Sound like a crazy question? What if I was to tell you that there is a billion dollar company that is prettry darn close? What would this do for your business?
Thats right!…Disney! it turns out that research shows that almost everyone who visits once…goes back again. Pretty amazing right?
The other day a new marketing client of mine who seems to be doing very well, just wants to do even better, made this comment about his practice, and I have to say, it is very astute and one of the biggest areas that most business owners totally ignore in their marketing. He mentioned, “If everyone who has been a customer here in the last 5 years was to remain a customer, I would not have to worry about anything at all.”
Brilliant, and basic. You see, most business owners (including pharmacists’) have the mindset “new customers, new customers, I have to get new customers”, without taking care of the ones they already have, thinking, “there is no way they would ever stray”
If you want a reality check…run your numbers, see who has lost thier way. Is your sales growth in line with new customer growth? Or is it higher as it should be, by keeping old customers and selling more, more often to them? What we find is a leaky bucket effect. People spend all their time, money and efforts getting new customers in the door, which acts as a replacement, maybe a little better, for the customers or products or services drop off.
This is why in as part of my Core Marketing Formula, we focus heavily on your current customers through the power of the printed newsletter as well as email and other channels of marketing. These are the people who have already opened their wallets to us are ever so more valuable.
Why?
First of all, they are at least 5 times easier and cheaper to market to.
And there is so much more opportunity to get them to
* Buy more products/services
* Buy more often
* Get them to refer others to us.
And this is the formula that major corporations like Disney, Apple Computers and Starbucks know about…is about the customer experience, how people feel while visting…when they leave or after a purchase or after using a new product from you…will they tell others, will they recommend; or will they walk out of the store and forget the experience?
Or worse yet…
Will they forget about you because you have not reminded them that you exist after that initial relationship, no matter how great, or not so great it might have been…or after for some reason they have tried the competitor, and you did nothing to real them back in, will they ever even think about you?
This is why I have always said that our business is a consumer driven business. Yes it is really important to get in the head of the doc’s, remind them of what you can do for them as well, but I feel for too many pharmacy owners a day goes by, and nothing to enhance and reactivate the realationships with current and past customers is not done…they stay in this ‘average’ and feel the ‘comfort that kills’ instead of really experiencing true business growth, much above the ‘law of averages’
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