“What Harv? There are two ends to marketing?”
I hear it ALL the time, and it’s probably going to be news to a lot of you, which is why – and I’m going to repeat myself because I can’t be more emphatic about how true this is – so many businesses fail. Most business people, if they’re thinking about it at all, think that marketing is mostly compromised of getting people’s initial interest. While that’s obviously a huge part of the success – building game, marketing is actually a double – edged business strategy.
It’s the costliest and most time-consuming part of a company’s life – getting the customer in the door the first time. In fact, it costs five times more to gain a new customer than to keep the one you already have. And that’s just it, another crucial aspect many businesses fail at. Offering one product to a new customer is great, but not offering more, different, or ever – newer products keeps them a one – timer.
Unsuccessful businesses fail to follow up with additional products or services. They don’t have an array of complementary items to offer. Successful businesses that do have a variety of offerings create perpetually-new customers by delivering ever more products and services to the same people, while still gaining new customers.
This is the only way to build not only more revenue but also the next most important thing you can capture from a customer after you’ve gotten their attention and interest, and that’s TRUST. In this age of ever – increasing skepticism and cynicism, trust is hard to come by. If people don’t trust you, they’re less likely to listen to you, and even less likely to spend their money on you.
If they have bought from you once, they have already shown a level of trust, so your job is to create a circle of trust whereby you deliver what you promise, and invite satisfied and happy customers back for more. This is where the money’s at. These customers are providing your future wealth. You’ll make some money from one-time customers, but obviously not as much as repeat customers.
So one end of your marketing strategy is to get first-timers in the door, and the other end is to have a line-up of products and services that you can offer once they’re in. Two marketing systems, two product lines. One gets them into the circle; the other keeps them in. You almost have to treat these two ends as if you’re running two separate but similar businesses. That’s how separate they should be.
Your exercise is to set a line – up of front end and back end products and services for a business you have now or a business you’d like to start in the future. Creativity and imagination are your allies. If you can’t think of products or services, make them up! Innovations happen by creative people figuring out how to make something that exists even better, or by being imaginative enough to anticipate future wants and needs and creating something that may not even exist now. Also think; “What am I absolutely great at that I could duplicate beyond me, over and over again?”
Look at what your clients want and how you can support them. If you execute this right, you’ll go from a decent income to real wealth relatively fast. The headaches are in the front end, but the money is in the back end!
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