How to attract customers or clients more cost-effectively?

Business people often ask how they can attract more clients or customers cost-effectively.

They want to transform their marketing, deliver customer numbers several times existing levels, while reining in costs.

Some expect to achieve all this from a magical "silver bullet" strategy. It would be great for them if the strategy didn't require much effort, and it didn't have to be managed or repeated. And of course, there's a limited budget.

You would think that by now every business person would know the old saying about things that "sound too good to be true". Yet many still respond to the implied promise of the latest marketing idea without applying basic business principles.

Businesses which want to attract more customers cost-effectively need to apply the most fundamental of management notions — measurement. The gurus are right — if it can be measured, it can be managed.

The process of attracting customers or clients can (and should) be measured. But many businesses, especially those unhappy with their performance in this area, fail to take anything more than a perfunctory approach to the task.

How can the process be improved unless each aspect of it is subject to on-going monitoring? Where can budget for improvements be found if not by eliminating or modifying aspects producing a less than satisfactory return?

The usual response is: "But that's too complicated. It would take too much effort. We couldn't afford to have someone do it."

I don't agree.

Even the smallest business can monitor marketing essentials: cost, response, and sales by activity.

From that data, the basic measures can be calculated: response rate, conversion ratio, and cost per sale.

It is not that difficult to set up simple systems to automate, or at least semi-automate, data collection and to report the key calculations in easy-to-understand ways.

I believe the reasons many businesses don't measure their marketing are two-fold:

- They think it is too complicated, too difficult, or too expensive (these are usually businesses which haven't attempted it or bothered to ask how).

- They are unwilling to confront the decisions which measurement implies.

Why would you track response rate, conversion ratio and cost per sale — if not to take some hard-nosed decisions about which market segments you would target (or not), what offers you would put to those markets, and which strategies and media you would use?

Many businesses continue to use particular marketing channels or carry out certain activities with only the vaguest of feelings about their cost-effectiveness.

In some cases, thousands of dollars are committed to repeating such exercises because competitors are doing so, or because of a belief the activity has branding value and is therefore not wasted.

If your business is in that category, here's three radical suggestions:

1. Set up systems to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing on an on-going basis

2. Define (in advance) your criteria for success in terms of response, conversion and cost per sale

3. Determine that you will stick to those criteria by retaining, modifying or eliminating each aspect depending upon the results from your measurement system.

If you would like to get more insights into this process, ask for the free report "How to attract customers or clients more cost-effectively by measuring these 3 key areas of your marketing".

To request your copy, click here.