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Marketing Tips | April
Nothing stays the same – customer’s requirements change, competitors and markets change. Make sure you keep up with what your customers want and offer new experiences to keep your customers coming back – time and again.
How do you keep things fresh for your customers?
You’ve worked hard to attract customers, but you need to keep them interested in your brand. And to do that you need to innovate and keep them coming back for new and improved experiences. Because if you don’t, you can be sure your competitors will.
Customer’s tastes change, trends come and go. Your business needs to adapt. A simple example of this is if you run a party business. Frozen themed parties were all the rage a few years back. But, you need to offer new parties /characters / themes to keep up with the latest trends. This is an obvious example, but it’s important to offer your customers what they want.
Let’s assume the same party business offers children’s face painting and glitter tattoos. With the increased awareness of the damage microplastics are doing to our marine life, many parents avoid glitter as it’s a microplastic. The same party business would do well to advertise that they only use plastic free, eco-friendly glitter and face paints. You're not doing this to jump on the bandwagon; it’s about addressing your customer's genuine concerns. And by communicating this to potential customers, you are showing that you care about your customers (as well as the environment).
Keeping up with trends
A useful tool to help you scan the market and keep on top of external factors that could impact your business is the PESTEL tool. It’s a list of headings that you fill in and review regularly:
Politics – what’s political events could affect your business? Will Brexit affect you? What can you do now to protect yourself against any negative impact?
Economics – what would a downturn in the economy mean for your business and what can you do now to strengthen your business?
Social – what social changes are driving a shift in customer behaviour? For example, the exorbitant cost of housing might mean that more parents are working full-time and grandparents are doing more of the childcare. Should you be targeting grandparents as well as parents?
Technology – how is rapidly changing technology impacting your business? Could Artificial Intelligence help or hinder your business?
Environmental – what environmental change are we seeing? What does climate change mean for your business?
Legal – a good example is the recent GDPR regulation which had an impact on all businesses, but what other regulations might be coming into force?
By using this model, you are reviewing any potential external changes and developing plans to ensure your business continues to thrive.
Identify new products and services
One of the best ways to keep things fresh for your customers is to develop new products and services. Talk to your customers and find out what they want and what their pain points are. This article explains how to listen to your customers and use this information to inform your marketing strategy (link to listening to customers article).
Look at the information in your PESTEL. For example, you may have identified that grandparents are with pre-school children during the week, could you develop a grandparent and grandchild offer for weekdays?
Talk to other members of your organisation, particularly customer-facing ones to encourage new ideas. If you’re a one man or woman band, talk to friends, family and any business contacts you have for inspiration. Combine this with the information in your PESTEL and customer analysis to identify market opportunities. Create a plan to capitalise on a potential market opportunity.
Don’t do change for change’s sake
Freshen things up but stay focused on why your customers come to you in the first place. Don’t stray away from that. It’s easy to jump on the latest trend, but it isn’t always appropriate to do so.