Collecting customer information is one of the best forms of marketing you have. It gives you the ability to get in touch with people who have already been to your brick-and-mortar store, who have experienced your services or products, who have, essentially, already begun building a relationship with you. And best of all? It’s free. You may pay out a little bit if you send postcards or a paper newsletter or flyer, but the cost is minimal compared to paying for a radio or newspaper ad. And if you start moving your customer interactions online, you can use this customer information to stay in contact with your customers and prospect list via email without any postage or printing cost. (More on e-mail marketing ideas.)

So what stops local business owners from regularly collecting customer information?

• They don’t think about it.
• They don’t want to be pushy.
• They don’t know how.

Start Thinking About It
If I offered you a way to get targeted marketing messages to your best customers for free, wouldn’t you be interested? That’s what collecting customer information is all about it. “Not thinking about it” is just a poor excuse, so here’s your free reminder to start thinking about and take advantage of a great marketing strategy. You don’t have to be pushy to ask if people want to be on your Preferred Customer List. You just ask, politely, and give them a quick and easy way to sign up. If you get a “No” in response, you don’t have to push it.

How to Collect the Information

• Step 1: Make it quick and easy.

Have a simple form handy, make lots and lots of copies, and leave it out in your retail space. Don’t make the form long; in fact, the shorter the better. Ask for the customer’s name, email address, and (perhaps) phone number or mailing address. The name and email address are the essentials, and you can just stick with those and get great results.

• Step 2: Make it beneficial for the customer.

Give your list a name – the Preferred Customer List or something along those lines – and give customers a clear, concise reason why they should join it. “For exclusive offers.” “For special discounts.” “For members-only events.”

• Step 3: Train your employees.

Create a short script and train every single employee to go through that script. It can be very short, and very simple: “Sir or Ma’am, would you like to sign up for our Preferred Customer List? We just need your email address, and you’ll get access to exclusive offers just for our Preferred Customers.” Teach your employees to have the form and a pen ready, and hold it out to the customer while they are asking the question. This small physical gesture makes it almost instinctive for the customer to reach forward. And no, employees shouldn’t be pushy either. If a customer declines, all that is needed is a polite response: “Well, maybe next time! Thanks for shopping with us!”

• Step 4: Be an Example.

Let your employees see you going through that script whenever you ring out a customer, answer a question, or call a customer about a special order. The script can easily be followed over the phone; you or your employee will just need to take the information verbally and write it down.

• Step 5: Be True to Your Word

If you’ve offered exclusive deals or special events, follow through. A weekly email is best, but at the least follow up with a monthly email offering a special deal, coupon, or event. Make sure the folks on your mailing list understand that it’s exclusive; that’s the value for them.

• Step 6: Get Feedback

Over time, your list will grow and you’ll have customers you get to know well. Use your list to get feedback on everything from your products to your store appearance to the kind of deals or events they would really like to see. Your customer list can quickly become a very valuable, informal method of market research; and the market is your ideal customer, so you know the information is good. (Here is a cool idea on WHAT to send to your e-mail list once you create it.)

The holidays are the perfect time to start collecting customer information, so get to it. Create that form and start asking. You’ll have a great way to follow up with all those new customers you get shopping for holiday specials.

Image by bulliver.

Want to add a little holiday cheer to your 2010 holiday marketing? Try these 10 holiday marketing ideas to pump up the sales volume and spread a little holiday cheer all at the same time!

1. Customize your website and/or Facebook page with holiday decorations. It’s fairly easy to make (or find) a holiday graphic that you can customize for your business Facebook page or website, and it creates a festive spirit right there on the Internet, which is where more and more sales are happening (read this article to learn how long it takes for online marketing efforts to “move the needle”). So don’t save the holiday decor just for the brick-and-mortar storefront. Spread the spirit to your online space as well.

2. Have a holiday photo contest. You can theme the contest to fit in with your business, your products, and your services, or you can just keep it generic. Have people submit their photos via your Facebook page and simply “tag” your business page in the photo. You can have a contest for the “Cutest Family Christmas Picture” or “Best Santa Impersonator Photo” or anything holiday-themed. Play it up both in your store and online marketing, and provide a great prize for the winner.

3. Give holiday favors away with every purchase. Think simple and cheap here. A holiday favor can be very inexpensive, something as simple as pen with your logo on it, a holiday pin or sticker, or a individually wrapped chocolate. For the investment of a few pennies per purchase, you get to make a great impression with every customer who makes a purchase.

4. Offer holiday treats throughout the Christmas shopping season. Keep a fresh pot of coffee, a big urn of apple cider, and some holiday cookies out on a table, as a complimentary holiday treat for all your customers. It doesn’t matter if you’re a retail gift shop, an office, or a service-based business; sweet treats are welcome anytime, anywhere. And people who know they can get a cup of hot apple cider on a chilly day will return, and linger while they sip it.

