The first one is on us or Marketing 101

What opportunities are you missing out on?

An organisation I use on a regular basis decided to expand operations earlier this year and opened a second "office". Now because they are in a people oriented service, I was pleased when they invited every existing client to celebrate the opening with them. Crummy timing, but I wasn't able to go, but I gather quite a few people did.

Me being me, and interested in people's dreams, goals and ambitions, a couple of weeks ago I asked one of the co-owners (who just happened to be in the original operation that day) how the new venture was going

"it's hard work getting the business" he said, and walked off - errrm?!

On reflection I can perhaps see why...

• His original customer base was then and is now large. Yet apart from the initial invitation to celebrate and check things out, I've not heard anything from them about it - WHY NOT?
• They have a facebook presence - yet (and here is a lesson for every business with a facebook page) they don't engage with their followers - apart from the odd cursory comment - WHY NOT?
• I may not work in or near the area of the second operation - but I may know people who do, yet the business owners have not given me any freebies, discount cards or invites to pass on to my friends, work colleagues, family, extended family or their friends, work colleagues or anyone else that I know of. Again - WHY NOT?
• I could wax lyrical about how good this organisation is at what they do - but I choose not to, because I have no reason to share - they (apart from 2 people) don't engage with me beyond basic greetings, so why should I promote their business?
• Why do I continue to go there? - because it's convenient for me and as I said - I like what they do - mostly - I hate what they do to promote their business.
• Their email marketing messages are 99% sales, 1% useful information and their SMS version of their "marketing" message I used to get - backfired on them, because it annoyed the heck out of me and I told them so - that person still does not speak to me - childish MUCH. If they knew anything about me they would have known I don't NEED that kind of marketing message. While I can appreciate their need to advise me of new programs they are running, I know for a fact they could tell me a lot about their industry that would in fact help me achieve my goals a lot quicker - yet apart from a couple of semi-interesting posts on facebook they haven't done it - WHY NOT? And we won't talk about their website ... errrghh, must be colour blind or something.
• They still don't know "ME" and probably don't know anything about most of their client base - yet basic marketing says, people like to talk about themselves - I've used that particular organisation for several years now, and several of them still get my name wrong, could any of them tell me what I do? ask me how my business is doing? my kids? my health? Why should that matter? Well we are in a related field, you'd think we'd have something in common. Heck I might even have promoted their business had I been engaged by them.

So a couple of suggestions:

• Everyone is in the people services business - if you haven't spoken to your client base recently - AND offered them something of interest and use - as opposed to a BUY, BUY, Bye then your business is not going to do as well as it perhaps could. I don't care if you are a student and still at school - you interact with people, and businesses interact with you. Who are you more likely to do business with - yep, those who show a genuine interest IN YOU.
• Have you leveraged your current client base? As I mentioned above, the business owner could have given me a reason to share his business with my friends. Given that your current client base are the ones you are most easily able to sell to / upsell to - are you using this priceless information as well as you could? How could you do it better?
• Don't forget about the organisations, businesses and people around you either. What this organisation did well in the beginning was simple, it worked, it got me through the door and I stayed there. They posted flyers in letter boxes in and around the area they are in - like I said - SIMPLE.  Now they might be doing that for their new area of operations, but they've certainly stopped doing in their original locale. Why? People are moving into and out of the area all the time, I've seen the moving trucks. It's called "going over the same ground. Now - How many times have you had a flyer posted in your letter box for a newly opened "anything" with any kind of opening offer, how about long term residents / clientele? In the same area as this original business are a slew of cafe's and coffee shops, and yes the owners are changing hands regularly too - says something about the area and the industry they are in I suppose. Not one company in the food / beverage industry in recent times have put flyers out. "Come in, say hi, grab a loyalty card and the first one is on us ... " and finally
• Could you please pass this email onto as many people who you think could benefit from knowing and applying some / all of these strategies.

Simple to do, yet oh so simple not to do too - and maybe that's part of the problem.