“As a Raleigh citizen, I am excited to be a part of this task force. I’m proud that our city leaders see the need for this project and thankful for an opportunity to be a part of this important project,” said Tippett.

“More than a Fling” Seminar

by Will Hardison

Let’s say you take a lovely girl out on a date, you have a great time, everything went well, and you’d love to see this girl again. But you start to think to yourself, should I call her? But when? Tomorrow? Is that too soon? What if I wait too long and she goes on a date with another guy and falls madly in love? I will have missed my chance. If you call too soon, you risk looking too eager and desperate. Nowadays people text, so do you send a quick text saying “Had a great time tonight” just to let her know you’re thinking about her? So many variables and decisions to make! I’ll be honest with you, it’s a lot easier to figure out your retention marketing plan than it is to take a girl out for the first time.

 So let’s discuss Retention Marketing today instead of dating since it’s a lot easier!

 Let’s look at some facts…

• Many studies have shown that it costs six times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one, and that it’s 16 times easier to sell to an existing customer than to a new one.
• Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers.
• Referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers.

What’s our biggest excuse when it comes to marketing (other than money)?

TIME! People say that they don’t have time for marketing, they don’t have time to play on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites. They don’t have the time to send out an e-mail newsletter every week or write blog posts every other day. We’re going to discuss some tools and ideas that will help you save some time while staying in front of potential and current customers.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY!

What is a CRM?

 CRM: a Customer Relationship Management tool that allows you to easily manage your relationships with customers. A good CRM will allow you to do the following:

1. Upload all of your contacts
2. Send targeted messaging
3. Create custom data fields for contacts – For example, is you own a wine shop, keep track of which customers prefer red or white
4. Create custom reports on available data – i.e. “females who like red wine”
5. Sort contacts into groups – red group, white group – send targeted email to those groups
6. Create contact forms for your website – If you’re an event planner, you could put a form on a “Get a party quote” page and gather information such as where, when, how many people, etc. This submission will drop into your CRM as a lead. This will help you track your leads and will serve as a reminder to follow up with those leads.
7. Email marketing – create and send custom emails
8. Analytics – Receive reporting on email campaigns that have been sent; open rate, who opened it, and what they clicked on.

Setting up an email marketing “drip or triggering campaign” using your CRM

A drip or triggering campaign is a communication strategy that sends or “drips” pre-written messages, generally through email. Some refer to drip campaigns as triggered campaigns since an action, like signing up for a 12-week series on how to pick out the proper wine triggers the start of that series.

This is an awesome way to stay in front of customers without staying in front of your computer.

Take a Sunday afternoon and write out all of your drip campaign materials. If you’re going to write a 12-week series on picking out the proper wine, you’ll need to write out 12 messages. The beauty of this type of campaign is that you’ll now have a sales funnel out there working for you 24/7. If I sign up for the 12 week series today, I’ll get the first one today, the next one a week from now, and so on and so forth for 12 weeks. If Jeff signs up 3 weeks later, he’s on a different cycle than I am, but yet you’re staying in front of us both without having to actually keep up with both of us.

Twitter Tricks

Most people think it take a lot of time to manage and watch twitter. It actually doesn’t take much time at all, if done correctly. Here are a few helpful tips and tricks to help you stay in front of those that matter:

Use a system like hootsuite.com. Don’t manage twitter just through twitter.com. Hootsuite allows you to manage all of your accounts, and feeds through one simple dashboard. It is a HUGE time saver.

1. Create Lists
Twitter allows you to create lists, basically a sub group of the people you follow that have something in common. What’s great is that the user gets a notification that they have been added to a list. So, if you know that I am a frequent customer, add me to your “valued customer” list. I’ll get a notifaction that XYZ Men’s Botique just added you to their “Valued Customer” list. Talk about a good way to easily say “thank you, we value your business.” Now you can keep up with my tweets a little easier. Especially if you use a system like Hootsuite. In hootsuite you can create a feed based on a list. So you can see an entire column of what your valued customers are talking about. This allows you to jump in and engage with them on various topics.