5. Create a “12 Days of Your Product” package. This great marketing idea, from SmallBizTrends.com, gives you an easy, fun, and festive way to introduce customers to more of your products and services. Put together a 12-day package, starting small and building up, and sell it as a holiday special.

6. Send a special holiday e-card to your customer email list. Send it early – well before the actual holiday – and include a special coupon or discount as your way of saying thanks to your loyal customers.

7. Have a tree-trimming day in your brick-and-mortar store. Turn up the Christmas music, hang out signs, invite the public to participate, and have lots of sweet treats handy. Offer special “tree-trimming day only” sales, specials, and discounts.

8. Participate in your community’s holiday events. Is there a parade, a bazaar, a charity fundraiser, a night of carol singing and hot cocoa? Get out there and be part of it. Sponsor something, contribute something, provide some supplies and simply take part in person. Being an active part of your community is one of the best marketing moves you can make anytime of year.

9. Give away your holiday decorations (or some of them). Invest in a big, beautiful holiday wreath or centerpiece; then announce that, at the end of the season, one lucky customer will get to take it home to use in their own decor next year! Offer every customer the chance to enter to win that beautiful decoration; make it easy with slips of paper and a decorated box to put them in. All you need to collect are names and phone numbers (or email addresses). At the end of the season, have a little party, draw and announce the winner, and make even the post-holiday work a reason for celebration.

10. Simplify the holiday gift-buying process for your customers. Offer something like free gift-wrapping, free delivery, or an exceptionally lenient return policy for purchases. Anything you can do to make this time of the year simpler and less stressful for your customers will make it more likely that they spend their money in your store, and remember you when the new year rolls around.

P.S. Here is a post from 2006 on seasonal e-mail marketing ideas that I thought you’d also like.

Image by Howard Dickins.

Use the “fishbowl” method to collect an e-mail address from every single customer or prospect that you encounter in your local business this week. This simple method is something you can implement in your brick-and-mortar business by the end of the day today, and it will lead to the collection of pure gold (aka e-mail addresses) for your business – gold that can be leveraged to move the needle again and again for your small business! Here’s how it works:

1. Procure a large bowl that will fit in a prominent location either to the right (as one exits) of the front door of your store at eye level and/or at each your point of sale/cash-wrap stations.

2. Create a sign to affix to the bowl that has a big, bold headline that says something like “Join Our E-Mail List for a Chance to Win!”

3. Add subtext under the sign’s headline, create an irresistible offer that fits your business that follows this basic idea: “Once a month, one entry from that month will be awarded a $250 gift certificate to our store!”

4. Watch the e-mail addresses pile up.

5. Enter the e-mail addresses into your e-mail system at least monthly BEFORE the award notification is made.

6. On a monthly basis, choose an e-mail address and make the award. E-mail them the award notification with an inquiry for their mailing address, so that they’ll come into the store. Also include in that e-mail a suggestion such as the following: “We value you as a customer, and we’re thrilled that you’ve won this prize. You are definitely deserving! We’d love it if you’d share some ideas of what you’ll be buying with your gift certificate with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. You can connect with us there at facebook.com/business name and on Twitter @businessname. I hope you won’t mind that we’ll be letting everyone know who won this month in our e-mail newsletter and through our social media channels as a way to encourage folks to enter this month’s new contest! Thanks again for being such a fantastic customer! We really appreciate your business!”

7. Post who won and what they won and how folks can enter the next contest on Facebook. Tag the person who won if possible.

8. Post who won and what they won on Twitter and @ reply the winner, if possible.

9. Include the winner’s name and a call for new entries in your next e-mail newsletter.

Happy fishbowling! You’re going to love the results you get from this great marketing tip!

I got this message from MyScoop Mississippi a while back and stuck it in my “idea file” under “great retail promotion ideas using Facebook.” In this case, the message was probably distributed other ways, but the only way I heard about it was through a Facebook message that I received as a results of being a member of their Group on Facebook. (If you’re not familiar with MyScoop, check out Mississippi Publisher, Elizabeth Fowler’s interview on ResultsRevTV).

Here’s a copy of the actual Facebook message promoting this special retail event:

Subject: Debit Cards Ready…Set…Sale!

Does your debit card love a good sale?  Mine does!

I hope you will mark your calendar for a special sales event at Blithe & Vine and Cosmo Tots.  Stop in this Thursday night (May 27) from 5 PM until 8 PM to take advantage of 30% off full-priced merchandise (sorry girls, handbags, shoes and jewels not on sale).  If you’re already “booked” and can’t do a drive by for the event, stop in anytime tomorrow (Tuesday) through Saturday and ask to see the sale items.

