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Big Bang Marketing Group's Marketing Bits eNewsletter Free Marketing, Management, Cleaning & Equipment Maintenance Tips |
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Welcome to the third edition of the Marketing Bits eNewsletter. In this issue: The Lifetime Value of a Customer: It's Cheaper to Keep Her - By Randy Rovang Wand marks on porcelain toilets, bathtubs, ceramic tile - By Gary Heacock Systems Q&A – Dealing with Employees - By Scott Rendall The Most Valuable 10 Minutes - By Randy Rovang Special Features: Squid Row - By Armand Taddeo The Big Bang Bargain Bin - Special deals on featured products... only available to our subscribers! What's New? - Scroll down to find out. The Lifetime Value of a Customer: It's Cheaper to Keep Her By Randy Rovang Many carpet cleaning companies spend far too much time and money, in pursuit of new customers. Of course, every company needs new customers to grow, but, if you're too focused on bringing new customers in the front door of your business, your existing customers may start to feel neglected - slipping out the back door. Using conventional forms of advertising such as Yellow Pages or direct mail, surveys indicate that it now costs upwards of $50.00 or more to attract a new customer. That's per customer! Amazing. If you don't have a system in place to keep in touch with your customers and "farm" them for future sales and referrals, you may be better off donating that $50.00 to charity, and taking the tax write-off. But, if you stay in touch with your newly acquired customer, that $50.00 can be a bargain. Marketing experts tell us that 3 short months after a typical service, most homeowners can't remember the name of the company that performed the service. For a company that provides a service that is rarely used more than once per year, staying in touch with your customers can mean the difference between growing a profitable business or just keeping your head above water. I frequently hear from cleaning company owners who tell me, "I can't afford to send out postcards or newsletters." Let me show you why you can't afford to NOT keep in touch with your customers: (I realize that was a double-negative) Let's conservatively say that your average job is $125.00, your average customer cleans once per year, refers you to 2 people annually and remains your customer for 5 years. The revenue produced from that one customer would equal $375.00 the first year. (your customer, plus the two referrals @ $125.00 each) If your original customer continues to give you 2 new referrals a year, your revenue would grow by an additional $250.00 the 2nd year, $500.00 the 3rd year, $750.00 the 4th and $1000.00 the 5th year. The total revenue from the original customer would equal $2875.00 over 5 years! ($375.00 times 5, plus the $1000.00 increase from added referrals) This equation does not even take into consideration the revenue produced by referrals obtained by other new referrals - I'm not smart enough to do that math. Now, let's also assume you spend $5.00 per customer per year to stay in touch with them via newsletters and postcards. Your cost to mail your growing customer base (The original customer, plus 2 new referrals a year) would be $120.00 over the 5 years. $120.00 plus $50.00 (Your initial ad cost) equals $170.00. Your total investment of $170.00 returned a gross profit of $2705.00. A 16 to 1 return. Not too shabby! For the sake of simplicity, let's imagine that you're just starting your business and you're only able to attract 10 new customers a month, each month of your first year. The revenue produced over 5 years from the 120 new customers, using the formula above, would be $345,000.00. Now, let's assume that the marketing experts are wrong, and only a third of your customers forget who you are because you neglected them. If you were to lose just a third of those customers, it would cost you $115,000.00 in lost revenue over 5 years by not keeping in touch with your customers! Now of course, these are just hypothetical figures. The real numbers could be higher or lower. But, the bottom line is, if it costs you $50.00 to attract a new customer but only $5.00 or less per year to keep that customer, isn't it a no-brainer? It's cheaper to keep her! If you have any questions about this article, email me at Randy@BigBangMG.com A Clean Joke... Reaching the end of a job interview, the human resources manager asked a young engineer fresh out of college what kind of a salary he was looking for. "In the neighborhood of $140,000 a year, depending on the benefits package." "Well, what would you say to a
package of 5-weeks vacation, 14 paid holidays, full medical and dental,
company matching retirement fund to 50% of salary, and a company car
leased every 2 years...say, a red Corvette?" "Wow! Are you kidding?" "Yeah, but you started it." Wand marks on porcelain toilets, bathtubs, ceramic tile. By Gary Heacock
Gary Heacock, one of the most respected icons in the cleaning industry, can be reached by email at dfrif@juno.com Visit his website - The Interstellar Crossroads of The Universe - at http://www.heacocks.com for Bio-O-Kleen products, and accessories for the professional carpet cleaner, and for expert cleaning advice.
