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Marketing To People Who Are Already Your Customers
Posted By: dani.obrien* on 10/6/2006 2:14 PM (CST) 250 Points
I am involoved in b2b marketing and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on the best ways to advertise to existing customers. Most of the marketing I have done has been more lead generation and new customer related. I would like to get some of our existing customers to buy some of our products they arent already buying and was wondering what marketing tactics work best for this. Thanks

Posted by: david reich Accepted Answer
10/6/2006 2:37 PM (CST)
Since you already have a relationship with your customers, you can use "gentle persuasion" to show them how they can make money/solve problems by purchasing other items you offer. In some cases, they simply have not thought about it.

One idea is to write a brief and informative case history, showing how one of your customers found a solution or a new revenue producer using a product you sell. If you sell building supplies, for example, a case history of how a contractor saved time or money by including something you supply can spark anidea in the mind of another customer.

Case histories can be sent periodically with your invoiuces, or could be a separate mailing, along with a brief letter from your president. Email is a good option as well.

Key is, though, these pieces should be brief and not too blatantly self-serving. Write them almost as if they might be appearing in a trade magazine your customers read.

Speaking of which, trade publicity using case histories is always a good way to generate leads. But you can also reprint them and use them as a mailing to existing customers, with a note saying "here's another way our products can work for you, in case you hadn't thought of it."

Good luck.
 
Posted by: Danimal* Accepted Answer
10/6/2006 3:39 PM (CST)
Dani,

Here are a couple ideas.

1. Hold a Customer Appreciation Event or Conference and have your sales team and marketing team extend invitations. The event needs to be in a pretty swanky place for senior execs to come, but I have seen Customer Conferences done in regional hotels. You could invite a leading analyst or several to the event to talk about the key things your customers are dealing with and your company hosts the event. As a part of this process you could set up a small booth or booths in the hotel lobby where those who attend can learn more about your product. The best events and results are gained with the event is more social, tied to a nice venue, like golf, and the entire focus of the event is on the customer's needs not the hosts.

2. Another thing you could try is a Customer Dinner Tour. Take your top revenue generating customers and have your executive team invite the executive team from your customers out to an exclusive private room at a nice restaurant. Eat-Drink-and Be Merry and during the dinner ask to get some time on the business calendar to talk about how your company can help them. If you have a budget it also helps to get a celebrity to attend dinner with you as a draw.

Join us for Dinner with the local college football coach. Professional athlete, or celebrity, comedian etc.... We did this in San Francisco. We were able to get Jamie and Adam from MythBusters to attend and present to a room of 50 customers, analysts and press. We ended up closing 500,000 worth of business for a $30,000 investment. I followed up with Jamie and Adam for another event and since they are now more famous they are charging $50,000 and up for San Fran events, $150,000 to travel. They are great guys.

I hope this helps Best of Luck!
 
Posted by: beckyc Accepted Answer
10/6/2006 4:21 PM (CST)
In order to increase a company's "share of wallet" with you (wallet being how much budget they have to spend on products/services in your area), you need to work on strengthening the personal relationships you have with your existing customers. This should be done through more than just advertising. I highly recommend getting to know your best customers and figure out what you can do with/for them to get them to invest more with you! And this can be done quickly, too, as you already have relationships built.

As someone who has been focusing on marketing to existing customers for quite a while, I find the best approach that works is to really look at the needs of your existing customers. This is more than just looking at demographics or similar products and services purchased. It is understanding their businesses - what do they use your products for, how do they use them, what other things could you be providing for them that they need help with to make their jobs easier, etc. It is also understanding the drivers behind their transactions: what motivates them to buy from you?

In addition, it is very valuable when doing marketing to understand customer needs and tailor communications based on those needs. You most likely have great information about your existing customers that competitors don't have, simply by virtue of the fact that they are your customers! You can quickly figure out needs with simple web polls or just by talking with the existing account managers within your organization.

