Be brilliant at marketing and save yourself a fortune doing it the best way
We all know that the easiest form of marketing is to look after your existing clients and customers so well that they keep wanting to come back for more of what we offer, and money should prove a relatively minor obstacle.
And yet this is often the most neglected area of marketing, despite it being the cheapest, as well as easiest (in theory)
One of my favourite businesses is called Esprit & Decorum trading simply as “Esprit People”, which is managed and owned by two delightful ladies Emma and Katie Lumsden, who also happen to be identical twins.
Apart from being meticulously methodical and organised in their approach to everything, they are passionate about consistently updating and improving their systems to produce amazingly high quality service to their customers
They started with a slight advantage – they used to be amongst the world’s best outside caterers being hired internationally to cater for top events, and so they were aware how important it was to them to have consistently high standards in the teams they used to employ or hire; more often than not, it was not the case, so they set about creating their own team at Esprit
They bought out their original partner several years ago and that is when I witnessed an amazing transformation in their business
Their partner was a brilliant networker who everyone knew, and they used to spend money on all sorts of marketing and advertising. And yet despite all this, it was always a struggle to succeed
When he departed, one of their strategic decisions was to dispense with a marketing department and save all those costs of advertising, gimmicks and marketing personnel; instead they focussed totally on improving the quality of delivery and at the same time resisted the urge to accept lower fees when discounts were requested.
They initially lost some business, but it was not long before those clients who stayed loyal started talking about the amazingly consistent high quality of service they were now receiving from Esprit.
What happened? Yes you guessed it – their sales started growing but their margins improved even more, and this went almost straight to the bottom line.
Marketing costs practically disappeared to be partially replaced by training costs, which created more able as well as motivated teams.
Happy Team mean Happy Customers, and Happy Customers mean Happy Owners – go on and try it, it really works.
And we have not mentioned Twitter , Face book, or any other social networking – now that must be a first.