Staying Current in a Growing Economy
How current are you? It’s a question that we need to ask ourselves much more often than we do.
These days there are more ways than ever to “stay current.”
Example #1 I spent about an hour the week after Christmas “unsubscribing” from about 100 email lists that I had signed up for the previous year. I loved getting “offers” in my In box about special offers, sales and pricing. I do a fair amount of my shopping, especially Holiday shopping On-Line. The Emailed offers saved me a lot of money this season. (Of course, they probably cost me extra, from impulse buying…It’s all about MARKETING!! ) Anyway, in January my email box was full of what I now considered JUNK, so I decided to clean it out and “Unsubscribe” from some of the “less important” company websites that I no longer want information from. It was interesting. I have UNSUBSCRIBED from lots of different sites before and it’s usually easy. Just clicking on the provided UNSUBSCRIBE link in the News Letter/Email will take you to a page where you can enter your email address and get taken off of their mailing list. Usually this would do it. Pretty simple really. Enter 2011. Marketers are getting more savvy. Much more savvy.
One of the Newsletters I Unsubscribed to was Land’s End. Not, mind you, because I don’t want to shop at Land’s End anymore. My email box was just getting filled up with email alerts from Land’s End. I was getting about 2 a day. Now, the months of November and December, I placed about 5 orders to Land’s End and spent more money than my husband needs to know about, almost solely because of these offers. Free Shipping, 50% off, $75 off. … etc… Email Marketing and Branding at it’s best. (More on Branding in my next Blog.) So, when I clicked on the UNSUBSCRIBE button on the bottom of this beloved Email, I was fully expecting to not receive any more emails from Land’s End. To my surprise, the page it sent me to gave me a choice. Wow! As a consumer, I have a choice… and not just 2! It was Land’s End that was giving me more than one choice. Instead of choosing to be on the mailing list or not be on the mailing list, I got to choose to receive emails from Land’s End as often as I wanted. As I recall, the choices were as follows:
• Once a day • Once a week • Once a month
I chose Once a Month. The result? Land’s End gets to keep me as a customer, (Customer Retention) instead of risking my signing up for L. L. Bean’s website by mistake (Beating the Competition) next Christmas. (Lucky them!!) They get to keep their name in front of me (BRANDING), AND I get to feel like they care about me! (CUSTOMER LOYALTY) It’s a WIN WIN WIN WIN! I know this example is very small in the grand scheme of holiday consumerism…. But imagine how many Newsletter Subscribers Land’s End has. Now imagine how many subscribers they saved by implementing this very simple tool and how much collective money those saved subscribers will spend with them in 2011. There were a couple of other Companies that offered a choice upon Unsubscribing, but not many. So simple…. Giving your customer a choice.
Example #2 My bank has a pretty sophisticated ATM set up. I can do just about anything that has to do with banking from an ATM. Deposits, Withdrawals, Checking Balances, Paying Bills… You get the idea. I have a number of bank accounts at different banks, but at only one of my banks do I use an ATM with a debit card. OK- this change was very subtle. So subtle, in fact that I didn’t initially notice the change, a pretty significant change. It was a change that probably saved the banks hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, possibly millions. It also was a change that saved their customers a lot of headaches…. All without missing a beat. It would be interesting to know if you noticed it. What was it? Do you remember when you had to actually insert your ATM card into the ATM machine? Now, at least at my ATM’s you just put it in and slide it back out. (Much like most of the Credit/ATM machines being used now) And you realize that this change was made because WE, the bank’s customers were leaving our bank cards in the machine to frequently. The banks were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars replacing their customer’s banks cards (SAVING the BANK MONEY). There was a PLUS for us, the customer’s, too, albeit probably an unintentional by-product… We don’t have to face the inconvenience of losing our Bank Cards as often (CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE). And, (this is a bit of a stretch…) they are saving the environment by not having to replace their customer’s PLASTIC! (THINK GREEN!) Another WIN WIN WIN!
OK- I realize if you are reading this blog that you are probably NOT a consumer company selling sweaters, boots and luggage. (all of which I purchased in December!)… or a financial institution. You are probably an Industrial company who has receive a drawing to quote a long run machining job, an Electronic Component distributor who needs to have great product descriptions, inventory levels and e-commerce capabilities available on their website or a valve company who’s customers need CAD drawings to spec them into in a drawing. So, how are you staying current with your customers? Are you continually monitoring how your customers buy from you? Are you continually updating your website with the information your customers need to get through the buying cycle quicker and complete a PO? How difficult are YOU making it for your customer to do business with YOU?? Are you staying current?