Client Targeting Services
The Boxxer™ Clientizer
The Boxxer is a process of building your ideal client profile based on the data we can collect about your current clients and prospects. This process includes the classification of 3 types of your current customers:
- Loss-leaders (bleed money)
- Commodity-driven customers (80%-database, 20%-revenue)
- Relationship-driven clients (20%-database, 80%-revenue)
Meet Your New Boss... Your Best Clients
No matter what title you wear in your company, the buck stops (and ironically starts) with your customers. Thriving businesses take orders from their superiors—their customers. Here's the trick: Don't take orders from ALL of your customers, because many of them don't have theirs or your best interests in mind. We've all heard the addage, "Customers come first." That blind blanket mentality gets a lot of businesses in trouble. Once you've figured out which customers have yours and their best interests in mind, they become your new boss.
Here's a checklist for evaluating and prioritizing your new boss—relationship-driven clients.
YOUR NEW BOSS ...
Your new boss (best client) is not always your biggest spender
Clients are most valuable not because they are your cash cows (though a profitable side of beef is always nice) rather because they're with you for the long haul, they help you in tooling your best message, and most importantly, they help corrall new business to increase profits.
Your new boss (best client) might never have purchased anything from you.
That's right. Some of your biggest customer assets might just be prospects. Remember, the value of a client is calculated not only on the revenue they create, but also on revenues from referrals. It's an exponentially powerful formula.
Your new boss (best client) doesn't like to be "sold to."
You never earn the "right to sell" to a customer. When they sense you're selling to them, they'll feel like a project or statistic (even the most loyal of them). If you want a loyal client, throw the traditional sales tactics out the window and stay genuine.
Your new boss (best client) isn't always the first to respond to offers.
Don't tag your best customers based upon quickest response times. This approach is fundamentally flawed because it mocks the intelligence of a healthy client who makes informed, methodical decisions. Consider yourself as a client—are you the quickest to make a decision or a purchase?
Your new boss (best client) isn't easy to locate in your Web stats.
Test it yourself. Are your best customers showing up at the top of your Web stats? Is Web page "duration" an indicator of piqued interest? Or just as easily an indication of "being lost on the page" or "breaking to nuke a frozen burrito?" Stats have their place in any sound marketing campaign, but they're not the strongest indicator.
Your new boss (best client) isn't compelled by pricepoints.
This should come as a relief, since nobody wins at the commoditization game (somebody's always cheaper). In addition, bottomless pricepoints attract flighty commodity-driven customers. Value-driven customers are accustomed to paying what something is worth—your job is to show them the value of that something.
Your new boss (best client) can't be found in a predictible demographic.
This fact sometimes creates resistence, because "demographic profiling" is easy to measure. Keep it in the cards, but use it in a supporting role to much more potent "behavior profiling" strategies.
Your new boss (best client) sets his or her own sales cycle.
It should come as no surprise that your customers (even your best customers) are all at a different point in their purchase decisions. Additionally, sales cycles differ greatly in length. All of this amounts to an exercise in "good listening." Don't pitch the "closer" to your elite list all at once, instead offer multiple offers for multiple points of engagement. To restate, "loyal customer" doesn't mean "please take my money."
Your new boss (best client) must feel genuinely understood.
The value of a good client list boils down to the "truth" you can get from them in a mutual-respect environment. Companies are constantly adapting to changes, trends, supply, demand, economic factors, and more. As soon as you've lost a good client's respect, you've lost a resource for roadmapping profitable campaigns.
Your new boss (best client) wants shortcuts, not "logins."
If you're looking for a customer who will "jump through hoops" then you'll likely be short-changed. In exchange for their loyal business, your best clients want no-strings-attached value in return. We're not talking about dumbing down customer privacy, rather avoiding the points of friction that will frustrate your clients or make them feel monitored. Web cookies can be a great upsell/resell tool, but be sure they're functioning as they should.
Your new boss (best client) wants benefits and experiences, not features (nobody wants features).
Self-explanatory
Your new boss (best client) will always champion good referral programs.
We often think that people who like our products know intuitively how to point others through the right doors at the right time. Just as we train our sales staff on best elevator pitches, customers and prospects need similar tools. Make it easy for best clients to "sneeze" your products. Better yet, offer them a concrete incentive for doing so. Not even the best clients will do something for nothing. Give them something of value for being contagious.
Your new boss (best client) should help engineer your product offerings.
If you're strategizing about your next best marketing campaign in staff meeting, you're going about it all wrong. The whole basis for refining your customer base is to glean a qualified mouthpiece for your product offering. If your best customers aren't sharing their ideas with you, maybe you haven't invited your new boss (best client) to a staff meeting lately.
Your new boss (best client) is innately loyal, and is not "turned into" loyal.
I like to save the best for last. I've seen a lot of dollars in research, technology, and "marketing speak" revolve around the idea of "converting" customers into loyal customers. This mentality defeats the whole process of growing the right customer segment, and letting the rest drop off the radar. The danger with the "no client left behind" approach is there's no clear-cut process for filtering your database, since all would wear the same number of stars on their foreheads.
Every customer gets respected, but it's vital to focus on the right customers—your "evangelists." When you craft a message that speaks to your hand-picked crowd, that message will sift out your profitable clients from your loss leaders. Although I might concur that anybody can become a "loyal customer" if you wrok hard enough on them, but consider the costs: You'd be expending enormous resources and neglecting the clients who need you most—whom YOU need most. Bottom line...fire your boss (worst customers).
Just a note, American Express took this idea to the extreme when they actually "paid" their riskier customer base to leave. How did that turn out? Google the phrase "AmEx pays customers to close accounts" to see some of the negative publicity. Source: Wall Street Journal
Posted May 13, 2009
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Begin filtering your database today. Request a free consultation.
During a formal consultation effort, Targa Media will teach you to apply the Boxxer Clientizer analysis spreadsheet to help you create more efficient campaigns based on calculated knowledge about your clients' buying patterns and loyalty levels. The analysis compartmentalizes most valuable clients into loyalty levels of Awareness, Buy-in, Commitment, Dedication, and Engagement (ABCDE), then considers their likely conversion between levels.
The Boxxer Clientizer
The Boxxer Action Plan
Six-Month Marketing Plan
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©2009 Targa Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
©2009 Targa Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