I have done this before with existing customers, and by carefully tailoring the messages based on their needs (which I had already figured out), I created different versions of the marketing communications (email in this case, but it could be done with direct marketing as well), and in so doing, I was able to increase open rates by up to 400%, increase clicks by up to 200%, and also greatly increase conversions.

I recommend avoiding generic campaigns, especially in a B2B situation, as most customers expect you know them fairly well as they are spending money with you.

I highly encourage you to go for it - marketing to existing customers is the most cost-effective marketing you can be doing!
 
Posted by: stevea Member Response
10/6/2006 6:14 PM (CST)
Dear Dani

Classically, RFM (Recency, Frequency and Monetary values of recent purchases) marketing techniques should lend themselves to marketing to existing clients, but they do depend on a purchasing mindset which lends itself to these methods and, critically, having a large enough database to make the exercise statistically valid.

I would refer you to the direct marketing associations’ page for RFM marketing to see whether it could work for you. The need for a database of at least 40,000 is one of these criteria but I would question this if you have accumulated hard data on your existing customers. You could succeed with 4000 if you understand them.

You will see that RFM (http://www.dbmarketing.com/articles/Art123.htm) has a long and well analysed history, going back to the days of direct mail marketing, but the principals remain the same. You must divide your client base into quartiles.

That rather leaves it up to you as to how you contact your existing customers, There is merit in the fact that for mass mailings the RFM formula works, but if for example, you do not have such a database or your think that your customers will respond in an atypical manner, then you must modify your approach accordingly.

I feel that the ideas presented above have merit but if you are going to approach your existing customers, then you need to look at their existing purchasing records and if those records indicate that you should go down the RFM route then you should do so, but be intelligent about it. RFM assumes that the most recent and frequent purchasers who spent the largest amount of money with you will be the most likely to buy again on the basis of a further marketing approach,

If you believe this tome wrong then don’t do it and go for one or more of the other ideas,

Sorry not to be definitive about this, but RFM works, where it is intended to work and if I try to ram it down your throat as a solution and you feel that it is wrong, then it will fail.

Such is the nature of taking major decisions in marketing management. The decision is back over to your!

Oh, by the way if you want to do this, you will need a decent CRM system, Sorry to bang on about out this, but it is my speciality!


Regards

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions
 
Posted by: mmcelyea Member Response
10/6/2006 7:07 PM (CST)
An inexpensive way we market to our customers is with a client e newsletter. The newsletter should be focused on topic that would interest your customers. Then you can add a section about new products and promotions to encourage them to buy more.
Follow up with your customer a month or so after they purchase and interview them on their satisfaction level. It shows great customer service and may identify a need for more purchases. Keeping contact with them is key.

Good luck!
 
Posted by: KathySmithFilms* Member Response
10/6/2006 9:27 PM (CST)
What works for me is when my clients purchased something I put the name and service/product into file called central files.

After I separate out my different publics I promote to each group a new package deal or more service. Regardless if they spent a small amount or more, I maintain friendly relations as a company policy.

Once someone has bought from you it's easier to sell again or be hired again since some degree of relationship has been established. I do phone calls, e-mails & newsletters to help publicize good works & discover from their answers how to streamline and deliver a better product. Former clients that I couldn't create futures with I save the stamps & find new referrals through the clients I've actually helped.

Whenever things looked down in my business it's always been those I worked with before that came through and allowed me to do more business so I've learned it's good to maintain communications throughout the year. This is fairly logical but good to be remined of in case things go off center.

Hope this sparks more ideas for you to activate.
Kathy
 
Posted by: kannanveeraiah Member Response
10/7/2006 12:55 AM (CST)
Dear Dani OBrien,

As already you have existing customers you would be saving on a lot of marketing activities that would be required otherwise.

As already a relationship is established, it becomes easier for you to deal with these customers. If otjherwise the products you offer are of the quality that they need and of the price that is competitive (or not much above the what they presently pay) this would be easiest to sell.

