I have a number of what I call bottom drawer clients. These are usually small projects, projects you can fit in a bottom drawer, for very small businesses without a lot of resources. I don’t make much from these clients but I learn a lot working with them, so it’s not completely gratuitous, and they are nice people who appreciate my help.

My bias, and therefore my approach to their marketing, is that a customer marketing strategy, and especially marketing to best customers, is more important than prospect marketing.

Delight your customers and they will:

• Stay longer,
• Buy more from you,
• Buy without being bribed,
• Cost you less to service, and
• Bring in prospects just like them.

Don’t delight them and you have to focus on prospects to keep refilling the leaky bucket.

The implication for small or micro businesses, and frankly for medium and large businesses as well, is that marketing effort should be focused on sustaining and building the business you already have, that customer marketing should be your primary marketing strategy.(...)
Read the rest of Hub and Spoke: A Customer Marketing Strategy for the Rest of Us (663 words)

Lots of special stuff is available exclusively to email subscribers. It's easy, just click here to subscribe. Thanks.

© James for Hipkin's Hip Shots, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Best Customers, Business Strategy, Customer Relationship Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, Online Advertising, Social Media, SOHO Marketing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Email marketing is often overlooked by businesses looking for effective marketing tactics, especially with all the noise in the business press about Social Media. It shouldn’t be. Email marketing can be an important sales channel and has the added benefit, when done well, of being a branding tool. That’s right, email marketing can be a branding tool.

It’s easy. Just think about teeter totters.(...)
Read the rest of Email Marketing – An Effective Strategy is a Teeter Totter (539 words)

Lots of special stuff is available exclusively to email subscribers. It's easy, just click here to subscribe. Thanks.

© James for Hipkin's Hip Shots, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tactics, Online Advertising

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I had planned to write a post about Social Media but then I saw Jason Baer’s presentation on Slideshare: 7 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Stunning Business and Personal Brands. I recommend you take a look.

My one disagreement with Jason’s point of view is that it is Mass Media. It is no doubt a significant media channel, one that should not be ignored, but when you consider the number of active participants, a much smaller number than those who have at some time engaged in it, I’m still not convinced or converted.

I will follow up on this with some Hip Shots on how to go about developing your own SM Strategy.

Lots of special stuff is available exclusively to email subscribers. It's easy, just click here to subscribe. Thanks.

© James for Hipkin's Hip Shots, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Business Strategy, Effective Advertising, Marketing Strategy, Relationship Marketing, Social Media

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh