Smart executives know it's important to keep your current customers coming back to buy from you, maybe even more than finding new customers.

So how do they do it?  Smart marketers put marketing "systems" in place to get you to choose them in the first place and to keep you coming back. 

Systems are used for finding new customers and selling to existing customers.  So what systems do you use to entice your customers to come back and buy from you?  What's a system in the first place?

It's a series of steps (collecting customer contact information, putting it in a database, then using tools to send an offer, reminder or invitation to buy) you pre-determine to deliver your marketing message.

To your customer it can be several things.  A phone call, a fax, an email, a postcard, a letter (all of which are tools), they receive from you.  The purpose of each tool can be straightforward like reminding them to buy from you again.  Or it can be to upsell or cross sell other products or services.

Most often a system is a "series" of these tools that arrive at their doorstep, in their mail, in their inbox, over a long period of time that keep your company, product or service in front of your customer.  Here are some examples:

POSTCARDS - JIFFY LUBE

They recommend changing oil & filter every 3 months or 3,000 miles.  Their system consists of 2 marketing tools.  A personalized sticker inside my windshield with my target mileage & next visit date written on it for my next oil change.  And a reminder postcard mailed out 75 days after my last visit, to come back in for an oil change.

The postcard is 4" x 6".  On the billboard side (below) they do a little branding with their logo, their services and some copy that says "Just a reminder, you're due for an oil change".  These are preprinted in large quantities with the same message.

Flip it over and on the address side is where they make their personalized "offer".   Please bring in your (they insert your car year, make and model in all CAPS) for a Signature Service oil change.   $3 Off Now Jiffy Lube Signature Service.   Pretty simple looking and effective.  I normally throw it in my car, check the sticker they put on the windshield and by 3,000 miles I'm there.

This address side is "personalized" with my car information, the offer (Signature Service) they want me to buy and my address for mailing.

They use probably use a mail house to send these out by the tens of thousands each month to their customer base.

Why do they do this?  To keep a $300/year customer (2 cars x 4 visits per year per car x $35/visit) from going down the street to one of 4 other oil change shops in my neighborhood.

I've been taking my cars to Jiffy Lube for at least 10 years.  My lifetime value to them so far is about $3,000.  So is it worth it to spend 50 cents in materials and postage every 3 months for a reminder postcard with a small incentive ($3.00 off) to come back to Jiffy Lube?  They think so.  I'd agree.

THANK YOU EMAILS & NEWSLETTERS - RED CROSS

Hurricane Katrina struck the US on Monday Aug 29, 2006.  Two days later when the President and news channels started promoting organizations to funnel funds to relief providers, I went to the Red Cross website and made a donation.

In minutes I received a reply email back from them (click here to view) thanking me for my donation.

Then a week later I started to receive Situation Updates.  After that I started receiving monthly newsletters titled One Minute Update from them advising me on their ongoing activities. 

Here are links to these newsletters for November 2005, December 2005 and February 2006.

In between the newsletters I receive requests for donations with the subject line on the email reading: can we count on your support?

Do these types of tools work?  In the 7 months since Katrina the American Red Cross reportedly received $2,116,000,000.00 (that's $2.116 Billion) in donations and pledges.

Their systems for accepting the money are immense & varied including local organizations, inbound call centers and their website.  But the ongoing contact with prior givers certainly generates "repeated donations".

Why do this?  For me I "feel" good knowing what activities and results my donations are helping the Red Cross accomplish.  When I feel like giving or the next disaster strikes, I'll choose to go back to the Red Cross because they've maintained a relationship with me via their emails and newsletters.

Newsletters are one way to build relationships and create a sense of reciprocity in your customers, clients and patients so they'll continue to favor you with their business.

EMAIL SALES ANNOUNCEMENTS - KOHLS

One day I went to Kohls, a clothing store chain, and bought a sweater for my wife.  Ever since then every 2 weeks I receive sales announcements via email about their sales.  (click on the graphic below for a sample email)

The one above is intended to drive you to their website.  I receive others that drive you to their retail stores.

