When asked why he robbed banks, bankrobber Willie Sutton is reputed to have said, “because that’s where the money is.” In terms of smart marketing, Sutton couldn’t have been more right. Are you concentrating your efforts where the best customers are?

When many business owners and marketing professionals think of expanding their business, they think of more: more customers, more mailings, more ads. And while this approach may yield results, we recommend another approach: better.

The better approach looks at ways to make your marketing more effective, not just bigger. In fact, a better approach might actually scale back your current efforts, but yield greater sales and profits.
As an example, let’s take a traditional direct mail campaign. The average response rate for direct mail is close to 1%.

Depending on what you are selling, a response may not be a sale; it can be an inquiry, a request for a quote or simply the opportunity for an appointment. If you need to increase the number of responses you receive, you would increase the number of mailers you send out, further increasing postage, printing and handling costs.

With the better approach, you would look at increasing your response rate. Simple questions to ask include: who are your most likely customers? Which types of customers need your services or products most?

By identifying what your ideal customer looks like, you can refine your list to go after the best types of prospects, thereby getting a higher response rate, or more sales and profits, per response.

Another way to market better is target your message more precisely. Would you speak differently to an existing customer versus a new prospect? You probably would. Is your direct mail the same message for every one? Without complicated analysis, you can cost-effective develop direct mail pieces that speak directly to each audience you serve. The better the message, the higher the response rate.

What about selling more to current customers? Too often businesses overlook the opportunity to sell more products and services to existing customers, while focusing in on getting new customers. Current customers already know you and understand your business. Getting them to buy more is oftentimes less expensive and easier to recruiting new customers.

Better marketing just makes financial sense. As an example, if you are spending $50 in printing and postage costs to get one response, do more of the same, and your per response costs stays the same. With better marketing, the same $50 can yield more responses, or get you more profit out of every response. Either way, less is more. You can control costs and maintain your current level of sales, or spend a little more and dramatically increase results.

360 Business consulting can help with retaining your customers and growing sales. Contact us for a no-risk, no-cost consultation.

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