Who would
have thought it would come to this? It’s time for nutritional retailers to
mothball one of their most effective marketing tools - direct mail. In its
place, they should ramp up referrals generation.
That’s the
advice from Martin R. Baird, president of Phoenix, Ariz.-based Nutritional
Marketing.
“With anthrax
showing up in mailed packages, people are now worried about bioterrorism on
top of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and they’re hesitant to open mail
they don’t recognize.” Baird says. “Retailers’ best direct mail pieces
could get thrown away without being opened. I’m not saying to stop using
direct mail forever. Just put it on the back burner for the time being.”
Referrals are
excellent for generating new business and nutritional professionals should
actively pursue this tried-and-true marketing method, Baird says.
Baird offers
the following 10 tips on how retailers can generate referrals. These tips and
others are offered on a daily basis by Nutritional Marketing through its Web
site nutritionalmarketing.com, a site that provides free marketing information
just for nutritional retailers.
Number 1 -
When you talk with your customers, learn who they associate with and find a
way to meet those people. For example, if you learn who a customer regularly
plays golf with, invite the customer to play a round of golf and suggest he or
she bring some of their golfing friends. When you meet the customer’s
friends, chat with them about their lives and interests but don’t push your
business. At the same time, look for problems you can solve.
Number 2
- Offer the same quality service to a customer’s friends. Instead of asking
for new business, you’re offering to make a customer’s friends happy.
Number 3
- Use a high level of repetition. When asking for referrals, you need to bring
the subject up at least 10 times before someone will even remember you asked.
If you only ask once a year, it will take 10 years to get that referral.
Number 4
- Be a good listener. Most customers will unconsciously offer insights into
the relationships in their lives. You need to be more aware of these signals
and recognize them as gateways to referrals.
Number 5
- While you’re listening, look for signs of change. Change is a great signal
that there’s an opportunity to get more referrals.
Number 6
- Follow up. When you’re given a referral, be sure to follow up with both
the prospect and the person who gave the referral. The prospect could become a
customer and you need to thank the person who referred you.
Number 7
- Use customer birthdays as a springboard to referrals. If you invite a
customer to lunch for their birthday, they get to invite four friends. And you
get to meet their friends.
Number 8
- Build trust with your customers by delivering what you promise. When your
customers trust you, they will give you more referrals.
Number 9
- Educate your customers. Help them understand that they benefit from giving
you referrals. The benefit to the customer is twofold. You have more time to
work for the customer because you are spending less time marketing and making
cold calls. And the customer has an opportunity to be a hero. They helped
someone else.
Number 10
- Reward customers who give you referrals. The dollar amount of rewards is not
as important as consistently providing them. Rewards give your customers an
incentive to help you.
Nutritional
Marketing provides a variety of services to nutritional retailers to help them
improve their marketing methods and increase revenues, including seminars and
conference speaking engagements on such topics as referrals, marketing, goal
setting and customer service.
Nutritionalmarketing.com is the premiere Internet-based source for free
marketing advice, information and tools for self-driven, success-oriented
nutritional retailers who are demanding information that helps them market
their business, meet the needs of their customers and increase sales. It
offers such services as a free weekly electronic newsletter, free reports on
how to conduct different kinds of marketing and evaluation of retailers’
marketing materials that is provided at no charge when the critique is posted
online for all nutritional professionals to read. Nutritionalmarketing.com
also offers an electronic forum where retailers can learn from each other by
discussing common problems, sharing ideas and gaining new insights from their
peers.