I suggest :

1) Send direct but personalised mails mentioning how much you value the relationship you have with them and thanking for the patronage they had been providing for your business so far. And suggest to them the list of other products that you could offer to them. Express to them how they would benefit buying these products also from you; how it would save on time and efforts mutually. You may attach to this letter the standard brochure or leaflet that you might be having to describe the product.

2) Follow up this with the personal visits of your field sales force (if you have) or through direct phones to the concerned.

3) If it is feasible / viable you must provide them free samples of the product for their evaluation. Or if the product demonstration could be arranged (if the product is of such nature) do it.

These all are basics. You would be having better knowledge of the products that you are talking about; you would know better of the competitors of these products and you know well of the customers. So, work out your tactics based on these information and our relevant suggestions. Further, it is must these tactics must lead to your strategy that you plan for the long term.

Best Wishes,

kannan
 
Posted by: zivazemer Member Response
10/7/2006 9:00 AM (CST)
Different customer types require different approaches. The B2B sales environment is very different from the consumer/retail environment. These differences affect both the marketing and selling processes.

An important philosophy to bear in mind is that the purpose of marketing is to create sales opportunities and ultimately revenue.

In the situation described, the purpose of your marketing effort is to broaden your sales exposure throughout a known company/customer. In most b2b situations, the sales exposure is across a small percentage of the decision makers and oppty's at a customer. My experience is that it is between 15 and 20% at an existing customer. Further, b2b selling efforts need to be across customer functional areas (executive, project, technical/design, marketing.....) and at multiple levels within areas (day to day execution, mid management, sr mgmt).

Advertising alone will not increase your incremental sales to established customers. You need to tie a marketing campaign to a sales campaign. Marketing's job is two fold:
General branding of your company to ensure familiarity when sales calls
Specific product/service marketing when sales has established the next opportunity.

General branding can be accomplished via direct mail, email, newsletters, press releases, call centers, attendance at trade shows the customer goes to, and sometimes advertising (print and/or online).

Specific marketing ties product attributes to customer project or needs. This includes market trend info, end user feedback, benchmarks, product comparisons, solution descriptions, certifications, partner relationship programs.

By using general marketing to broadening customer penetration and specific marketing to winning the oppty, revenue will increase. But it takes more than advertising, it takes the full marketing spectrum.
 
Posted by: Levon Member Response
10/9/2006 6:28 AM (CST)
I would consider doing some marketing research with your existing clients -- have them fill out a small 5 question survey and drop in a box at your front counter with a prompt to "win a free lunch". That way you can learn what their priorities are and they can try to win a free lunch (discaimer: make sure you announce the winner).

Now it is time to correlate the information -- read what your clients are wanting and what their expectations are.

Once you are aware of their wants and expectations -- then start tailoring a customised campaign at each of these customers where you are finding clear associations between what your augmented services are and what they are wanting. If there are no relationships -- you need to start creating products that match these gaps in your product offerings. Its that simple my friend.
 
Posted by: claire.grove* Member Response
10/9/2006 11:39 AM (CST)
As has been mentioned, client e-newsletters are a simple way of keeping in touch with customers and keep them up-to-date. It's easy to personalise and you can gear content to cross-selling opportunities. For example, including customer case studies for new products can show simply how latest technology is positively impacting on a customer's business. You can also offer free demos/healthchecks etc - some of the tactics you might employ in new lead generation - to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
 
Posted by: Frank Hurtte Accepted Answer
10/9/2006 1:10 PM (CST)
Dani,
Here are some random ideas...
1) offer discounts on the new products when purchased with existing products...
2) include introductory offers with invoices
3) package products together.. ie camera and lighting
4) ask existing customers for the names of other contacts within their organization.. and advertise to them.

Frank Hurtte
 
Posted by: dani.obrien* Author Response
10/10/2006 7:11 AM (CST)
Thanks Everyone for responding
Everythings been very helpful.
 


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