2. Save Searches
Twitter search is a pretty powerful tool. Most people don’t know that you can save twitter searches into a new feed. For example, if I want to know everyone who tweets “Red Bicycle,” I can save that search and I can watch every single person mention Red Bicycle. Now, let’s take this a step further. If people check into your business with Foursquare and post it to twitter, you can save a search to watch for this. This allows you to easily find people online who are coming into your business. How about a quick “Thank you for coming in today!” tweet? You’ll blow them away that you actually noticed they were in your shop/restaurant/business.

Learning how to please – excellent customer service:

Let’s touch on two of the facts up top: Referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers and poor customer service accounts for 70% of customer loss.

How many people here have done business with someone based on a referral? Bob did a great job cleaning out the gutters for Suzy so you just had to use Bob.

The biggest thing you can do to ensure a long lasting business, is to do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’ll do it, and for the price you said you’d do it for.

You don’t refer the Bob’s of the world who left your yard a mess, showed up 30 minutes late, and took 2 extra hours to do the work do you?

Imagine if you can build this network of customers who rant and rave about your products or services online in front of all of their friends and followers? That could become a pretty powerful marketing tool. Just between Jeff and I, we have over 17,000 people that follow us on twitter. Now imagine the damage that the opposite can do. What if you have poor service or someone in your business was rude to the customer? They say that twice as many people share a bad experience over a good experience.

Lost Love: Take care of lost sheep

This is especially true if you have a seasonal business. I’m going to throw my cousins under the bus here. They own a mulch and stone company in Fuquay. I have told them time and time again to set up a trigger campaign for people who buy mulch from them. Basically when someone purchases mulch, they can go into the CRM and add that person to the trigger campaign. This could trigger two simple e-mails. 1. A thank you e-mail for their purchase that is sent immediately. You could also put ways in which the customer can stay updated; “Follow us on twitter, like us on facebook” 2. In 330 days a reminder email that it’s time to buy mulch again. If they come in this week it’s ½ off delivery or some sort of promo. They haven’t set this up yet, and they ask me every year how can they make sure their people come back.

1-800 Contacts does a great job of this. If you order 90 days worth of contacts, you’ll start getting emails 60 days in “Save 10% by reordering your contacts now” “Don’t wait until it’s too late” “Hey you, you’ll be blind next week if you don’t order today!”

Sending out birthday and anniversary notes is a great way to get lost sheep back in the door. This is also simple to set up with a good CRM system.

Make yourself available

Make it EASY for your customers to connect with you:

1. Email Signature
Put all of the ways someone can connect with you and your business in your email signature. If you own a retail shop/restaurant, put “follow us on twitter @willsrestautant, like us on facebook –facebook.com/willsrestaurant” at the bottom of every receipt.

2. Encourage people to tweet, comment, and share your company.
Why do you think a lot of customer service is ran through twitter? It’s a marketing tool. If I tweet to @quickbooks with a question, all of my followers now see that @quickbooks has a twitter account. It’s all about getting your customers to promote your brand without them really thinking that they are.

3. Run a contest
Encourage people to check in on foursquare, use a certain hashtag, and post it to twitter. At the end of the week, pick a random winner and give them a gift certificate. I have a friend who owns a dozen restaurants in Indiana, he runs this contest every week. Thousands of people check in, use the contest hashtag “ILoveSBH,” and post to twitter. Do you know how much marketing that is for him for a $25 giftcard every week?

You can use the saved search to monitor this, and if you don’t think you have time – this guy owns a dozen restaurants, has a family, networks in the community, and has over 17,000 followers that promote his brand night and day.

4. Newsletters
GIVE ME A REASON TO SIGN UP. Don’t just call it a newsletter signup. Get creative – “Style tips from our boutique” “Weekly wine reviews.” Tell them they are going to get valuable information.

5. List your availablity on your website.
Include: Contact information and location on every page, contact form or direct email address, social media buttons

Building a strategy to get started small

So where do you get started? With all of these great ideas about using a CRM, drip campaigns, Social Media, special events, etc. etc. where on earth do you begin. In my opinion, you start by focusing on 1 avenue. If you’re going to build a solid email marketing campaign – you start there and focus on that. And you start by simply tightening up your ask. I said “ask” – and this means when someone comes to your shop or business – simply ask them, “may we add you to our monthly newsletter that is filled with useful information about XYZ”

My advice is carve out 20-30 minutes a day to focus on a retention marketing plan.

