5 Steps to Attracting Customers During a Recession

With fragmented markets, consumer loyalty at an all time low, along with economic uncertainty, relationship marketing cannot be overlooked. If you want to attract customers in bad times (and keep them for the good times), humanizing the marketing experience is required. This is a huge pillar in the new marketing philsophy - not to mention excellent brand building.

1. Offer your customer/prospect an incentive to volunteer - that is find ways to have your customer raise their hand when they are interested in buying something from you. This incentive can be a prize, reward points, a promise for free (unique) info. Whatever it is, make sure your offering has an emotional bonus that is easily idenfiable.

2. Provide a Curriculum - with the attention offered by a prospect, you need to build a teaching tool that over time, educates the consumer about your product or service. In short, the prospect feels motivated to return to you due to the freshness (and relevances) of the content. This is known as the drip, drip method - offering differnt types of chocolate each time instead of a chocolate box all at once (where's the surprise in that?)

3. Use Reinforcement - ensure that your incentive is communicated at each stage to maintain permission and open lines of communication. Readers of this blog will know that coming back frequently, leads to one being well educated in new marketing techniques.

4. Offer additional Incentives - to get even more permission from the consumer. Say you have an email inquiry from a prospect but no phone #. "I can come over today for that consultation, if you can provide me with your phone # and address" could be your response. You benefit with increased information about your prospect (where they leave, how serious they are), and the time conscious prospect gets preferred (customized) treatment. Treating people differently is the key to making customers feel special.

5. Leverage the relationship - Over time use the permission given to change the customer's behaviours towards profits. This can be where you close a sale, offer additional products/services that are relevant, or just maintaining consistent communication letting your customer know you care about them.

Notice how the word permission is used a lot in the steps. What I am referring to here is permissive marketing. Instead of interrupting your customers with cold calls, traditional ads, or useless direct mail or email campaigns, create extraordinary content that makes the customer find you and feel motivated to contact you, for more information.

Attracting and retaining customers is a lot like dating. Just because we're entering bad economic times, doesn't mean people want to stop being cared about.