Customer Lists are Gold
With Valentine’s Day a mere three weeks away I was reminded of this posting from a few years ago and decided to bring it back up. That’s a biggie for retailers and like most gift giving times customers tend to procrastinate until the last minute, and then have to scramble to get that special gift. Help your customers beat the rush by planning ahead and doing their Valentine’s Day shopping early, and with you.
Dig Into It
Too many retailers are content to make a sale and then forget that customer. Others capture e-mail addresses and then do nothing with them. I see people standing in stores today complaing about traffic when they have hundreds of thousands of customer names in their data bank.
Now more than ever is the time to reach out to past customers and let them know that you appreciate their business. Invite themm to your store to see what’s new, or just to see you. I know one retailer that sends e-mail to his client list every now and then offering special deals to them alone. He has after hours events by invitation only, warehouse sales to see new merchandise before it hits the floor, special deals on close-out mechandise, gifts with purchase, drawings for vacations and much more, all promoted via e-mail, which as you know is free.
Celebrate Buying Occassions
Make a list of the times in the year that people buy gifts for others. There’s bithdays, anniversaries, graduations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, Valentines Day, and of course Christmas. See how many of these important dates you can tie to your best customers. Get involved, help them with these buying obligations. Get busy talking to your past customers and you won’t have time to whine about traffic today.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Systems exist to efficiently send, record, and track such marketing emails and bulk email campaigns. Some can even source from your accounting to deliver return on investment data on campaigns of all types - email, postal mail, tradeshow, telephone, etc. Ron has taught us that a customer who has already made a buying decision with us is much more likely to buy something from us than a new customer. Good systems for keeping and using customer information are gold too!
April 9th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Why not name that retailer who uses his customer list so well? He or she would probably love the acknowledgement!
April 10th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Hello All,
We have a small restaurant bistro here in one of the suburbs that took electronic pics of the guests/diners (he calls you a guest), permission granted, then got your email address and cell/mobile number. He then sent you a commemorative picture of your evening out, and that way he built up a large data bank of customers. Now he uses that (of course opt in and opt out) to market three nights a mid-week table d’hote. The one night he opens with sponsored wine (cheese/oliveoil/whiskey/chocolate) tasting evenings which naturally lead onto a full dining experience, and the other two he fills the restaurant with ‘four’ per table playing a trivial pursuit style game. He is full every night of the week, overbooked in fact, has expaned twice (though still remains nicely sized for intimate dining), and he makes a tidy living, loves what he does and has many old faithfuls for diners and guests and customers.
If I were ever to run a restaurant, its a business model I would just copy. I am an old faithful, and love it there. Also, the menu changes every three months and he has vegetarian options etc. Smart use of a database for sure.
Cheers
Lestie
Jo’burg S A
April 10th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Aloha Pam;
He or she would probably love the acknowledgement! <<< I guess that I have learned not to assume this, but a hint is that he sells great furniture in Vancouver, BC