Customer Retention... Referrals

Roy Chitwood in his article, Key to Retaining Customers, states, “The key to retaining your customers in actuality is not very complicated. In fact, it can be quite simple:
Customers come to you when they have problems and needs. To both serve them well and keep them coming back, you have to provide better solutions than do your competitors.”

One executive describes customer loyalty; he says, “Correctly mining your customer database will create a means to acquire new clients over time. A system to creatively mine your customer database, providing “Treats” along the way is a sure way of creating and maintaining a successful business.”

Loyalty marketing is the management process of identifying “best customers” and utilizing customer data and insight to create, retain and grow profitable relationships.

Best customers are those who are the most commercially valuable – they bring the most profit.

Also important are those whose characteristics suggest that they have the potential to become categorized as best customers.

Keeping a client year after year is attaining customer loyalty that involves fitting together several pieces of the relationship puzzle.
There is a science to understanding client loyalty, to recognizing the value of loyal clients, plus creating and maintaining loyal clients. We will cover the basics of client loyalty and teach you ways to create more loyal clients than ever before in your business. I have found to create a successful customer loyalty strategy and action plan, one must first understand the numerous factors that determine the level of loyalty by customers.
First we will define Customer Loyalty and begin on a trip regarding the growth of Customer Loyalty. The purpose of the information is to review the make-up and use of Customer Loyalty.

Arnie Goldberg, quotes from book "Give Your Dog A Treat" www.giveyourdogatreat.com

HOW MANY ARE IN THE MARKET TO BUY A HOME?

Have you ever been in a group of people and asked... "How many of you are in the market to purchase or sell a home, or know someone who is in the market?"

Have you ever been in a group of people and asked... "How many of you are in the market to purchase or sell a home, or know someone who is in the market?"

What was the response? I can imagine most of the time the there are blank stares and very little positive response. In a group of ten or fifteen people I would think the percentages of finding someone interested in moving is nil.

There are true loyalty marketing systems with the new technology that can build your referral business to a point that you will never have to ask the above question ever again.

Why not ask this, “How many have family and friends that could use a system of purchase discounts and offers that can save them money and it is free access?”

Loyalty marketing is used by high powered corporations to grow their business. The airlines like American Airlines years ago started an air miles for free flights program, Target created discount programs for existing customers, Amazon added free shipping all as loyalty marketing programs for existing customers. Huge amounts of capital have been re-directed from advertising programs aimed at the whole public to create new customers, to programs directed to existing customers to create advocates and word of mouth growth.

REALTORS® have a challenge to create these type of word of mouth advocates because the nature of the industry of few transactions with seven to ten years between purchases. REALTORS® also have a challenge because they do not have large capital dollars to create loyalty marketing programs.
Outsourced programs are available to help create loyal customers that grow your referral business. These programs are available at low cost, yet provide substantial savings for customers and prospects in their everyday lives.


www.loyaltybuilder.com
Arnie Goldberg
agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com
317-489-5337

WHY LOYALTY MARKETING?

Why loyalty marketing? Because the overwhelming majority of real estate transactions come from referrals, you need a marketing strategy that not only retains existing clients, but gets them to recommend you to others more often.

Loyalty marketing is a process that identifies best customers by retaining and growing profitable relationships. Your most profitable customers not only transact with you, but also refer new business opportunities to you.

Most successful companies that deal with consumers have robust and capital intensive loyalty marketing programs -- because THEY WORK!

American Airlines years ago offered a loyalty rewards program and other airlines followed them. Credit card companies came with rewards programs. In recent years Target decided to take a major share of their advertising budget and give it back to their existing customers. They determined it was more effective and less costly to do loyalty marketing to existing customers than try to convert the whole buying public.

Rewards Programs and many loyalty activities are transactional based -- "purchase this" and "get this" -- these are reactive

Loyalty Marketing is relationship focused and pro-active rather than re-active

Let's use as an example a REALTOR® with a data base of 250 and they actually know 50 people well. The question becomes, how many of even the 50 are willing to talk about the REALTOR®? Those are the ones you need to engage and cultivate relationships with, and need to move others of the 200 into those that will "carry your banner."

You need a loyalty marketing solution that identifies those customers and cultivates your relationship with them.



Arnie Goldberg, VP Loyalty Builder, LLC agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com

TRULY UNDERSTANDING YOUR CUSTOMER

UNDERSTANDING what your customer expects from you as a service provider has become multi-faceted. It's not just enough to know the demographic profile of your customer. Providing good customer service and giving your customers what they expect means understanding every aspect of their lifestyle, especially when marketing to different age consumers. It will become more and more important to know what kind of music they listen to, and where they purchase clothing and auxiliary items, business software and various lifestyle factors. Additional information needed will be sports followed, children and what their children like to do, and so many more.
It is becoming more important to align yourself with third party companies that can help you gather and analyze this critical information regarding your customers in their work life, home life and lifestyle. Social media has become a useful tool also in discovering more information about customers and even providing ways to keep existing customers as loyal repeat customers.

Arnie Goldberg agoldberg@loyaltybuilder.com 317-489-5337

Exposure - Loyalty Building - Keys to Success

The key to self-marketing is EXPOSURE, and let's face it, realtors are a business within a business and certainly are self owned. Today that exposure means being a local celebrity (a well know person and face) plus social networking exposure for relocation leads, contacts and information.

The idea is to STAND OUT and sometimes that is for expertise in types of homes or specific desired properties (examples: condominiums or first time buyers). A slogan is helpful and it must be concise and to the point so it attracts attention and is memorable. Your image must have the perception that you are very successful. Quality brochures give the perception of success and are important, versus printing out fliers on your own printer.

Remember that marketing efforts take time to produce results. Consistent and timely marketing needs to be an ongoing process. Repetition is a key to success and persistence does produce results.