1st Many entrepreneurs are concerned about how to grow their business. What do you think are the fundamental elements they need to focus on in order to grow their business?
In all the years I have been consulting with and advising small business owners and entrepreneurs, the #1 thing I hear consistently is “how do I get new business in the door?” That is a critical piece for any organization – driving new opportunities is of course important. But what I see many people doing in their business is worrying too much about getting new customers and not spending enough time nurturing the customers they have. The fact is that it costs a lot more to get new customers than it does to keep existing customers. The part most people don’t think about is that existing customers will typically spend 7 times more than new customers and if you see even just a 5% increase in customer retention, you can see anywhere from 50-100 times more revenue growth. The other great thing about existing customers is if you satisfy them consistently, they will bring new business to you – so you will grow your business anyway.
At Constant Contact, we have been encouraging our customers for years to ‘flip the funnel’ and focus more on retaining existing business in order to grow your business. It works!
How do you focus on your existing customers and thereby grow business? #1 – Focus on delivering a great customer experience, from the minute they walk in the door, until well after they have left, just deliver great service wrapped around your product. #2 – Stay in contact with them; if you stay in touch with regular communication, when they are ready to buy again they will think of you first because you gave them such a great experience. And they will also think of you when someone asks if they can recommend a good ‘what you deliver’.
2nd Entrepreneurs want to create strong relationship with the existing and potential clients. What are few tools that Constant Constant offers which would help them?
Constant Contact offers a suite of marketing software tools for small business. Our flagship product – the one we are best known for – is Email Marketing; it provides an easy way to produce professional looking email campaigns, manage your lists, send campaigns and track the results. It is a powerful way to stay in touch with your prospective and current/past customers. We provide Online Survey, which lets you assess how you are doing through customer satisfaction surveys or enables you to conduct a poll with your customers. Our Event Marketing system makes it easy to host events for your customers – from seminars to holiday parties – and easily capture registrations, collect payment and promote the event. Finally, we offer exceptional Social Media Marketing tools to engage your customers, prospects and partners through social sharing tools, Simple Share functions and social campaigns. If a small business leverages these tools, they will find that their business is sustainable over time and will grow to the success they envision.
Lisa Kember is the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact. She works with small business owners, associations and non-profits, teaching best practices in online marketing.
Lisa is also an entrepreneur. She launched Hyperactive Communications, a business marketing agency, in 1999 and worked with the likes of Canada Life, Research in Motion, EllisDon Corporation, AMJ Campbell, GE Canada, and ICICI Bank Canada. She currently holds ownership in two ventures in the real estate and education sectors
Lisa teaches public relations at Sheridan College. She sits on the board of directors for the Mississauga Board of Trade and on the marketing committee for RIC Centre, the innovation hub for Peel Region.
Lisa holds a BA in Honours English from University of Waterloo and a Resource Development Management diploma from Sheridan College.
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