A lot of businesses erroneously believe that they are transaction-based. First, they spend a lot of money to get a customer to come through the door. Then a customer comes, buys (or not), and disappears. The cycle then has to continue. A business has to spend a lot of money on advertising, as it has virtually no control over who comes through the door and when.
Such businesses are clueless about the fact that it is seven times more expensive to obtain a new customer than to sell to an existing one.
Need proof of this? When did you get a thank you letter from a business you visited for the first time? How often do you get a newsletter with interesting content from businesses that you patronize on a regular basis? How often do you get coupons and an invitation to come back after you stop showing up for some time? What about invitations to customer appreciation events, or an offer to bring your friends and tell them about your experience? How many businesses where you spend a lot of money actually bother to show their appreciation and give you a gift for being a great customer? Most likely, the answer is very few, if any.
What Makes Smart Businesses Different
Smart businesses understand that they’re not in a transaction-based business, but in a process business and a relationship-building business. They understand that it’s much easier to sell to an existing customer than to constantly hunt for new customers. They invest in building relationships with their clients, and spend a lot of time thinking about what they could do to make the experience of their customers better.
If you are looking to get started on this path, you first need to figure out how much your customers are spending with you and how much you can invest in nurturing your relationships with your customers.
Examples of Using Gifts in a Business
If you have, for example, a dry cleaning business, where your customers are consumers and spend very little, at the bare minimum you can have some candy in your store and send thank you letters to your best customers.
If you own a hotel, resort, or country club, your customers most likely spend a lot of money with you. You probably also have a lot of corporate clients. It makes sense to take really good care of them and to highlight your brand whenever possible. An engraved corporate gifts and merchandise are a great idea in this case. For example, you could have a welcome kit for every new client. The kit could include things like mugs, clocks, or water bottles with your logo on them.
If you are doing promotional or customer appreciation events, you can give out not only gifts, but also awards. Companies that specialize in engraved corporate gifts will usually also produce engraved books, name bars, plaques, and other upscale gift options. Using such gifts will help you make your events memorable and will let your customers brag about how well you take care of them.
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