RFV = Recency, Frequency & Value. Way back in 2008 the big phrase was lead nurturing. In other words, preparing for the future by understanding where your potential customers were on the buying spectrum. Did they even know they needed you or your product? Or did they have to be educated first? Were they in the research phase wherein they wanted info but not a strong sales pitch? Etc., etc. See my previous post, Understanding the Buying Spectrum, for more on this topic. Fast forward to 2009. All I've heard over and over and over again is "what can we do to drive sales NOW?" Does this mean we're not nurturing anymore? Probably not. We're just expediting the process by becoming more forward in our approach. Yes, some prospects may be left behind, but tough times... So here's what I am prescribing for my clients who insist they can't take a long view approach, but instead need sales NOW. It's called the RFV, or Recency, Frequency & Value.
What are your prospects' RTV scores? It's hard to know that without the basic info. In order to gather the basic info you will need, a survey is probably necessary. 4 questions is all it should take.
- When was the last time your company purchased any of the following products or services? - list them out and provide time frames
- Please select all of the products your company buys in a given year - list out all products and services to choose from
- How many times per year does your company buy these products or services? - Give choices of a couple of months, 6 months, a year, more than a year.
- How much does your company spend on these products and services in a given year? - Give choices of less than 10k, 25-50k, 50-100k, 100-250k, 250k+, or whatever scale fits your business.
Now we can get back into nurturing mode, but this time we can blitz hard and fast on those prospects that are most likely to generate sales NOW. Do I like the heavy-handed RTV approach? Tough times...
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The blog for e-marketing and e-business professionals
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Bridging the Confidence Gap
A Web Manager must work to understand future trends in their customer’s industry by researching, surveying, attending sales calls, and understanding that some customers are further along the educational spectrum than others, and therefore must be marketed to in varying approaches and styles. When speaking of the Customer Education Spectrum, it must be understood that customers go through many stages before ultimately buying from a particular company.
A Web Manager must work to understand future trends in their customer’s industry by researching, surveying, attending sales calls, and understanding that some customers are further along the educational spectrum than others, and therefore must be marketed to in varying approaches and styles. When speaking of the Customer Education Spectrum, it must be understood that customers go through many stages before ultimately buying from a particular company.
First, they must realize that they have a problem or a need that needs to be solved or fulfilled. Once this is done, the customer will conduct their initial research, usually online or by asking colleagues and friends. After this, they will attempt to narrow down their choices and make contact with the organizations that most closely match their perceived need. The companies that are selected are still under much scrutiny by the potential customer. They must still work to bridge the confidence gap that the customer feels. The customer still wonders if this company is really the right one to solve their need. The problem is that often times, the customer is towards the end of the buying spectrum before they even contact the company. So it is even more important that companies have a solid presence and external perception, as well as a unified marketing and sales strategy so that it is not sending out conflicting evidence on why this customer should chose it in which to conduct their business. Therefore, understanding and creating that value to the customer is one of the most important rolls of the Web Manager.
Another important role of the Web Manager is to understand the value proposition the Web brings to its company. A good Web presence can bring increased business to the company through greater leads, new sales and sales growth with existing customers. Increased customer loyalty is also an important aspect of a company’s Web presence. The Web can help a company grow in existing markets as well, by integrating intelligent software applications that allow marketers to use cross-promotion and up-selling to target new segments within existing markets or bringing relevant buying information into the fray for new titles within an existing profitable account.
Some critical steps that a Web Manager must take to begin successfully implementing a Web campaign are making sure that the site functionality is good and user-friendly, understanding and preparing the marketing techniques and campaigns that are to be used, organizing the sales chain and methodology of the organization, and having an unbiased view of the corporation’s internal realities such as time, money, personnel, the ability to meet goals, keeping track of leads, sales, customer feedback and business networks. Without these things in place, the Web Manager cannot successfully drive a technology-enabled company. In our next post, we will discuss how the marketing mix has changed and what you need to know about it.
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The blog for e-marketing and e-business professionals
Copyright | emarketingprofs | All Rights Reserved
Effectively Marketing Online
The purpose of marketing is to educate the public on how you can solve their problems, while reducing their risk of doing business with you. The most effective marketing you can do is to find out what your customers’ major pain-points are, and let them know how you can help. This comes with time and research, but the end result will help to legitimize your business by talking their language and offering them solutions. This process is called “bridging the confidence gap”. Now, we can see how offering a solution to your customers’ pain points can help get you the business once your company is discovered, but the discovery phase can be tricky. This is where carefully analyzing your Web tracking results can help.
The purpose of marketing is to educate the public on how you can solve their problems, while reducing their risk of doing business with you. The most effective marketing you can do is to find out what your customers’ major pain-points are, and let them know how you can help. This comes with time and research, but the end result will help to legitimize your business by talking their language and offering them solutions. This process is called “bridging the confidence gap”. Now, we can see how offering a solution to your customers’ pain points can help get you the business once your company is discovered, but the discovery phase can be tricky. This is where carefully analyzing your Web tracking results can help.
If you see a trend wherein a lot of your Web visitors are coming from a certain Website, you can find out what that site is about and really start to analyze their content, their business purpose and their advertising techniques. This also works with your competitors’ Websites as well. You can look at their source code by clicking ‘view’ then ‘source’ in your Internet Explorer toolbar to see what keywords and metatags they are using. You can look at their backwards links and search for them on your favorite search engine. This will give you an idea of how they market themselves and who is linking to them. There is a strong possibility that sites linking to your competition will also link to you. But remember, keyword density is also very important.
Make sure you fill up several pages with the wordage you think your customers will be searching on. Use wordage from your customers marketing material, from your competitors marketing material and from your Web analytics. There is no shame in reusing other people’s data to your advantage. Just be sure to come up with fresh ideas and a fresh layout. And as long as you are optimizing your site better than the next guy, you will be the one on top of the search engine rankings and you will be the one with the first shot at gaining the opportunity to impress the customer. Just make sure that you capitalize on that opportunity by offering them low risk ways to move along the buying spectrum. Remember, the big sale is nice, but sometimes the little sale has to happen first, then the marketing hopper can be put into action to slowly change those small customers into your perfect customers by cross-marketing, up-selling and instituting value-added services along the way.
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The blog for e-marketing and e-business professionals
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