MARKETING ARCHIVES
Sales vs. Promotions, Pricing Your Goods
,
Customer Relations,
Price Points,
Selling on Online
Auctions,
Selling From Websites,
Selling At Craft Fairs,
Selling At Home Shows,
Selling To Stores,
Attitude,
No Money Down
Advertising,
Independent Sales Reps,
Customer Referrals,
Gift Certificates
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Be Customer Driven Sandra Paluzzi Most business owners are somewhat customer driven. If all of their long dangly earrings sell, they'll design more long dangly earrings. That one's pretty much a no brainer. However, concentrating production on current 'hot' sellers only scratches the surface of being customer driven. If you sell jewelry to the public, observe what your customers are wearing. If you see a lot of semi precious stones being worn, include them in your line. Is everyone wearing jeans? Casual jewelry is the key. Everyone wearing basic black? Sparkling, sophisticated sterling should do well. Keeping your ears open is at least as important as keeping your eyes open. Listen to the comments that your potential customers are making as they browse. Incorporate their ideas into your designs. Who knows - you may just come up with a new, fast moving line. Is everyone saying your jewelry would be perfect for the beach - try putting your line in a boardwalk storefront. Are a lot of your customers asking what the dichroic beads are? Make up a romance card explaining dichroic glass to include with their purchases. It is my belief that a truly successful business owner goes a step further than listening to their customers. Not content to eavesdrop, they ASK questions of their customers. I remember the first year The Bead Peddler® was in business. All of a sudden there was a run on orange beads. As orange was not a fashion color, I was surprised. When talking to a customer who ordered orange, I commented on how their popularity was taking me by surprise. My customer laughingly said, "I bet they're all coming down here to Tennessee". Further questioning elicited the fact that orange is a Tennessee football color. You can be sure that I now have plenty of school colors in stock around football season. You can also be sure that from that moment on, I asked customers questions. I asked them what they were doing with the beads they bought. I asked them why they choose their colors - was pink seasonal or perennial favorite? Most importantly, I asked them what other items they wanted me to carry. At first the questions were open ended - 'What other items would you like to buy from me?'. I asked this question for a month of two. By that time, I had about five potential new lines. So I designed a customer survey for my website. I asked my customers which of the new lines they'd most prefer to see. The item with the most votes was added to the website and I restarted the process the next time I was ready to expand. Actually, there is always a customer survey going on at The Bead Peddler. 'What changes would like to see?". People are encouraged to fill out the survey by the lure of a raffle drawing once a month. All survey respondents become eligible for a drawing for a 25.00 gift certificate. The feedback I have gotten has more than paid for the give away. I have made changes to my website, added to my customer service and also added new items to inventory based on the survey results. At times, I run an additional survey asking more specific questions - again, the people can vote on a laundry list of potential new items or website changes. In addition to the surveys, I have a comments section on my shopping cart. When a lot of people who bought rosary components asked for beaded chain, I added it to the line. It is a huge seller. I also encourage customer questions. I have placed my phone # and email address at the top of each page on my site along with a message inviting them to call or email questions. Again, time spent answering questions is time well spent. I think one of the reasons that my customers talk to me is that they know I listen. They know this because I tell them. Customers asked for a page featuring just newly added inventory. "You asked for it - you got it" screamed across the front page of my website when the page was added. My monthly newsletter contains survey results and the actions we are going to take. Newsletter readers are kept abreast of developments in the changes we are implementing. And again, I thank them for the suggestion when I can finally announce its complete implementation. I have had to incorporate my customer driven philosophy to address the limitations imposed by the general lack of customer contact in selling via the internet. It would, of course, be very easy to ask these same questions of your contacts at art shows or in the physical world. Phone cards or letters written to stores and/or your customer database would also work in the brick and mortar world. And don't forget to let those surveyed know the results. Salespeople have a maxim for eliciting customer responses - "Sell, Don't Tell". They believe that the customer should say at least four words to every one word you say. The methods presented here are meant to encourage you to find methods to help you get your customers actively engaged in the running of your business.
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