Keep your eyes peeled for a sneak peek; My Scoop will be posting snapshots of our favorite sale items to our facebook group now through Thursday.  If you live out of state, just give Blithe & Vine a call — they have UPS on speed dial!

All my best,

Elizabeth
Editor & Publisher, My Scoop Mississippi

Let’s analyze why this message and this promotion works:

1. Subject line is snappy, sassy and grabs attention. It doesn’t just say: Sale and Blithe & Vine starts on Thursday. BORING. This subject line is fun and attention grabbing.

2. Body copy is also snappy and sassy with the perfect level of attitude and cool for the target audience. How can you bring the perfect level of personality into your e-mail messages?

3. The offer makes a special event out of an everyday thing: a seasonal sale.

4. The offer is flexible and accommodates the customers – it’s EASY to participate. (insiders who got this message can ask to see sale items ahead of time or call and order and they will even SHIP it to you!)

5. Sneak peak of sale items will be posted using a Facebook photo album – great cross media promotion and engagement opportunity beyond this message!

6.  It’s a personal letter style format similar to the letter style format for e-mail marketing that we recently discussed – except this letter was send through Facebook’s messaging system where you can send messages directly to all of your Facebook connections using your administrator options.

Great job by MyScoop Mississippi! How can you spice up your promotions, your promotional messages and get more out of ordinary business happenings? Share your ideas in the comments, and you might also get a featured post on this blog!

The “letter” is probably the oldest form of written communication. But when it comes to e-mail marketing, most of us regularly use HTML based e-mail marketing formats full of photos and image graphics. We’ve also discussed why subject lines mean so much to the effectiveness of your e-mail campaigns. But do you ever get in a rut and just have some things you want to say to your customers without a bunch of fluff and graphic fireworks? If so, maybe it’s a good time for you to go back to basics and just write a letter.

Recently, I got just such a letter from the Editor-in-Chief at a marketing e-zine to which I subscribe, and I actually opened it and read it – something I honestly, rarely do with their mailings.

What do I mean by letter format?

Just how it sounds. A letter format when it comes to e-mail marketing for your small business is just that – a letter written in normal e-mail typing text with a greeting, body, and salutation. A P.S. is also a great bonus because statistics say that those get read the most of any element of a direct marketing letter.

Why does the letter format work so well for e-mail marketing?

I think it boils down to being a real human every now and then. We humans of the earth like to connect with other humans – not mechanical, fancy looking businesses. As a locally owned small business owner, you have an edge on this marketing opportunity – and you should use it. Don’t overuse it, or you’ll lose your authenticity, but maybe once a month, this method would work phenomenally well for your small business. Insert your personality, your passion and your knowledge. Connect with your customers and share something valuable with them. Maybe it’s an event or maybe it’s just knowledge about your business niche that you thought would help them out. Maybe it’s a thank you for their loyalty. But at the end of the day, the letter format inserts another human element into your customer relationships, builds authenticity and leads to increased trust… And these elements lead to higher lifetime value of the customer, increased customer loyalty and stronger referral values.

With that in mind, what are the elements of a letter format, e-mail marketing communication?

Here are some common elements I would probably include in your small business e-mail marketing letter:

1. Greeting with real name. As in “Hi there, Marianna…” or “Hello, Marianna.”

2. A personal, authentic and thoughtful first paragraph.

3. A link to the relevant information.

4. Supporting information in subsequent paragraphs, maintaining the chatty, authentic, personal tone of the human sending the e-mail.

5. Bullet lists of relevant information

6. Close by repeating the main details in summary list format. For example, if you’re sharing an event with them, re-state the details as follows:

Webinar entitled: Seven Marketing Strategies that Work in Any Economy

Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 9 a.m.

Register here: insert bit.ly link

7. Friendly closing that says something like “I hope you can join me…”

8. Your first name

9. P.S. This is the place to restate your offer or add a bonus to the existing call to action offer, if there is one.

10. Skip two lines then insert your “signature file” with links to your web site and social media, general business and contact information, etc.

Please let me know if you’ve ever used this format and what the results were. If you’re considering this idea, what stood out to you or what ideas would you add to this post? Post in the comments below! Happy letter writing!

Photo Credit: a.drien (the letter)

With social media usage and marketing efforts growing by leaps and bounds, it’s not only important for your small business to be on social media – it’s important to say the right thing. How can you tell when you are saying the right thing?

Here are some of my tried and true tips for improving what you say – and therefore the engagement and resulting sales – from social and new media marketing.

What’s wrong with ordinary?

We live in a world with thousands of messages coming at us daily. Is your message boring? Possibly. For example, I received an e-mail from a statewide organization this morning. The subject line simply said “May e-newsletter XYZ organization.” I had no reason to open it.

