First Step Marketing

Here is a quick list of pointers to help you create a top-notch performance-measurement feedback system.

Begin with your service strategy

If it’s well designed, you will find a number of measurable premises in it. A company with a ‘zero-defect forty-eight hour turnaround on all orders’ has a strategy that is eminently measurable. Read the rest of this entry »

The most important point to remember when promoting your business is that you should never make a promise that you cannot keep. Although you may make a few quick sales this way, your customers will be dissatisfied when they get less than they expected to get, and as a result, your reputation may suffer. It is a much better idea to under-promise and over-deliver. Read the rest of this entry »

Undoubtedly, the type of business you start will determine the people who will become customers. The first step to reaching customers is to draw up a profile of the kind of client you’d like to attract.

Defining your customer means you can then narrow down your choice of the marketing methods you use. Read the rest of this entry »

Surprise Them with Shipping Costs

Shoppers don’t like surprises. Before you put your customers through your order taking process, let them know what the actual shipped price of their order will be.

You can do this in one of two ways. First, present the customer with the full amount of his order before you ask for his credit card. If you can’t have offer that calculation, then have complete shipping and handling charges listed on your Web store—and make that list easy to find. This is even more critical for your international customers.

If you want to sell to international customers, then you have to let them know it. Give them the international shipping costs before they reach your order form. Read the rest of this entry »

Your Web site is here to serve your customers—not impress them. You job is to design a site and offer a shopping experience that gives consumers a quick, safe, and easy way to purchase something from your Web store.

So before you sit down with your Web consultant, and before your Web designer puts pointer to screen, be sure the 10 ways to drive customers away from your site are avoided.

Confuse Your Customers

That might be funny to you, but treating your customer with no respect will drive him away from your site for sure. And one sure-fire way to drive him away is to confuse him.

Keep your navigation simple. You’re there to sell. Customers are there to buy. Make it easy for them to find your products and buy them. If they can’t find what they want and order it in three mouse clicks, you run the risk of losing them. So, organize your site material logically from the customer’s point of view. Be sure to include clear directions for navigating the site from your home page. Remember that the home page of your Web store serves a variety of functions. It’s a map of your store, a welcome mat, and a marketing message all in one. Read the rest of this entry »

After passing muster, all successful applicants were subjected to the most exacting physical and psychological tests. Tests of physical endurance—how long can you support a column of mercury with one lungful of breath? Tests of mental stability—how long can you endure being locked up in a pitch-black, soundproof “sensory deprivation chamber” with no idea when you will be released? Tests of pain suppression—if we drive a long needle into the big muscle at the base of your thumb and pass an electric current through it, what will you do? Read the rest of this entry »

Because until you do, until you begin to take it seriously, until you give it the earnest attention it demands, your Prototype will continue to be the only thing it could hope to be under the circumstances—a crap shoot!

At GERBER Business Development Corporation, we have created tools for our small business clients to begin the often arduous task of making demographic and psychographic determinations, and how to position their Prototype in the mind of their consumer. The impact has been astonishing.

Small businesses that acted like small businesses when we met them began to operate with intelligence.

Their customers came vividly alive to them, often for the very first time.

Inquiry, the active solicitation of specific information, and controlled experimentation replaced the guessing, blind hope, and feverish busy work that preceded them. Read the rest of this entry »

The question then becomes: If my customer doesn’t know what he wants, how can I?

The answer is, you can’t!

Not unless you know more about him than he does about himself.

Not unless you know his demographics and his psychographics.

Demographics and psychographics are the two essential pillars supporting a successful marketing program.

If you know who your customer is—demographics you can then determine why he buys—psychographics.

And having done so, you can then begin to construct a Prototype to satisfy his unconscious needs, but scientifically rather than arbitrarily. Read the rest of this entry »

The question then becomes: If my customer doesn’t know what he wants, how can I?

The answer is, you can’t!

Not unless you know more about him than he does about himself.

Not unless you know his demographics and his psychographics.

Demographics and psychographics are the two essential pillars supporting a successful marketing program.

If you know who your customer is—demographicsyou can then determine why he buys—psychographics.

And having done so, you can then begin to construct a Prototype to satisfy his unconscious needs, but scientifically rather than arbitrarily. Read the rest of this entry »

Try to visualize your customer.

He’s standing before you.

He’s not frowning; nor is he smiling. He is perfectly neutral. Yet, there’s something strange about him.

Coming out of his forehead, reaching up toward the ceiling, is an antenna! And at the end of the antenna is a sensor, beeping away like crazy.

And the sensor is taking in all of the sensory data around it—the colors, shapes, sounds, and smells of your store, or your office, or the restaurant where you’re meeting for lunch.

The sensor is also taking in sensory data from you: how you are standing or sitting, the color of your hair, how your hair is combed, the expression on your face— Is it tense? Are you looking directly at him or off to the side?—the crease in your slacks, the color of your shoes—Are they shined? Are they worn? Are the laces tied? Read the rest of this entry »