Archives for May 2012

When I was at a party recently, during a conversation a friend said to me “I can scull a pint of beer in less than 4 seconds”

I was pretty sceptical because he didn’t really look the part, So I said to him, “I don’t believe it, prove it to me?”

I was disappointed when he said “Sorry, I’m driving home today”, I thought, all talk, no show.

Then one of my other friends chimed in and said “He can, I’ve seen it! It’s amazing.”

Now I was still a little sceptical, after all my friend could be exaggerating. Then my friend pulled out his phone and said here watch, the he pressed play and I watched a video of this guy with a pint, he tipped his head back and 1… 2… 3… 4.

Wow I was impressed. Now I believed him!

This story is very similar to your business and your marketing. Unfortunately when you talk yourself up and say “Great Range, best prices, friendly service” you will be questioned at best.

So, if we can’t ‘brag about our strengths’ how do we convey these benefits to our customers? – Proof.

There are 3 main ways you can convey proof:
Testimonials – much like my friend saying ‘He can, I’ve seen it”, you can use testimonials to showcase your strengths by having your happy clients convey their appreciation for the massive range, the excellent service etc. in their message. Testimonials can be written, video or audio. Accompany them with as much detail about the person giving the testimonial as you can, eg: name, suburb, business name, website etc. It helps with believability because just as I questioned my mates comment about seeing my other friend, your customers are going to question your testimonials too, but it is a better than blatant ‘bragging’.

Before & After – If you do interior design, show before and after shots of your work to prove that you can deliver. If you are a real estate agent, show them a bunch of sold signs with you next to your happy customers. If there is any way that you can prove through images the results you deliver then do it. Think of ProActive with their before and after pimple shots or the weight loss adverts. Social Proof works.

Demonstration – Even before and after photos can be questioned, customers might think that maybe it’s not really your work or it wasn’t your product that got those results… So the next step up is like the video I was shown of my mate sculling a pint, a demonstration. This can be in the form of a video, a public demonstration, a taste test, try before you buy etc. You need to demonstrate to your customer before they will believe you. Have you ever had the Kirby Vacuum guys ever do a demonstration? You want to buy after they prove to you without a doubt what their vacuum can do, in your living room, on your dirty carpet… It’s the ultimate proof.

If you are not using proof in your marketing then you are probably leaving a wad of cash on the table because people are sceptical about your ability to deliver. Show them that they are wrong and prove it to them!

Last month I wrote a newsletter for my subscription newsletter clients about Customer Lifetime Value and how it controls your business. It determines how much you can realistically spend to get a customer.

The only thing limiting you increasing your customer’s lifetime values is you. Your creativity and your willingness to make it a priority. After all, you have more choices than you know. There is always going to be a way to increase CLV.

The higher your business’s Customer Lifetime Value the more you are able to create circumstances that will allow you to spend more to get each customer. This is the magic of Closed Loop Marketing. The more you can spend to get a customer the more customers you’ll get… the more it makes sense to find ways to increase CLV even higher so you make even more money and you can spend still more getting customers…

Being able to spend more to get a customer opens up new media opportunities. Media that was previously too expensive will be open to you. If it was too expensive for you it was probably too expensive for your competition so they aren’t using it. Making it much easier to cut through the marketing clutter, when you are reaching out to new customers.
On top of having more media open to you, your business can invest in better quality marketing through more testing and increased media investment which means that your response to each step will increase.

You’ll also be able to afford more follow up. Higher CLV means that you can afford to chase each lead for longer by having more follow up steps. Dan Kennedy talks about one of his students that added 6 follow up steps to his marketing and added 50% to his turnover. Higher CLV means that adding those six steps is far more likely to pay off big time and warrants you investing in them.
The single biggest cause of low CLV is customers wandering off because you don’t put a fence around them and make retaining them for life a priority. Ben and I recently did a webinar for a client where he explained 5 strategies for monetising your existing customers. But none of them will work if you aren’t building an ongoing relationship with your customers. Using those 5 strategies in your business will radically increase your CLV beyond what it is currently.

Click Here and you can read about the 5 strategies you can use to increase your CLV and how you can start building a relationship with your customer today – so those 5 strategies pay off for you big time.