We recently helped (through HALO Business Advisors) with an e-mail campaign on a weekend when snow hit Mississippi. This doesn’t happen often, and when it does—our world shuts down. For this small business owner, restaurateur, client and good friend of mine, closing on the weekend wasn’t an option. With little time to make it happen, his text message to me went something like this. “We have to send an email – let folks know we are open!!”

I could have sent an e-mail with a simple subject line stating “WE ARE OPEN.” Instead, we sent an e-mail out that said: “Who won the ROCA snowball fight?”

This e-mail had the highest open rate of any email we’ve ever sent. Significantly north of 40% of the list opened it within 12 hours, and sales that weekend were very strong. (The body of the e-mail message showed a picture of the chef throwing snowballs with his boys with the announcement that the restaurant was open that night.)

Traditional newspaper folks are losing steam in some areas, but they know how important a headline is to sell a newspaper.  The same thing is equally important to having a tweet read or an e-mail opened. Words matter. Pick a few good headline concepts from the major media outlets or note their style – and copy them!

Here are a few more of my tried and true tips for improving what you say – and therefore improving the engagement and resulting sales – from social media and marketing. These rules apply especially well for both e-mail subject lines and for tweets with pictures:

1. Shorter is better. People are reading 20 characters on their Blackberries and iPhones in the subject line. It’s becoming the tool that more e-mails are opened on. Shorter subject lines will work better than long ones, but you have to also follow rule #2.

2. Make me open it. If you can tease me with a question or factoid or humor, I’m going to invest the extra 10 seconds to read about it. Just tonight I sent out four different photo tweets. The one with a short title and a little humor had 35% more opens in the first 10 minutes than the rest of the tweets.

3. Grow a personality. If you aren’t witty or funny, find someone who is. That class clown or guy that always makes folks laugh is probably a good person to help you figure out the subject line of an e-mail campaign. Use teasers like: “Why didn’t Joe Smith eat supper here last night??” (Joe Smith can be interchanged with the name of a local celebrity or local news anchor.) More people will open that e-mail to find out that Joe is coming TOMORROW for a special event that THEY should plan to attend as well.

4. Follow through. Having a great subject line is important. Test it out on your staff or friends for some quick feedback. This shouldn’t be a 2 hour process, but maybe 20 minutes. Remember that spending an extra 20 minutes on a subject line that gets 10-20% more opens on an e-mail campaign is probably well worth the time. Look at the numbers. Let’s say you have a moderately sized 2000 person e-mail list for your small business with a nominal 8% open rate. This means 160 people confirmed opening your email. If you can fix your subject line problems and get that number to 20%, you’ve more than doubled the number of people who open your e-mails therefore improving the overall ROI of your e-mail marketing campaign.

5. Check for typos. Send your e-mail to a select group of your staff or friends who will promise to catch errors. We try and make sure EVERYTHING that goes out has 2 sets of eyes on it. It’s too easy to look at something for an hour and miss a glaring typo because you just aren’t focused anymore.

In closing, I’ll leave you with these sample social media messages that could work for different types of businesses.

Retail Menswear: “What can $250 buy at our store?”
Most people will want to know exactly what you are talking about — they’ll open.

Woman’s fashion line: “Your mother wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this…”
Wonder what that’s all about? I better check and see… They’ll open.

Restaurant: “The best lookin’ plate of food you’ve ever seen… details inside”
Hrmm, wonder what’s so special about the plate of food?

Retail Store: “The ONE thing you need to see from our trip to Market last week.”
Wonder what that one thing is?

You guessed it, they’ll open.

Next week on ResultsRevTV Live, Luke Abney, owner of the Rogue & Good Company and 4450 will be our guest.  The Rogue, which has been in business for 42 years, has been owned by Luke and his wife Alison for the past five years.  After the purchase of the Rogue, these parents of two opened Forty Four Fifty, a women’s retail store, in September of 2008.

In addition to the stores, the couple owns the property they are on, including the property that houses a restaurant adjacent to the businesses. With a motto of, “Yes is the answer, what is the question?” Abney realizes what makes his stores special is the experience customers have while shopping there. “We believe that our associates make the difference in why we have repeat business,” Abney says. And with close to 200 years of combined retail experience among his associates, Luke Abney knows his two stores strive to provide the best in quality and customer service.

Abney also says not only should the customer experience be special, but so should the merchandise.  He hopes the selection of merchandise, the shopping experience, and the efforts of the associates will help his customers achieve their desired clothing needs and wants.  “[Offering] that experience is definitely an advantage in our marketplace,” Abney says.

Tune in to this episode of ResultsRevTV Live to hear more from this experienced businessman as we ask him about the ins and outs of retail merchandising and his marketing approach.