, you can even specify that the ads only appear for internet users in your area.

In our view, Pay per Click is the most important revolution in marketing this century and if you are serious about achieving business success, you must contact us and test it out!

Bath Marketing Consultancy have put a proposal to a local prospect in the Bristol area who have turned to us for help with their marketing. This excellent IT support company has identified the need to be more visible via search engines and as well as keep their existing clients up to date with their new products and services such as hosting.