IF YOU AREN’T GOING TO COMMIT AND MASTER IT, DON’T GET ON IT. FIND SOMEONE TO HELP YOU! We hire for just about everything else in our lives, why not hire someone to help with marketing?

GENERAL IDEAS:

Open Houses and Special Events as customer appreciation time are a great way to get customers back in the door. – Realtor example – Colts Stadium tour and bring a friend

Direct Mail is not dead if done well – Hand written thank you notes, or invites to special events. I’m going to open something in the mail if it looks like a wedding invitation. I’m probably going to glance then toss a postcard that says “SALE”

Eventbrite for events registration: saves attendee list for future correspondence and events – If you do special events, use a system like eventbrite.com to register guests so that way next time you have an event you can send invites to those who came the first time.

“The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association is the oldest merchant association in Raleigh, and I’m thankful to all that preceded me in building this prestigious organization, ” Jeff stated after begin voted as VP of the GRMA. “Through the Shop Local Raleigh brand I look forward to helping local businesses grow and expand. I’m honored to be a part of this great organization.”

Jennifer B. Martin, Executive Director Shop Local Raleigh/Greater Raleigh Merchants Association said, “Jeff Tippett is a strong addition to the Executive Committee and will be a great addition for our business community.  Jeff is pro-business like the rest of our group and we are excited to see what the board will achieve for the business community in 2013.”

For more information on the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association and the Board of Directors, visit: grma.org

Our intern, Reshmi Vadakel, discusses her good and bad experiences with customer service, and discusses tips to help businesses become more customer centric.

We’re in a fight

On a recent business trip out to Seattle, I arrived at the airport only to find that my flight was cancelled due to inclement weather. I was sure that Airline A, who I’ll be kind to and keep anonymous, would work to get me there one way or another. The employees behind the ticket counter knew that my premier status signaled I was a frequent flyer, a.k.a. a most valued customer, and therefore ought to take special care to accommodate me and my situation, right?

Let’s just say that the employee effort fell far short of stellar. I was given a travel voucher for a meal; left with no recourse but to turn back home and miss my meeting in Seattle. As I left the counter in disbelief, I ran into a friend of mine and recounted what had just happened. Clearly, a much more savvy flyer, he told me that airlines have the power to purchase seats for travelers on other airlines in extenuating circumstances. He pulled out some nifty app on his phone and showed me there were available flights on Continental Airlines.

With my friend’s advice ringing in my ears I decided I was going to make one last ditch effort and try something completely insane. I walked up to the Continental Airline ticket counter and started to explain my situation, keeping in mind they had no vested interest. The conversation began something like, “this is going to sound crazy, but…” Twenty minutes later I was boarding their next flight out to Seattle and Airline A had lost me, my loyalty and most importantly my money for good.

What seems to be the problem?

The business concept I’ve come to appreciate is that of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In the story above, Airline A has lost out on the future value of having me as a customer after one bad service experience. Imagine multiplying my situation and extending the experience to other customers, it would definitely start to impact the bottom line of the company. Specifically in the airline industry today, differentiation is often times solely based on price, which makes it all the more important that proper attention and effort is placed on customer retention and satisfaction, especially when it comes to those most valued customers who are locked into loyalty programs such as myself.

Do we need to take this online?

To make things more complicated, the digital age means that in today’s uber-connected world – everyone has a voice. People are quick use their preferred social outlet, be it Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, etc. to review good and bad experiences and get the word out to friends and the general public.

When was the last time you decided to try a new service or product without first checking a customer review? Do you tend to write about only good reviews or bad ones? This makes it all the more important that every interaction with the customer is nothing short of perfect.

Today, you’ll find that many companies that boast about customer centricity have augmented the use of customer satisfaction surveys with a measure called the Net Promoter Score (NPS). In short, the NPS is a customer loyalty metric that measures the likelihood that a customer would recommend a product or service to another person. Good companies obsess about their NPS score because they understand the earlier concept of CLV.

