Greetings Floor Dealers!
I had the privilege of presenting two sales and marketing training sessions at Surfaces in Las Vegas to over 300 floor dealers. The sessions were fun and dynamic, with a very enthusiastic group who asked a lot of good questions, some of which I thought would be instructive to highlight here.
How often should we market to our past customers?
This came up during a segment where I taught the group how to market to their customer list using a direct-response newsletter. You want to touch your past customers at least monthly via direct mail. For every month that goes by that you don’t contact your past customers, you lose 10% of the value of that relationship. In other words, the list goes cold. Reactivating it is certainly possible using a customer reactivation campaign, but once it’s reactivated you need to keep it active. Monthly contact is the minimum in order to accomplish this.
Won’t people get tired of hearing from me so often?
If you are sending them nothing but advertisements, yes. People sort their mail over a trash can, tossing unopened anything that even looks like a business solicitation. This is one reason I’m such a big believer in newsletters as a tool for staying in front of your customers. When they get newsletters from you that are 80-90% fun, informative, welcome, entertaining content, with quizzes, contests, customer recognition, testimonials, and other engagement devices, they’ll enjoy hearing from you. (Only 10-20% of the content should be about flooring or your dealership.)
Can I email the newsletter instead of snail-mailing it?
You can, but the effectiveness drops dramatically. The best way to use email is as a supplement to your newsletter, not a replacement. Each week send your list a fun, informative, general-interest article that’s not about flooring. Keep it to 150-200 words. At the end include a short blurb about your dealership. In other words, use the same 80/20 ratio as the printed letter. You’ve got to make these things fun to read otherwise people will just delete your messages, or opt out of receiving them altogether.
Why can’t I make my newsletters and emails 100% about flooring? All that other stuff just seems silly.
All flooring is all boring. Only a small fraction of your total customer list needs flooring in any given month, so don’t bore them with content that’s all flooring-related. That would be like getting a newsletter from your dentist every month that’s all about the latest advances in crowns and root canals. You’ll put them to sleep.
As far as the rest seeming silly, remember that you are not your customer. Just because you’d rather have 100% flooring content doesn’t mean your customers feel the same way. Those other elements act as emotional triggers that make your customers look forward to getting your letter, eagerly open it the minute it arrives, read all the content, and respond with repeat business and by sending you referrals.
Finally, this strategy has been proven to work over and over again by dealers across the U.S. and Canada.
What do I do when I greet a walk-in and she says, “I’m just looking?”
Use the rule of reciprocity. Hand her a beverage menu and say, “Great! What can I get you to drink while you’re browsing?” Don’t say, “Can I get you a drink?” because that gives her an option to say no.
Not everyone will accept, but those who do have given you an “in.” When you bring back her beverage say, “Tell me a little about your project.” You’ve just given her a gift, shown her hospitality, and she’ll feel a strong internal pressure to reciprocate by talking to you. You can then engage in a dialogue about her project and guide her into your sales system.
In Part 2 I’ll cover more questions attendees at Surfaces asked.
To Tons Of Customers!
Jim Augustus Armstrong is The “Coach”
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the President of Flooring Success Systems, a program that equips dealers to double their profits, cut their work hours in half and beat the boxes! Many dealers have totally transformed their businesses and their lives for the better after joining Flooring Success Systems.
See what real, live dealers are saying!