by Francois Muscat | May 12, 2014 | Digital Media Marketing, Business Resources
Groupon is the key to establishing brand awareness. The principle of Groupon is to entice thousands of customers with a “deal of the day.” Marketing through Groupon is done in such a way that consumers feel it costs them more money “not” to purchase the deal.
We all know what it feels like to want something that is not within our budget. When something you desire suddenly becomes available at half the price, you’re going to jump at it.
Groupon works to retain clients, they target young, educated consumers who aren’t shy to return and spend more.
Groupon has sold more than 400 million “deals of the day.” This “deal of the day” principle has worked by enticing thousands of new customers and has transformed the way local businesses promote products and services online.
What should I offer as a deal?
The type of deal will depend on what the market is craving. Restaurants usually offer a certain amount of food at half price, whilst salons will bundle a few treatments together; a resort that offered a free cooking class sold 500 offers.
Success Story
Tasleem Bapoo is owner and stylist of Dash Hair and Beauty salon in Newlands, Claremont. She started her business four years ago and her first deal was done through Groupon. She says she is still enjoying retainer business from that first deal, as well as new referrals. It was money well spent.
Allow Groupon to help you sell an under-utilised service and move slow inventory. Drive traffic to your website. Marketing sites will help you structure the best possible deal.
Need help with your online marketing? Contact WSI OMS today.
by Francois Muscat | Oct 25, 2013 | Business Resources, Social Media Optimization
Chances are that most internet users already have a few social media accounts. These accounts provide millions of people with stress relief as well as a social outlet. Unlike dinners out, movies and holidays, these social media accounts won’t cost you anything.
Your social media accounts is a place where you can choose to selectively display the proudest moments of your life and hide all the rest. It can be an interactive résumé. When you are in need of a job, you realise that there are thousands of other people who are in the exact same boat as you and most of them are equally as hardworking and suave as you are.
This is why you will need to frame your words so that you can use your social media accounts to your advantage and set yourself apart from the masses of other people on the job hunt. One way you can go about doing this is to make fun of yourself and make light of your circumstances. You can craft an ironic understanding of your accomplishments along with what an in-depth knowledge of your field can do for any prospective employer.
Self-promotion shouldn’t be shied away from either, but do it with class. No one likes an egomaniac or a narcissist, but if you’re confident in your skills and experience, then you can say so. You can also tap specific people who can help you. LinkedIn is a great platform for professionals to connect and you can make connections with recruiters and companies where you would like to work.
These are only a few of the ways in which social media can help you along with your job search. If you would like to learn more about the power of social media in the business world today, contact WSI to learn more about harnessing its power.
by Marianna Muscat | Oct 22, 2013 | Business Resources, Copywriting
The South African and world economy is only now starting to climb out the slump it’s been in for years. Business blogging and other marketing techniques are helping companies to effectively stand out in a crowded marketplace, but there are still many companies who aren’t convinced as to the merits of blogging for business.
As a 21st century company operating in a new technologically advanced world with tech savvy consumers, business blogging remains one of the best ways for a company to connect and engage with their prospects.
Top reasons to start a business blog
Here are 5 of the top reasons why you should be business blogging:
- Offer added value: There hasn’t ever been a time when consumers’ attention has ever been this scarce. Their suspicion of lazy marketing has also never been more acute. In this economy it is up to your company to deliver added value to your customers that your competitor isn’t. Using your blogging platform you can inform your consumers rather than promote to them. That is added value.
- Showcase the business’s personality: Your company and brand identity needs to be communicated to your consumers. Talk about stories relatable by anyone, like employees’ achievements or the way that the company went the extra mile.
- Boost your SEO success: Any company has the goal of being found easily online. Even though Google frequently updates its algorithms, they have said on many occasions that consistent posting of quality content with targeted keywords that’s relevant to your consumers will never go out of fashion. Why wouldn’t you listen to Google?
- Create open forum for consumers: A business blog provides a forum for feedback from your customers, which in this day and age is invaluable.