Do they work?  Unfortunately yes.  I know because one, I pay the bills and see their bill come through.  And two, I've seen the power they have to drive behavior.  A quick example.

My wife and I were at a local strip mall where Kohls is right next to Staples.  I thought I was there to buy a ream of printer paper for $5.  Instead I was notified that Kohls happened to be having a sales and if you bought BEFORE 1:00 pm that day, everything was 50% off.  (Plus with her Kohls card she received ANOTHER 15% off.)

It was noon and the next hour was spent at Kohls filling a shopping cart with new clothes.  All the registers had lines 4 people deep.  Whenever I'm at Staples with their 5-10 cars in their parking lot, Kolhs lot usually has 50-100 cars in theirs.

I'm no stock picker but here's the quick numbers.  $13.4 Billion in Revenue.  $4.7 Billion in Gross Profit.  $841 Million in Net Income last year.  Their symbol is KSS.

Now it's fair to say they have good quality merchandise and their repeat traffic of course doesn't all come from these emails BUT from what I can see they work.

Simple Overview Of Jiffy Lube's Marketing System

Customer Viewpoint	In Store	Marketing System
Day 0 - Customer Visit	Log mileage & print out sticker at current mileage +3000 miles, place in window, upper left corner, after service.	Jiffy Lube central computer starts counting days since last visit.
Day 75		Flag customer, send customer data to mailing house for mail merge.
Day 76		Mail merge and print personalized postcard.
Day 77		Deliver to post office.
Day 80-83		Postcard delivered to customer.
Day 84+  Customer acts on postcard reminder with offer ($3 off) and/or notices the next visit mileage written on sticker and returns to change oil
MARKETING SYSTEM	In Retail Store	In Corporate Office
EQUIPMENT USED:	Host computer to capture customer information: address, car, mileage, services performed & print window sticker.	Server computer to maintain customer info & retail location.  Internal or external mail merge postcard printer.
MARKETING TOOLS USED:	Next Visit Window Sticker	Direct Mail Postcard with DISCOUNT OFFER
MARKETING MODE:	Servicing	Servicing

TAKE AWAY POINTS TO CONSIDER

OPTIONS - These are by no means the only tools you can use as part of your system for keeping customers coming back.  Others are direct mail (letters), faxes (to businesses), telemarketing (within the law), tele-seminars, conferences, trade shows, speeches, audio CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes and cassette tapes.

TRAINING - Tools take specialized knowledge on HOW TO USE THEM EFFECTIVELY.  Building or physical tools usually come with instructions.  Marketing tools don't and most people use them incorrectly for poor results.

SYSTEM - The key to making a tool work effectively is usually to have it as part of a system, usually multi-step and ongoing processes, and not just a one-time event.

PLAN - The operational mechanics behind each system usually stop or slow you from establishing your systems.  Don't let them.  Here's what I mean. 

Sending a postcard every 3 months means you have to get your customer contact information (name, address, etc) in one place.  Then you have to print your postcard.  Before you print it you need to plan and decide on what action you want your customer to take in order to create your offer, that's printed on the postcard.  Then you have to track the results of the postcard to see if the additional revenue it brought in exceeds the cost of the postcard.  This is the STRATEGIC part of marketing - PLANNING your attack before firing the first round.

SCHEDULE - You need to lay out these mailings (or other activities) on a master calendar and be consistent in your frequency of communicating with your customers.

MASTERMIND - When building systems talk to other executives about their systems and find out everything you can about how well they work, the costs, the vendors they use.  Model success, compress time.  Don't reinvent the wheel.

NEXT TIME

Picking your current customers to build marketing systems should be your first step in any marketing plan.  Next time we'll talk about systems to FIND leads, prospects, new customers, new clients, new patients and so on.

RESPOND,  DEBATE or QUESTION

Agree, disagree or ask a questions about the content of this newsletter.  Your comments are welcome.  Click here or email me at