3 Marketing Tips Every Business Needs to Know

1. What is marketing? Marketing is anything and everything that has to do with your business. Every detail of your product or service – not just your paid advertising – is part of your marketing. Your front line staff, your back of the house staff, networking, business cards, envelopes and stationary, your product packaging, shopping bags customers walk out with, the telephone conversations customers have with you and your staff, your location, your bathrooms, your parking lot, and the best part of your marketing can be your customers telling your story which is retelling their experience.

You may be saying “I know that” but do you? If your bathroom is dirty and a customer visits it they may not visit your business again. If your parking lot is dirty when a customer drives up they may not come in. If your business is not neat and orderly they may leave without asking for help.

The old saying “you never get a second chance to make a first impression” has never been truer than it is today. Customers have options and choices and can choose to do business with your competitor simply by the way your business looks.

2. Mark Everything! If you want to improve return customer traffic make sure that every product sold is marked with your company name, phone number and website address. Mark the actual product, make sure your shopping bags are marked, put a business card in every bag, put an order form in every bag if appropriate – make it easy for them to BUY MORE FROM YOU. Other inexpensive and easy things to do can be as simple as putting a bounce back in every bag. This can be a coupon on their next visit or a VIP card where they buy 5 and get 1 free. They need a reason to return so give them one.

3. THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT – The customer is always right, even when the customer is wrong, the customer is always right. About this time your thinking “what?” Remember this – whether or not the customer is right, the customer is always the one who pays the bill. Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, the way you handle the customer is what will be remembered – not who was right or wrong.