What are your 7 Success Drivers?
While many Business owners recognise that Marketing is essential to a successful business, for most it means having a Website, maybe Social Media, Advertising, Promotions and possibly flyers. Some scattered rules are sometimes recognised however….Marketing should also address these seven areas in your business:
- The way you attract the buyer
- How many of the prospects (Just Looking!) you convert
- What you do to retain existing customers
- Knowing exactly how much a customer spends on average
- How to get the customer to come back regularly
- Being aware of competitors’ pricing
- Keeping track of costs
The secret here is to actually record, track and then use these areas to increase sales, profits and cash flow in your business. Once you can express each of these seven Success Drivers in figures it will be easy to increase your turnover with a handful of small changes.
How the Success Drivers create leverage
A solid understanding of the seven Success Drivers is the foundation to the real meaning of Marketing. These Drivers are part of every Business and the way they are incorporated in the Marketing Strategy and Process will determine successful leverage. By achieving as little as a 5% increase in each Driver the total turnover can be increased by over 50% in some cases.
What you need to do to find Your Success Drivers
The Success Drivers tell you what has been happening and what needs to happen next in your business. To achieve this you MUST track and measure your activities in detail. In the typical business the accountant presents your financial statements at the end of the financial period. The Profit & Loss Statement and the Balance Sheet are historical records. They do not show how the results came about. The Success Drivers let you determine how the results came about and where to change them in the future. Your data collection system should include allowing you to determine the total size of your customer database, how much a customer spends on average and how often the customer comes back to purchase. Collect your data and review regularly to determine your next move in Marketing.
How you can mobilise each Driver to achieve Success
Here some examples how you can increase your Success Drivers:
- How do you attract the buyer?
This Driver is about advertising, promotions and sales. If this area is a problem in your business finding out how to address your buyer is one way to get better response to your advertising or promotional material. Are you using language or product NOT suitable to your buyer? If you “speak” the wrong language they can’t understand you! What are they looking for? Ask them! Do a customer survey….
- How many of the prospects (Just Looking!) do you convert?
Is your team well trained in sales? Do they understand how to ask questions? Are they aware of how to listen to the customer for the need expressed?
- What you do to retain existing customers?
Are you in regular contact with your customers? Do you send out the right mix of information and offers to existing customers? Is a customer retention scheme in place?
- Do you know how much a customer spends on average?
If you are not already collecting this information separately, it may take you a little time to work it out. The secret here is what you can measure you can improve…so well worth the time to put this in place. If you establish a customer purchasing from you only spends $100 on average, work on add-on sale strategies.
- How do you get the customer to come back regularly?
Ok…some businesses find this hard…if you sell large investment items you may see that as one of opportunities only…however there are ways to re-attract the customer in areas you may not see. Every business has something to offer to get customers to come back…you too!
- Be aware of competitors’ pricing
If Pricing is you challenge, knowing what your competitors ask is essential. Customers have access to world wide information and purchase options online…for you to be able to retain solid margins it is a good idea to take the focus from pricing and place it on value and quality. Creating a Magic Story for your products and services easily allows you to ask for more and detracts from price cutting.
- Keep track of costs
Costs can blow out in many different areas in a business so keep a constant eye on costs. Small changes can make a big difference for example checking closely on staff hours and advertising costs. Measure the results before allocating more funds into such areas.
Why use this principle in your Marketing consistently?
Marketing is reaching the right person with the right message through the right medium at the right time. What that really means is matching every part of your business to suit your customers. Any mismatch is likely to confuse your customer and with the amount of competition in the market, they are not easily persuaded to come back without spending a lot of your Marketing Dollars to attract them to return.
For details of how to implement this in your business contact us for a FREE overview session here