- Closing sales: Some studies have shown that when a customer read 30+ pages of self-published content, there is an 80% better chance of closing a sale.
If you are looking to run a successful business blog that will help you to take your company to the next level, contact WSI today.
by Marianna Muscat | Dec 10, 2010 | Business Resources
Which customer groups offer the most potential? And how can you balance maximizing customer value (attract, grow, and retain the potential) with acting in the best interest of your customers (customer experience)? These are questions that vex almost every company today.
In the Automotive industry profits are under pressure, while data and content are becoming the new but challenging playgrounds for manufactures. Add to that the increasing complexities of digital customer expectations, which is driving churn rates higher and customer acquisition costs up. Many chief marketing officers are looking for direction on where to focus their efforts and resources to differentiate and grow.
Understanding customer value with segmentation
Understanding customer value with segmentation is definitely the first step. Customer value information, typically based on ARPU or related revenue metrics, is mainly used to guide investment decisions for marketing, sales, and customer care activities. Typical examples include the development of customised communication to high-value customers or the assignment of special resources to high-value customers in the contact channels.
Value segmentation
Value segmentation, however, cannot enable differentiation by itself, simply because value is an outcome. In order to truly understand their customers, organisations must also know the “why” and “how” that leads to the outcome “value.” The “why” is represented by a needs assessment — understanding the underlying motive and need behind interest in motor vehicles. Customers have common needs, shared needs, and differentiating needs.
Business must know these needs at the individual customer level, which can be scored in the database. The “how” part is represented by behavior — how customers use products, channels, and how they communicate. By putting together needs, value, and behavior, organizations can then create the required insight for differentiation.
Business resources are aligned to customers
Segmentation will have little value unless the businesses resources are aligned to customers. The purpose of segmentation is to activate segmentation to enable “treating different customers differently” via the delivery of relevant offerings to a group of customers (portfolio) based on their needs, behavior, and value. For most operators moving to such an alignment is quite challenging because they are structured and functioning as silos. For true differentiation, customers should be managed across the life cycle. Such effort requires a disciplined approach that revolves around customer segments and extends across the customer life cycle.
So, what has to change to enable the proper functioning of “treating different customers differently?”
Treating different customers differently
Aim: Create a clear set of strategy, action, and investment plans at the customer portfolio level
Balance: Act in the best interest of customers while balancing resources. This means creating a culture of portfolio ownership and an ecosystem to coordinate the delivery, as well as making a dedicated function within the current organizational structure that will manage and coordinate the entire customer life cycle
Accountability: Integrate customer planning into the organisation’s performance management
This approach, customer portfolio management (CPM), is a new, strategic way to deploying CRM that emphasizes customer knowledge, strategic planning, and execution as the cornerstones of a CRM initiative. It encompasses the delivery of the right offerings to specific customer portfolios based on their needs, behaviors, and values across their life cycle. Like a stock portfolio, the value of a customer portfolio can go up or down. If the business can identify needs to influence the behaviors of the customers within the portfolio, the value of that portfolio can improve.
A CPM strategy is an enterprise wide strategy, not contained within one department or business unit. While traditionally segments are the responsibility of the marketing, sales, or customer service departments, customer portfolios can influence actions taken by marketing, sales, customer care, even strategic planning and capital investment, as companies allocate resources and take departmental actions to increase the value of customer portfolios.
For the CPM concept to succeed, operators must change the way they think. Customer portfolios must become the heart of the organization, and the direction of the operator should be coordinated by the portfolio managers. Customer value, needs, and behavior will influence the way companies allocate resources, so the rules of engagement need to change how people work. It requires a huge cultural change, which is hard to swallow for many traditional businesses. However, its long-term benefits — in the form of organic growth, customer satisfaction, and bottom-line improvement — will be worth the pain of change.
With CPM, each portfolio has an owner or manager; someone who is responsible for growing the value of the portfolio. A portfolio manager understands the portfolio’s value now, as well as what needs to be done to grow its value for the future.
