Growing Your Business With Target Marketing

Here we go again!  Its that time of year and your company is setting its yearly advertising budget and asking the age old question "How can we effectively market our business"?  This artice will clue you in on the mistake a majority of companies are making and one simple solution.

Whether your a regular "Joe Schmoe" trying to promote your business/event or the VP of Marketing, everyone always come across the same question of "How do I grow my  business?" Well that shoudn't be too hard to figure out since there are only four ways you can do it:
1.  Increase the number of customers.
2.  Increase the average dollar amount of each transaction.
3.  Increase the customer's frequency of purchase.
4.  Increase your gross profit margin.

Now with that being said, you can implement procedures to maximize gain on each one of those and have no worries. Right? Wrong! Let me tell where most companies are going wrong on how to avoid the problem.

As a sales director I am always trying to conjour up new and innovative ways to target new prospects and close on new business. Sure these steps are influential on growing a business, but what about maintaining those accounts you have already acquired? Have you invested time in letting them know that you appreciate their business? Maybe you will after reading the following statistics about why companies discontinue their business with their current vendors:

-1% Die

-3% Relocate

-5% Start doing business with a family member/friend

-9% Buy on price

-14% Leave because of a grievance

-68% Leave because they feel their business is taken for granted or they recieve an attitude of indifference.

And you thought that every client was price driven! Only 9% will take their business elsewhere due to price. Almost 70% will leave because they think you take them for granted though. When I read these numbers I was dumbfounded. Here I was thinking that price was the biggest factor. So what can you do to seperate yourself from your competitors and 99% of businesses out there? Simply practice great customer service, offer a quality product and send your customers a simple thank you item with your logo to show that you care. Not only will your customers appreciate you more, but your company name will be in their face and on their mind the next time they decide to place an order for the products you offer.