One to One Marketing

A very effective loyalty program is One to One marketing. Instead of focussing on share of market, you focus on share of customer – one customer at a time. The share of customer idea is that as a customer of a true 1 to 1 company, you would let the company know what you need and they would provide it. Mass marketing companies create a product and try to find people who want to buy it. 1 to 1 Marketing has the idea that companies will be more successful if they literally design products and service for specific customers. In practice, the concept at this time, for most companies, comes down to understanding what people want and marketing it to them in a customized way.

http://www.jimnovo.com/programs.htm#loyalty

Customer loyalty

A well known fact is that successful businesses typically see 80 percent of their business come from 20 percent of their customers. Therefore it is very important to have a steady customer base. There are a lot of businesses who invest a lot of money in trying to attract new customers but what they don’t know is that the cost to attract new customers is significantly higher than to maintain the relationship with existing ones. If you give attention to the ten following tips you will succeed in having a better customer base: be flexible, give promotions, communicate, customer service, employee loyalty, employee training, customer incentives, product awareness, reliability and know the names of your regular customers. Do not hesitate to invest in customer loyalty because those efforts will certainly payoff.

UPC: the effectiveness of the human touch

UPC boutique wants to claim its position on the retail market by using a personal approach towards its customers. Unlike its competitors, big department stores such as Zara and H&M, it can’t afford to spend large budgets on exclusive designer collaboration and still managing to offer the inexpensive latest trends to their clients. Being a speciality boutique, UPC realizes it has to communicate to its customers in a personal way. Only by doing this it is possible for UPC to compete with these big stores. Going back to the days where everyone knows your name is the key for success for this retail store.

Lien Dickele

http://upcboutique.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/111/

Brand integrity more important than hard cash?

Branding is not only about increasing sales, but especially about developing a long-term relationship with customers. It consists of making the customer loyal to a brand and making him buy continuously this particular product because of the values and quality it stands for. However, it’s striking that once companies start to grow in size and stature they break their promises towards customers and begin to sell out.

A striking example of a company that did so, is the Body Shop, a retail chain, who recently has been sold out to the French cosmetics giant L’Oréal. Like the Body Shop, many companies chose hard cash above the ideals and product values they once promoted.

Lien Dickele

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article711251.ece