Kiss and make up

Once you’ve gotten your existing marketing strategies returning their initial investment and getting people in the door you have to make some decisions on how to keep them coming back.

Here are a few tips to help businesses become more customer centric:

• Think about creating a loyalty program designed to reward and recognize your customers for repeat business. This can be through a membership email newsletter or specialized offers.

• Train your employees properly on understanding the concept of CLV and empower them to find creative solutions. If employees feel incentivized to go the extra mile in every customer interaction, it will benefit not only your business, but also perhaps their paychecks (read: bonus).

When things go wrong, (because they most certainly will) it’s okay to admit fault and commit everything to make it right. Customers will respect you for owning your mistakes. Heck, they may even give you a second chance and tell others about your outstanding customer service.

Calvert Creative can help you with your customer retention strategies. From email marketing and direct mail campaigns to PR and marketing consultations, we have the experience and knowledge you need to not only bring in more customers and leads, but keep them coming back for more.

Do you have any good or bad experiences with customer service that you would like to share? We would love to hear from you!

“Shop Local Raleigh businesses represent a significant share of business opportunities in the Greater Raleigh area,” said Tippett. “We anticipate making strides in connecting more of these businesses to each other in the coming months. We also are making an intentional effort to engage startups with existing local businesses. I believe there could be a win/win situation as the two groups connect.”

As chair of the Business-2-Business Committee, Jeff Tippett will oversee the goals and guarantee their completion while working closely with local businesses, Shop Local Raleigh, and the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association.

For more information on Shop Local Raleigh and the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, visit

http://shoplocalraleigh.org/

http://grma.org/

DECA Inc. is not-for-profit student organization with members in all 50 United States, the District of Columbia, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.

“I look forward to judging this year’s DECA marketing contest,” said Tippett. “I’m excited to see entries up significantly this year. I’m excited to see what these bright minds will be bringing to the table.”

To learn more about DECA, visit http://www.deca.org/

Duties and responsibilities of board members include developing and approving Chamber objectives, approval of an annual budget, working with the officers, vice chairman, and staff, providing personal leadership, and more.

“I’m honored the Raleigh Chamber selected me to serve on the Board of Directors,” said Tippett. “Our Chamber drives so many vital aspects of business within the Raleigh Metro area. I look forward to contributing to our great community.”

For more information on the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, visit

http://www.raleighchamber.org/

*UPDATE: CHANGE OF DATE!*

Date: Thursday, January 31, 2013
Time: 11:30AM – 1PM
Location: Zinda Raleigh | View Map
Cost: $15.00 (Lunch from Zinda’s included)
Register today!

Studies show that acquiring a new customer costs 6-7 times more than retaining a customer. Customer retention makes sense to increase long run profitability for any business. After a surge in new costumers, especially around the holidays, efforts to retain customers make even more sense. But how do you hold on to customers? Like any other relationship, it requires effort.

Calvert Creative, in association with Shop Local Raleigh, will be uncovering these secrets for you at our next lunch and learn seminar, “More than a Fling”. Don’t miss this interactive seminar and the invaluable tips we’ll be presenting. Lunch from Zinda is included!

This event will be hosted by Jeff Tippett, Director of Calvert Creative, and Will Hardison of Fanbase, a web design and internet marketing firm. You can expect the following customer retention topics to be addressed by our speakers:

• Regular Communication: using tools like a CRM, email marketing, Twitter, Facebook
• Learning How to Please: poor customer service accounts for 70% of customer loss.
• Lost Love: reaching out to those who haven’t purchased in a while
• Making Yourself Available: making sure customers can easily find your information online, including a newsletter signup, Facebook page and other social media accounts, hours of business, location, etc.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jeff Tippett, Director of Calvert Creative (twitter: @jefftippett)
Jeff’s passion is helping business owners realize their dreams. He likes to find the need, develop a strategy to meet the need, implement the strategy, and then refine as necessary. As the Director of Calvert Creative, a full service-marketing agency, he’s helped startups and established businesses reach their business goals by helping them cultivate their brand through websites, print collateral, social media, and more.

