{"id":350,"date":"2010-04-28T09:02:21","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T16:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/?p=350"},"modified":"2010-04-23T23:15:41","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T06:15:41","slug":"courting-a-wary-customer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/2010\/04\/courting-a-wary-customer\/","title":{"rendered":"Courting a Wary Customer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deliver Magazine<\/a> and Sid Liebenson suggest three ways to build and maintain loyal relationships when customers are running scared.<\/p>\n

Consumers are retrenching, economizing and just plain scared. But as the saying goes, the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, and the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.<\/p>\n

The recession presents the perfect opportunity to finetune your marketing efforts that will build loyalty among your current customers. It also is the prime time to go into acquisition mode and attract competitors\u2019 customers to your brand. Here are three ways to do it:<\/p>\n

1. Get personal. <\/strong>Consumers are vulnerable in a down market: They\u2019re rethinking their brand loyalties as they look to economize and reconsider what they value in a brand. Keeping your customers means personalizing like you\u2019ve never personalized before.<\/p>\n

Mine your data<\/a> to let your customers know you understand what\u2019s important to them. For example, you might send a message on a catalog overwrap saying, \u201cIn the spring, you bought this lightweight cotton sweater from us. Now that it\u2019s fall, here\u2019s what people who bought that sweater are buying now.\u201d This shows you care about what they are thinking, and there\u2019s some logic to what you\u2019re recommending \u2014 you\u2019re not selling them something just to sell it.<\/p>\n

Your marketing messages need to be not only personalized, but frequent<\/strong>. In a tough economy, it\u2019s common for consumers to question where every penny is going. When they do that, suddenly every relationship is a little at risk. Their question becomes \u201cAm I really getting value from this relationship, or is there something that will satisfy my needs equally for less money?\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t make cuts. <\/strong>Now is not the time to scale back on marketing spending. If you don\u2019t stay in touch with your best customers \u2014 while they\u2019re continuously exposed to messages from your competitors \u2014 the idea of buying your brand gets further from their mind. This is especially true when consumers are already reconsidering their brand loyalty.<\/p>\n

In several categories, competitors aren\u2019t marketing as much or they\u2019re reducing campaign frequency. With these cutbacks, some marketing media have become cheaper. If you\u2019re not afraid to spend some money on acquisition, chances are your media costs can be a little more efficient.<\/p>\n

3. Show them you care. <\/strong>Empathize with customers to demonstrate you understand what they\u2019re going through during the recession. Health care, for example, is a big concern for consumers right now.<\/p>\n

You should always practice good marketing \u2014 personalization, appropriate messages, frequent touches \u2014 but focus on these things even more to keep your customers with you through the economic crisis. When times are better, you\u2019ll have your core group of customers \u2014 and then some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deliver Magazine and Sid Liebenson suggest three ways to build and maintain loyal relationships when customers are running scared. Consumers are retrenching, economizing and just plain scared. But as the saying goes, the pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, and the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. The recession presents the perfect opportunity to finetune […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,33],"tags":[26,41,17,25,59],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-list","category-marketing-strategy","tag-customer-retention","tag-deliver-magazine","tag-maintain-customer-relationship","tag-personalized-message","tag-tough-times-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deansmailing.com\/rationalmarketing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}