make your business personal to add value

‘How are you selling?’ is a better question than ‘what are you selling?’ for getting to the truth of your brand and what it means to those people that buy form you. Welcome to going the extra mile, delight factors and the personal approach.

So many family businesses often survive through every challenging economic climate. Why? What is that secret ingredient in their business DNA that is missing in other businesses that fail along the way. It’s common sense really. We often forget that we are selling to people with emotions and a need to feel connection. In a world jam packed with offers and competition – getting through to ‘people’, rather than ‘customer demographics’ or ‘buyers’ is something that is extraordinarily valuable. Family businesses are often warmer, built on trust and family ethics, so people instantly feel at ease with them and warm to their natural human approach.

inspiring loyalty in customers

A loyal customer who buys from a brand repeatedly will often do so because they see that brand as the opposite of faceless or digital or just another service. They have a personal connection with that brand. Take for example, Charles Lowe and Sons, a company that we work with that takes time out to send personal postcards to their customers. This is such a nice little touch that it speaks volumes about their customer care. When we buy something from someone, often the transaction is the start of the relationship. Personalised marketing can help keep your customers coming back.

delight factors

A so called ‘delight factor’ such as sending a postcard, Thank you card or Christmas card is going above and beyond the pure business relationship. Companies that demonstrate they value and care about your needs will likely retain your trust.

Whilst we may be more cynical today with brands because we are generally aware that many of the marketing messages to us are bots which are automated – a trend which will only increase with AI software, investing into personalisation has proven to make a difference. It’s worth taking a step back to appreciate and properly engage with your existing customers in a way that requires a little more thought and effort.

Here’s some tips.

1. tailor your message in segmentation

Segmenting your emails is advisable for mailouts. One size of marketing message may not suit all. This is a powerful way to tailor your message to different audiences. MailChimp looked into the effectiveness of segmentation in 2017 and found that there was a 14.1% higher opening rate than non-segmented emails. Adjust emails according to recipients for greater click rate.

2. transparency builds trust

Transparency is the mantra of modern day marketing. A lot of trust has been lost with the public and GDPR was a reaction to the sheer volume of personal data that has been harvested. Make sure you tell and inform your audience about how you use data, your company changes and how you are trying to help them? Be honest open and authentic, build trust, communicate and inform more.

3. raise quality of communication

What would make your customer happy to hear from you? Rather than bombarding with products, provide loyalty discounts, automatically triggered extra value – perhaps a token gift? Simply giving good advice can mean keeping an audience. The standard of brand communications has come a long way over recent years and now every business has to be a publisher by default, to show that they know what they are talking about and also for search to be effective online.

4. care about your service above the bottom line

‘Success’, as any business guru will tell you, is not about chasing cash. It is about helping people, striving for the best service and making a difference to those you engage with. If you care about your service, customers will notice, customers will feel valued. This is hard to fake. Leave customers and clients happy, and they won’t be gone for long.

5. ensure there is always access to a real person

Where possible, make sure a flesh and blood person engages with customers. It’s not always possible as the business grows but people often respond well to people when they are trying to get through to do business, better than machines, emails and systems. A person can listen and adapt to needs.

There should always be a way for customers to reach a real person and talk to them. Many sites now use Live Chat and make sure there is someone who can be accessible to questions in the working day. Good one on one customer service is true engagement, don’t let it get totally lost under online layers.

Find has evolved over the last few years. We began life as a freelancing network and have since become a marketing agency, that still champions freelancers but in a way that is managed, with an in depth consultation to get to the heart of the client’s needs. If you need our services, we would love to get to know you better and help you with your creative marketing for business growth, so please contact us.