Will Hardison, President of Fanbase (twitter: @willhardison)
Will is a graduate of East Carolina University and recent transplant from Indianapolis, IN. He is the owner of FanBase, an energetic and dependable web design and Internet marketing firm located in Raleigh. FanBase is comprised of two divisions: custom websites built on wordpress and a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool built in-house to help companies manage and grow their customer database.

Register today for this exciting and informative event, and get ready to embrace meaningful, long-lasting, and profitable relationships with your customers.

Jeff is joined by several other public relations and marketing professionals. He’ll be featured in Session 3 of the morning program, which will be held from 9:45-11:15am. Session 3 is entitled “Using Social Media to Reach Philanthropic Goals.” Specifically, Jeff will speak about involving your company in the community beyond volunteerism, creating initiatives that connects with your company’s identity, and positioning the initiative to be mutually beneficial for the community and business.

Jeff Tippett, on speaking at the seminar, said, “I’m honored that my presentation was accepted for this prestigious event. I look forward to leading a conversation on social cause marketing with attendees.”

For more information on the Public Relations and Marketing Seminar, visit http://ncprsa.org/meetinginfo.php?id=12&ts=1345046337

This was not an event put on by NASA, but by a company that has cornered the energy drink and extreme sports markets.

Red Bull, created in 1987, is arguably the most popular energy drink in the world with 4.6 billion cans sold in 2011 (according to Red Bull’s Wikipedia page). They market their product heavily through special events like the Red Bull Air Race and through sports team ownerships, like Red Bull Racing.

Now this same company has developed a scientific arm, Red Bull Stratos, that “seeks to advance scientific discoveries in aerospace for the benefit of mankind.”

Though the return on investment is difficult to measure from such a sponsorship (though some have estimated it could have increased Red Bull’s brand reach by ten million dollars), what’s clear is that Red Bull has elevated their brand. An estimated 8 million people watched the live jump. The Red Bull Stratos Facebook page has 779k likes and it’s Twitter account has 241,320 followers. That’s a lot of eyeballs on their brand, and a large pool of potential customers.

Let’s have a look at how Red Bull is putting sponsorship to good use, and the valuable lessons that your company can learn from this marketing strategy.

It reinforces their brand

Red Bull has long been in the game of marketing to extreme sports enthusiasts, a strategy that helps to set them apart from their competitors. Though the awe-inspiring images of Baumgartner’s jump and the startling facts (he broke the sound barrier!) caught the world’s attention, no one will think of the Red Bull Stratos jump without thinking of Red Bull. This marketing event lends credence to what Red Bull claims to do, which is to “give you wings.”

It provides value

To pull off this stunt, Red Bull compiled a team of scientists and engineers to create technological advances in space exploration. Baumgartner wore a specially designed suit that helped protect him in the hostile atmosphere of the stratosphere. Emergency protocols for the exposure to high altitude and acceleration were developed. The effects of supersonic acceleration and deceleration on the human body were observed and studied. There were also innovations made to the parachute system.

These advances will prove useful in future space exploration and technology. Red Bull not only gave the world something cool, it also gave us something we can use. When considering a high profile sponsorship, consider how it helps the world or your community, like donating proceeds to charity. Potential consumers of your product will recognize the value you’re providing, and be appreciative.

It’s awesome

In a world full of stimuli, competing for attention can be cutthroat. One way to attract an audience is to provide a story, a hook to keep them compelled. Red Bull Stratos documented the space jump from the training, to the launch, the ascent, and the jump, and streamed it live over the internet for the world to see. As a result, Twitter and Facebook exploded with talk of the space jump, providing the best marketing money can’t buy, word of mouth. Some weeks later, people are still talking about the Red Bull Stratos, and the video of the jump will make for valuable marketing collateral in the future.

Baumgartner’s jump was amazing and has us all buzzing, but you don’t have to fund breakthroughs in space technology to get your company’s name out there. Sponsor local events in your community. Seek out opportunities of product placement where available. Whether your next sponsorship is large or small, remember these lessons learned from Red Bull; make sure it reinforces your brand, adds value to your community or society, and, always, keep it awesome.