There’s a business axiom that repeat customers are essential to business survival, long before growth. It’s easy to understand this. Acquiring customers is very expensive. Assuming that one satisfies or, even better, delights customers (and that can be a tall order), convincing them to return, to purchase add-on services, and/or to refer other potential customers is much more cost-efficient.
But how does one go about acquiring customers in the first place? Two ideas, one based on another marketing urban legend and the second from my own experience.
1. Think about the business more expansively. Here’s the marketing legend: after several years in business, the owner of a window treatments company (e.g., shades, blinds, etc.) wanted to grow but worried that he was at a dead end. New construction in his target geography had pretty much ceased, meaning that new windows weren’t being created. He spent his advertising dollars carefully. He knew all of the local realtors and interior designers and had good relationships with them, assuring himself of a steady, if thin, number of referrals. He asked his existing customers for referrals, too, and they obliged when they could. All told, he had a good business … but he wanted a better one.
This owner looked hard at his industry—not at what it did, but at what it stood for. After a while, he was able to see window treatments through a new lens. Through this lens, he understood the obvious in a different way. His insight: the choices that customers make in treatments are cosmetic, but the treatments themselves represent privacy. We purchase them so that others can’t see into our homes.
And privacy is a cousin of security.
The business owner expanded into the security business. He sold alarm systems and window grates. Some he sold to his existing customer base, and he attracted new customers through the new services. To the new customers he eventually offered his window treatments as well.
And so his business grew.
2. Know what you do best, and do more of it. Here’s another of my favorite examples from my own work: a psychologist who wanted help in expanding his patient base in the face of a changing world of health care reimbursement. This was a savvy move and posed an interesting marketing challenge.
Of course, soliciting patients (including, at least at the time, advertising) is not considered ethical—and given the confidential nature of treatment, the number of recommendations my client could obtain from his patients was relatively small (meaning that patients were not so likely to acknowledge to others that they had received treatment).
I asked him, “What work do you enjoy the most?” and he told me that he most enjoyed working with middle-aged men; that he was most successful in treating them and felt comfortable with their issues. And so we set about thinking about how to reach more middle-aged men.
A. Middle-aged men have common medical experiences. This is the time of life at which men (and women) begin to be diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and heart-related conditions. Diagnostic procedures, like colonoscopies, are also required for men in this age group.
The psychologist made a list of primary care physicians, cardiologists, endocrinologists and urologists, starting with those in his own building, and went about meeting them and talking about his approach to working with patients. He also approached health clubs and individual personal trainers.
B. Middle-aged men also have common career experiences. This is an age at which they may find themselves either out of work or questioning their career choices.
He made certain that all of the local career counselors and outplacement firms were aware of his services, and through contacts also got to meet a number of human resources professionals in local companies.
C. Relationships change, too. Middle-aged spouses may also have overwhelming health issues. And the mid-life crisis turns out to be no joke. Some marriages falter and fail, leaving the partners alone and confused.
Physicians, financial advisors and, yes, attorneys rounded out the list of potential contacts for our psychologist to meet.
And so his business grew.
Bottom line: If you are successful and happy with what you do, start there. Take what is familiar, and try to see it from a different angle. Ask: is there another way to understand this business? How can I take what I’ve already established and make it new again?
