Today’s post brought to you by David Levine, the numbers guy.
So your business now has a rewards program. You can now check that off the list of things “recommended” to do by the marketing gurus you pay a lot of money to keep you up-to-date with the 21st century. You then start to wonder if all you’re doing is paying fees and giving away rewards for something you would have been doing any way. Besides, true branding is ONLY created through top-notch service and professional know-how, NOT marketing gimmicks, right? Wrong. Marketing is the way you inform people of your brand. It’s sort of like the chicken or the egg, not sure which came first. It’s time to deploy the real weapons in your marketing arsenal and they all relate to Reporting Analysis.
Just as you’ve read about Google Analytics and how important it is to monitor the traffic on your website, you’ll now hear terms such as entrenchment and retraction that describe how well you’re keeping the clients you’ve already established a relationship with. Entrenchment is a term that defines the ability to keep a client once they have begun to do business with you. Retraction has to do with keeping the clients that might have fallen out of touch. How much repeat traffic and business are you really getting out of each client and is there more that can be done to maximize revenues on a per-client basis?
This blog post was written with the idea in mind that a client’s behavior can be altered through strategic marketing. Before you can even begin to analyze how successful your incentive levels are, you’ll need to determine what statistics and reports your rewards program offers.
First, I’ll give you a short example:
Jewelry stores have a few major Holidays and events that they direct the majority of their attention to: Birthdays, Christmas, and Anniversaries. Let’s call this the Big 3 for Jewelry Store Marketing. It’s not complicated to explain that a single household would have at least the Big 3 keeping them coming back to the marketplace to purchase jewelry every year. What’s to keep them coming back to one single jewelry store rather than finding the next best deal? Loyalty. What type of incentive encourages loyalty? Rewards. So, knowing this simple truth can bring someone to believe that the concept of reporting could be vital to a jewelry store’s retraction campaign right? All a jewelry store has to do is look through their reports and test to see which of their clients are only coming in 1-2 times during the year rather than maximizing the Big 3! Then, that business can target those clients that are not showing loyalty and test promotions to see if they can turn every client into a 3-times-a-year client! That’s big money.
Once your business is up and running with a loyalty program and customers are beginning to recognize its benefits, you’ll need to take the time to analyze how successful your program is.
Anyone can tell you that advertising is not an exact science. It can take a lot of effort to keep the momentum of a successful business or grow a new client base while building a sound foundation for years to come. The only way you’re going to know how successful your strategy truly is will be by running an effective and accurate list of reports. You should first determine if the loyalty program you’ve worked so hard to establish is doing it’s job by checking to see if customers are not only earning points but spending them, as well.
Every single customer that comes into contact with your business should be immediately aware of what they can earn. They should have two ways of earning points: purchases and referrals. Neither reward generator is more important than the other, however, it’s a good idea to spend more than just a moment during your busy months to focus on how sales reports can bring you increased profit.
Big spenders are often unaware of loyalty programs. Big spenders usually know other big spenders. Depending on how high your margin is on your good or service, it may be worth it to spend specific time and/or attention on just these customers alone. You could create a separate campaign for these big spenders so you could run a specific report just for them. A referral from a loyal client is always more successful than a no-name promotion. Let your customers increase your brand recognition and your business will grow.
Once you’ve analyzed your rewards program through reporting analysis, it’s time to start analyzing your attendance and average sales revenue. Your attendance should be somewhat evenly distributed from month to month but you will of course witness some spikes every once in a while. Although it is great to have one outstanding revenue generator for your business, it’s more important to keep your products, services and staff for the long run–giving your customers the warm-fuzzy feeling they want. Whether a customer has been coming to your studio for a few weeks or several years, chances are they want to feel like they are a regular so they can get attention where/when they feel necessary. Not only is it important to analyze attendance but average sales revenue will help you determine if your prices are set according to how often most of your customers make use of your business. If you’re not making profit, it’s not worth running your business, period. Even a non-profit can make revenue over what was planned; it’ll just serve to benefit your cause.
Call 704.516.2496 or email David at DL@clientrocket.com for more insight on Reporting Analysis for Google and Rewards Programs.
