DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

Apologies for using the dreaded ‘R’ word but since the mainstream media seems hell bent on using it, I figure a niche blog isn’t going to make that much difference.

So, I attended a seminar during the week on recession proof marketing. The key lessons from this event was that that regardless of whether you thing the “R” is coming, the fundamental principles of marketing remain more important now than ever.

1) First of all the Unique Selling Proposition is key. Personally I have always like the idea of  an unfair advantage over a USP but thats splitting hairs.

2) Most importantly, it’s important to focus on the acquisition and retention of customers. I know this sounds obvious but when we really stop and think about this in more detail, we can all do this a hell of alot better

Firstly, When is the last time you spoke to your entire past customer database with a  new proposition? How often do you talk to them? How much did it cost the business to bring them on board … and how often do they hear from you.

At my place of work we have taken this idea several steps further again. In unison with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we have developed AMS (Automated Marketing System) Not only does this fulfill all of our email marketing needs from a legal and technical persective, but it can also decide what messages to send to the customer depending on where they are in the buying cycle.

The system has built in logic to assess where they are in their relationship with us and will move the ‘lead’ to the appropriate next status ie from a ’suspect’ to a ‘prospect’.

This has been a great way to reach new customers and is much more effective than cold calling for new business.  With our steady trickle of leads, we can turn our sales team into more of a production line. Some or our staff raise contracts and write proposals, some people are customer facing. Some people are more focused on solutions and technical requirements and so on.

Since each task is matched to the right skill set and pay scale, we benefit from cost savings here too.  So why am I telling you this? Well because if we can do this for us, we can do this for you too… that is if you are open to the possibilities.

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