PlusOne – Marketing Musings

The frequency of people ringing my business trying to get me to change plans has increased to the point where I get up to four calls per week – Enough!

It would not be so bad, but often the calls are from international call centres (read this post which shows I don’t hate them all!) where the English skills of the staff are questionable, but even worse, the pushiness can be bordering on intimidating. The line that really irks me is “So you don’t want to save money then?” Get real….

So now, rather than try to get off the phone by politely telling them “I have recently been through an examination of call costs and providers so I’m not interested thanks,” – I ask them what phone company they represent, then I say I’m emailing them to complain and hang up. Not all are like this, and they accept that you are not interested – you have to feel sorry for some because you can hear the let down in their voice.

Continue Reading »

3 Comments »

Building client relationships is essential for any business. Return customers represent a greater profitability than new clients – so it is worth looking at ways of leveraging that relationship.

One simple way is to add value to any communication with your customers. Lets take one simple example: End of month sending of invoices.

This simple action is one that is often overlooked because it is undertaken far from the marketing or sales staff. The deal is done – I’ll deal with the next sales enquiry….

Continue Reading »

1 Comment »

Not making sales like you think you should? This article looks at addressing buyer behaviour and outlines simple steps to increasing conversion rates.

Today there are a range of e-commerce software packages that make building on-line stores easy. Generally they are database driven and have shopping cart functionality built in. They are written by programmers and provide the core element of an on-line store.

But having a website needs to be more than having just an on-line catalogue. An on-line catalogue in itself is a lifeless, no-personality thing.

One of the biggest mistakes that most on-line retailers make is they do not take into account typical buyer behaviour. The conversion from real world to on-line provides many benefits to the retailer, but present some real challenges for the customer because their buying decision is made more difficult in an on-line environment.

Continue Reading »

No comments »

The task of making on-line sales is one that requires careful thought as to the buying process. All too often people mistakenly think that creating a database interface, with basic product descriptions is all that is required to facilitate on-line sales.

In fact that approach merely facilitates price comparison exercises. People will still buy from an outlet, bricks and mortar or on-line, about whom they have a feeling of trust. I’ll be posting a more detailed article about this soon.

One of key elements of making online sales is to address what people do in the real world when making a purchase, and one of these is to have a close look at the product. They are making tactile and visual assessments of the product.

Continue Reading »

No comments »

My friend Yaro over at Entrepeneur’s Journey has a knack of finding some really useful stuff. The Entrepreneur’s Journey » The Ultimate Google FAQ is just one example.

Comments Off