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Risky Business - How repeat customers may jeopardize your future
When I speak at conferences and corporate meetings about customer service I often hear managers reminding their team members about the importance of repeat business. The assumption is that if customers keep spending their money with you, they must like you. But is that really true? Many business owners and managers are unaware of the harsh reality that some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. The consequences of this can be staggering. Consider the example of my local video store...

Other local video store Related Articles

How To Set Up And Use Local Google Search
Did you know that you can use Local Google Search to promote your own business? Whether you have a store, restaurant or even at home business, you can list your information in Local Google Search for free and your listing will come up in the search engines. This is easy and can provide you with customers from all over the world. Whether you deal with international customers or even if you have a local pizza parlor, you can get more customers by promoting your business using local Google search and search engine optimized articles.
Risky Business - How repeat customers may jeopardize your future
When I speak at conferences and corporate meetings about customer service I often hear managers reminding their team members about the importance of repeat business. The assumption is that if customers keep spending their money with you, they must like you. But is that really true? Many business owners and managers are unaware of the harsh reality that some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. The consequences of this can be staggering. Consider the example of my local video store...

Boost Your Store’s Foot Traffic For Free
To get more customers into your store, make it easier for people to find your business online. Use Google’s Local Business Center to get your business listed in Google Maps, include a photo of your store, a description of your services, and even downloadable coupons for free. The entire process takes less than 15 minutes and you can easily change your store listing at any time.
Promotional Products Industry History and Overview
The introduction of promotional products dates back around 200 years. They are of the view that this concept was originated when the then President George Washington created commemorative buttons for his campaign which were an instant hit. The introduction of this convention also goes to Jasper Meeks, a printer in Coshocton, Ohio, when he persuaded a local shoe store to contribute book bags embossed with the store name to local schools. Since then promotional products have become a rage among companies almost all over the world.
Local Store Marketing- A Process
If I can impress one key thought on a restaurant operator with regard to Local Store Marketing- it is this... ...Local Store Marketing must become a process NOT an event. By way of example, a trip to one high school to setup a fundraiser, only to have 12 people show up does not indicate that fundraisers are useless. That action only indicates that one attempt failed. A better approach is to attempt 3 fundraisers every month. The law of averages will favor the process. Most restaurant operators that struggle market out of negative emotions, they react and engage in random events of marketing madness that they hope will result in a home run. Plan multiple Local Store Marketing tactics for the year. Settle for base hits each month and you'll sleep like a baby.
Local Store Marketing Is Hard
It can be difficult. There are absolutely certain personal traits necessary to conduct Local Store Marketing… You must have a certain level of energy. You cannot be a hermit. You must enjoy meeting people and creating new partnerships. You must have the vision to see why you are making this commitment and how big the payoff will be. You should be a little impatient and desire bigger and better things. If you cannot commit to some actual legwork and extra effort… Local Store Marketing won’t work for you. Your only chance at moving forward is to hire, barter or bribe someone else who will put out extra effort. It could be that you are more content with writing checks for advertisements and hoping that they will bring back more than 1 or 2 % return (which is really a 99 or 98% failure rate).

LSM Is Catching Fire
If you happen to read the restaurant news magazines and internet articles, you will notice that many restaurant franchisors are "more than interested" in Local Store Marketing. They realize that the successful franchisees in their chain have demonstrated skill at building business through networking in their local community. And they have noticed that institutional advertising is largely in-effective and expensive. For experts and students of Local Store Marketing, the secret is that Local Store Marketing has been around for quite a while. Nothing is new in the LSM world for those who have practiced and studied the technique. If you read about a tactic or think of a new way to attract customers, chances are that I've seen it. If you own a restaurant and don't understand Local Store Marketing- get educated quick.
Track, Track, Track
Never spend a dollar on any advertisement or marketing tactic unless you have set up a sure fire way of tracking that ad when it returns to your store. That means all ads, tactics, etc. are coded. This is why coupons are so vital to Local Store Marketing. Coupons exist to drive business and to give you a tool for tracking what is working. At a bare minimum you should know exactly which tactics are working, how many dollars they generated minus the cost of the tactic, thereby leaving you with a marketing return on investment. The days of shotgun marketing are over, despite what your local ad rep tells you.

Find marketing partners
A marketing partner is another business which can complement your business or help to refer new customers your way in exchange for reciprocal referrals. A good example of this is if you leave some of your leaflets in the sales area of a fellow business, preferable in the same town or area as your business and in exchange you have their leaflets in your reception area. To take this concept a little further you could introduce promotional schemes; for example...you could put on your sales literature "When you buy a pizza you get 20% discount off of XYZ video store". At the same time as you offering this you can get XYZ video store to offer a similar promotion so that when a customer rents a video they will get 20% off pizzas at ABC pizza store.
Organization Structure Limits or Liberates High Performance
The CEO of a national retailer was very frustrated. His face grew noticeably redder as he told me how he had set up each store as a profit center and was attempting to hold store managers and their regional managers accountable for profitability. But when a store under performed the store manager would show that head office buyers were forcing them into stocking the wrong merchandise for their particular mix of customers. Or they would claim that the marketers hadn't put together the right campaign for their local market.

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