Hearing from an advertising rep is probably a weekly occurrence for most business owners. If you’ve advertised with them before all they want to hear is “run the same ad from last time.”

If you made money with that ad, great! But have you ever sat down and considered who is seeing that ad and more importantly what are the chances you’ll get them as a customer? When considering an advertising expense, it’s not enough to know the cost. You must also consider how much of that cost is spent reaching people who will never come to you.

A small local coffee shop that advertises on TV is throwing it’s money away. A local deli that advertises in a large regional paper is doing the same. The typical small business draws customers from within 2-5 miles. The next time you are considering an advertising expense, figure out how much of your hard-earned money will be reaching an “audience” unlikely to do business with you.

Spend the bulk of your money on previous customers and people who live and work within 5 miles and you’ll get a much bigger bang for your buck. A Loyalty Club can help you do that.

Contact us today for a completely RISK FREE TRIAL.

Every day, somewhere in the world, a small business owner awakens to news that a national franchise is opening a competing business in their town.

Suddenly the nice business they’ve spent years developing is in jeopardy. The advertising muscle a retail giant brings can be staggering.

Books have been written about the effect Walmart has on small businesses when they come into an
area. It’s not a positive effect for those small businesses. Most close fairly quickly.

The ones that survive do so by being different.

They don’t try to out-advertise Walmart but rather add products/services that Walmart doesn’t offer.
There are a few things most of the major corporations are doing that the small local business can and
should be doing.

Facebook, Twitter and email marketing are being used by the “big dogs” and can be used by you MORE effectively.  They have whole departments and committees involved in their marketing decisions.

You can get an idea for an email and have it out to your customers in a matter of minutes.

You can respond to local events and happenings using email and the others much faster than any other form of advertising.

It does take some time to get this all set up and running effectively but in the long run the value, far outweighs the time spent.

IndyLoyaltyClub can help you get it up, running and making you money in 30 days.

Contact us at (317) 395-3640  or email us at: ken@indyloyaltyclub.com today.

There are several logical reasons why it’s good to know how to get in touch with your customers.

There is the most obvious: To get them to come back.  They’ve proven they are willing to give you money.  It only makes sense that you should spend some money to get them to come back.

See my previous article on this site “Are you wasting your money on advertising?” for more reasons why.

Less obvious reasons to have a customer list include:

1)  When the times comes that you are ready to sell your business, you can sell it for a higher price with a customer list.  If a potential business buyer can see in black and white that your customer list makes money she’ll feel more comfortable buying.

2)  Surveys.  The one true secret to making money is to give people what they want.  How can you find out what they want?  Ask them!

With a customer list you can survey your customers about their likes and dislikes.

This can be incredibly valuable data.  You might discover something you’d have never considered just by sending a quick email and asking a question.

If you sell food, before you go to the time and trouble to add or remove an item from your menu, survey your customers to see their reaction.

You may be removing the most popular item and not even realize it.

3)  Engagement.  If your customers like you, they’ll be less likely to leave you.  They learn to like you through your repeated contact.
The messages you send should have personality…talk about your life outside the business.  You can and should profile employees AND customers.

When they see your message arrive you want them thinking “oh good…I wonder what’s happening this week…or I wonder how the new grandchild is doing”…or I wonder if I was chosen customer of the week…etc.

You don’t want them thinking…”oh geez…he just wants more money from me.”

Knowing how to reach your customers quickly and easily provides a way to make this engagement much easier than trying to develop it in the few seconds they are handing over money at the cash register.

A customer list really is like gold.  Give me a call at (317) 395-3640  or email me at: ken@indyloyaltyclub.com today and let’s get you started mining that gold!

Will your Facebook fans see your message?

A lot of small businesses have started using social media, primarily Facebook and Twitter to advertise.

They are quick and easy and FREE!  You can use them to announce sales, special hours and promotions.  You can use them to survey your customers quickly and easily.

They are a great start but if it’s the only thing you do then you could be “building your castles on sand”.  Is that a saying?  I think it is.

By that I mean, a few years ago Myspace was the BIG dog in social media.  Now you rarely hear about them.  What happens WHEN the same thing happens to Facebook and Twitter?

You’ve spent all this time and energy building up a fan base and interacting with them.  When they leave, for whatever reason, you have no way to get them back.

For that reason alone you should be collecting the name and contact information (email address at a minimum) of everyone who pays you money.

This way YOU have control of your list of customers, not Facebook, Twitter or Myspace.

The other reason you want the ability to contact your customers on your own terms is the sheer number of friends and followers your fans have.

Take a look some time.  If a fan of yours has 300 friends the chance of them actually seeing your message, announcement or promotion is slim.

Couple that with the fact that many people access Facebook using their phones and the chance of your message being seen on that small screen among messages from 300+ other people gets even smaller.

For now, Facebook and Twitter certainly should have a place in your marketing plan.  You want to give your customers as many opportunities as possible to hear about you.

Your #1 priority however, should be to capture the name and contact info of everyone who comes in or calls for more info.

There is no more valuable piece of a business than a customer list.  With it you can make money quickly and easily.  Not to mention when it comes time to sell your business, it’s much more valuable with a list.

Indy Loyalty Club can coordinate all this for you.

For more information, please call (317) 395-3640….  or email ken@indyloyaltyclub.com

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I am a recovering Advertising Major who decided in the final months of college that I didn’t want anything to do with advertising.

Now, many years later, I am intrigued by the increasing push by many of the most successful companies to change their “mass marketing” programs to individualized and personalized approaches.  Naturally, they have learned that marketing to the individual is much more effective than mass marketing.

One quick example:  I love ice cream, and I am easily convinced that I should treat myself to a cold snack.  Twice in the past six months, I have been told by friends that I had missed an ice cream cone sale.  Both times, had I known about the promotion, I would have changed my driving route, my schedule, and my priorities to grab a cone or two.

As I learn more about the increased success that small businesses can achieve by making small tweaks in their marketing programs, the more I realize that owners simply don’t have the time to add one more administrative task to their schedule.  I am here to take that on.  I can do that for you.