Building Customer Triggers into Your Business

Simple often trumps complex when it comes to adding new business to your business. Sophisticated levels of achievement scoring or multi-faceted marketing plans can be effective if managed with precision and consistency. However, many organizations are overwhelmed by these techniques so finding simpler ways to build your business is often a better strategy.

Here are a few best practices that our research of leading companies have found to be quite effective:

1. Build Triggers: Once you have mapped out the specific sales steps that the majority of all of your present customers followed on their way to becoming one of your best customers, identify the underlying “Trigger” that pushed them onto the next step in the process. The key to determine this is if they were strong enough on their own to drive action. Was the reward or challenge you offered sufficiently enticing? Did they activate the key corporate reputational aspects you are defined by?

2. Focus on Triggers, Not Features: It is preferable to find triggers that offer value that drive business versus promotions that give away value to gain something. Although this give-and-take is used extensively, it’s a little known fact that the companies known for pure value plays are often the leaders in their field without giving anything away for free. If you find that the necessary “Fuel” to motivate a customer to the next step is required, it is preferable that they gain use of your product for a period of time for free, allowing them time to experience it before making a buying decision.

3. Test and Retest: Continue testing after a successful product launch to see what triggers are the most and least effective to allow you to determine where to put your marketing budget and which ones to stop using.

By applying these three Customer Triggers you will find your marketing becomes more effective and your sales improve. By continuing to measure you will also discover if you need new or different triggers to keep the growth curve moving in the right direction!

_______________________________________________________________________

Tom Marin, president of MarketCues, a national consulting firm, wants to hear from you! Follow MarketCues on Twitter for strategy and related tips. Tom also welcomes emails, new Linkedin connections, calls to (919) 908-6145 or learn more at: www.marketcues.com.

Note: If you are a printing executive or vendor serving the printing industry who would like to be considered for a feature in this blog, please complete the contact information here: www.marketcues.com/contact.