If you know how your customers find you and have the information to target them better, all you have to do is spend some money and get on with it, right?
Some customer sources (or pipelines) are easy to work on and grow, but what about the ones that are really tricky to actively improve?
We touched on this topic recently in our blog “The Ups and Downs of Google Ads”, but ongoing conversations with the two clients that featured in that blog got us thinking about how to target tricky customer pipelines, and how that targeting tends to fall firmly into what people think of as traditional marketing.
The pros and cons of digital marketing
One of the attractive features of modern digital marketing is that is has ‘fixed’ a lot of the ‘issues’ with traditional marketing.
If you are advertising on any of the digital channels, like Facebook, Google Ads etc, then you know exactly how many people have seen your adverts, how many clicked on them, and what they did after they clicked, especially if your ad leads to your website.
While this has caused a revolution in marketing and advertising, you can fall into the trap of thinking that the digital side of things is all you need to do.
If you do the exercise of working out who your customers are and where they come from (their demographics), and how they find you (channels or pipelines) you might be surprised by how many aren’t coming from your digital marketing efforts.
The value of marketing insights
Here at Synthesis Marketing, we often say that deeper marketing insights lead to better decisions and more powerful marketing, and these tricky, traditional customer pipelines are a prime example.
Most business owners probably have a bit of an idea about which marketing channels work for them, and very roughly what percentage of customers come from each.
Once you do some digging, or better still collect real data, you might be surprised though.
Often channels that you don’t think do much for your business are working to attract customers. And channels that you think work but only bring in small numbers of customers can turn out to be hidden star performers.
Let’s look at a couple of real examples …
Let’s go back to our two clients that were having issues with their Google Ads in our last blog and dig a bit deeper into the ‘foster other channels’ suggestion that we touched on in the ‘reduce your dependency on Ads’ section.
Client A
In a recent phone call with Client A, we talked about where potential new customers come from, and how they found out about the business.
This client happened to mention that he was the only person in his sector that still has a listing in the paper edition of the Yellow Pages (yes it still exists). As a result, a significant and steady percentage of his customers are retirees, who don’t spend much (or any) time online.
Advertising in the Yellow Pages, or other physical directories, is classic traditional marketing. You know the number of directories that go out each year, the cost of the advert, and that it runs for a year, but keeps working in older directories that people have lying around. Having a process in place for asking how customers found you adds the final piece of the puzzle – how well the advert has worked.
In this case, learning about how well directories were working as a customer funnel, and the demographic they attracted, led us into a useful discussion of what other advertising/marketing might work for that demographic.
Client B
Client B got proactive last year, and did a survey of existing customers, with a particular focus on how people heard about his business. The results were pretty interesting.
When all the digital channels that brought people to the shop were added together: Google Ads, Facebook, Newsletters (EDM) etc., this number came to roughly 50%. Doing the same for traditional channels: word of mouth, walk-ins (passing the shop), ‘bought from you before’ etc, this number made up the other half.
This client puts a lot of effort into being a business that people recommend to friends and family, and want to come back to, so it wasn’t a big surprise that traditional types of channels featured in the survey. However it was unexpected that those channels together were as important to the business as digital.
The question we asked next was ‘You know how much you spend each month on digital marketing, but how much do you spend on the traditional channels that bring in just as many customers? Should you be spending more, and how can you do that?’
How could this client do more to build his relationships with the customers that are raving fans (or promoters in marketing speak)? He already provides useful, honest advice to potential buyers, great backup and service on the products he sells, he often throws in free or heavily discounted accessories with bigger sales.
What else could he do? Should he formalise this side of his marketing, assign budget to it, try and track how well it works?
Think outside the traditional box
When most people think about traditional marketing, they jump to non-digital advertising, but the reality is that ‘traditional’ covers almost everything you do to grow your business that doesn’t happen online. This can be fairly extensive.
As we saw above, that can be things that you are just doing as part of ‘good business practice’, in which case they probably aren’t in your marketing plan, they probably don’t have their own budget, and you probably don’t really monitor how well they work. The reality is that improving hidden elements of your marketing isn’t as easy ramping up your digital advertising. You are going to have to put your thinking cap on, but we’re happy to help too.
For Client A, working out how to reach more retirees that don’t use computers or smart phones is going to require some more unusual traditional approaches. With a long career in his trade, this client has taught apprentices and run community classes. So, doing informative presentations to organisations like Lions, and the U3A seemed like a good fit.
Other advertising avenues that would work included local newspapers in the areas that he serviced. Having a professionally produced, well laid out, simple but eye-catching advert ready to use when the opportunity came up made sense.
Finally, with a customer base that wouldn’t jump onto their phone when they couldn’t remember which tradie they used last year, the traditional reminders of branded fridge magnets, note pads and similar are worth this client exploring.
For Client B we suggested that he work out all the things he currently did to help keep customers happy and coming back to him. And try and work out how much he spent doing these, ideally as a percentage of sales. Then he could decide if it was worth spending more on any of them as part of his marketing plan and budget.
We also discussed trying to find other things that he could do to attract and retain customers via the traditional channels identified in his survey.
Tricky but worthwhile
For both of these clients, most of the suggestions we came up needed more than just throwing money at them. They required more thought, and probably a bit of trial and error too. They are also going to take a bit of effort to monitor how well they work.
On the upside, both clients already know those traditional channels and specific demographics account for a significant chunk of their customers and business. That means that even relatively small increases in successful marketing will bring a positive increase in sales.
Can’t see the wood for the trees?
Sometimes you can get so caught up in the business of running your business, that it’s tricky to see beyond your day-to-day marketing.
If you need some help working out who you should be targeting with non-digital marketing, or coming up with some different marketing approaches, then give us a call.
We have expertise and experience across a wide range of traditional marketing, and can help you with insights into your business and customers that really work to target less common traditional marketing channels and demographics. Contact us today.