A woman has tickets to the Super Bowl, right at the fifty yard line. As she sits down, a man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to her. "No," she says, "the seat is empty." "This is incredible," says the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl and not use it?" She says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my husband, but he passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we haven't been to together since we got married in 1967." "Oh...I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else - a friend or relative, or even a neighbor - to take the seat?" The woman shakes her head, "No, they're all at the funeral." |
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Systems Q&A –
Dealing with Employees, By Scott
Rendall
Ask any business owner what his or her top problems with running a business are and employee difficulties will surely appear somewhere at or near the top of the list. It’s often said, and is so true, “employees can either make or break you.” Oftentimes business owners will get into what we call a “Break-Point Cycle”. They start off with the intention of hiring employees to help their business grow. And indeed, employees are the only way we, as we service business owners, can significantly grow our businesses. We seek the “art of duplication” – in other words, we want clones of us. Sounds easy, right? Well, it can be, believe it or not. Continued... Dealing With Employees... continued here BRC Systems Solutions specializes in service business systemization, training, and consulting. They offer interactive, affordable business-building products that can easily be customized and formatted to fit any service business. They can be reached via phone at: 800-248-4809, email: info@brcsystems.com, or visit their website: www.brcsystems.com The Most Valuable 10 Minutes, By Randy Rovang The last time that you had a vehicle in the shop for repairs, did they wash it? Did they vacuum the interior? Probably not. But, if they had, you most likely would have been very impressed. When you're finished cleaning a customers carpet, take an extra ten minutes to do the following: Wipe the baseboards - Clean the threshold - Clean the Welcome mat - Sweep the porch or sidewalk Make sure that the customer sees you. She'll be thrilled! It's the little "extras" that make the difference between a customer that is generally happy with your work and one that is ecstatic and will get you referrals and repeat business. A customer "Cheerleader." Remember, this is a service business. Make certain that the customer is given the highest level of service by always providing more than they expect. You'll benefit in the long run. Squid Row Hi- My name is Armand Taddeo and I own SQUID Marketing. Over the years, SQUID Marketing has developed 'tools' to assist both the industry newcomer and seasoned veteran with their marketing and administrative needs while also offering affordability as well as QUALITY products. I'm proud to announce the addition of FORMulas 4-Postcards Volume 1. 35 ready-to-customize/print postcards for the Carpet Care Pro. For more information and to view a free sample, click on this link: http://www.bigbangmg.com/squid_postcard_cd.htm I'm also pleased to announce that SQUID Marketing and Big Bang Marketing Group are making both the FORMulas 4 and Big Bang Newsletter Content CD available-TOGETHER- for a limited time only at the LOW cost of just $108.00 (includes shipping in the US). For more information: http://www.bigbangmg.com/content_cd.htm |
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 The
Big Bang Bargain Bin
- Special deals on featured products!
Today's Special: From - Big Bang Marketing Group: 1 FREE custom customer newsletter, with any annual subscription! Sign up for an annual subscription of either 4 or 6 newsletters and get an extra newsletter free. If after mailing your first newsletter, you're not completely thrilled with the response, we'll cancel your subscription and refund every cent you paid us. For more information, follow this link: Free Newsletter Offer What's New? Do you write your own client newsletters, but sometimes struggle to come up with interesting articles and content? Big Bang Marketing Group is proud to announce: Our new Newsletter Content Collection! Over 100 articles, including jokes, clip art, carpet-related cartoons and a question/answer forum, all in Microsoft Word format. Simply edit them, then cut and paste into your own newsletter document! Nothing could be easier! (unless you have us do it for you) Our introductory price is only... $69.95! A $10.00 savings! For more information: Newsletter Content Collection |
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How are we doing? How can we make it better? We would appreciate your comments - good or bad - about this eNewsletter. Please send any comments and suggestions to: Randy@bigbangmg.com Thanks, now go get yourself a cookie! |
A Clean Joke...