In our previous blog we discussed how companies can build up their brands through discounts and/or targeted promotions and in that we heavily emphasized the concept of strategic promotions. We provided you with some ways in which CaptureCode can help but we did not address the underlying idea of what strategic promotions can really allow your business to do when engaging customers on a personal level. In today’s world, it’s easy to bombard social media sites and become prominent in ads on a plethora of websites but do they yield the same long-term benefits as that of making a more personal connection with a customer.

When trying to make use of social media as a marketing outlet, author Dave Kerpen states, “the secret to social media success isn’t in talking – it’s in listening,” it is very clear that listening and paying attention to your target market is what separates businesses achieving continuous growth from those that no longer exist. Just listening alone doesn’t solve the solution, as a company you have to addresses your customer by providing a “right offer” at the “right time” strategically and by engaging them on a personal level; a step very critical for all businesses but especially crucial to small businesses.

We all know of that small local business – The local family restaurant and pub that just about everyone in town goes to or even that little antique boutique with its appealing unique gifts in the town center that you have passed for as long as you can remember. These stores have been engaging with local customers (some for generations) on a personal level by the very atmosphere they create in which these customers are more than just paying clients – there have been relationships built over time.  It is this essence – the atmosphere, the personal connection, and giving the customer what they want by engaging with them that needs to be captured. A business just can’t solely rely and survive on an environment which will bring repeat customer clientele, automatically.  They need to do something to attract the customer.  “Doing nothing” to bring the customer isn’t good enough and frankly not an option, in fact if anything, this is a potential cause for business to fail.   In order to facilitate growth and generate revenue, these business have to “do something” to attract “new and repeat customers” to come to their stores; especially the small stores given their biggest problem of limited funds to advertise.  How to best invest limited dollars to get the most ROI on “The Spend” to attract customers is the million dollar question.

The key is in engaging customers by providing them promotions-on-the-go.  Offering them fresh strategically designed promotions constantly and on an ongoing basis is key.  In order to learn what the customer wants or does not want, one has to find a way to capture that interaction and engagement.  There is a need to measure which promotions worked best or did not work and for which customer.  This measurement provides the ability to target appropriate engagement in the future.  Thus, between “listening” to the customer and capturing/measuring their responsiveness or non-responsiveness to the offered promotions, companies need a service that allows them to take it to the next level.  Remember, you can’t improve what you can’t measure.  This is where CaptureCode can help with its simple and powerful unique business model offering, not to mention their experience that helps capture and leverage the essence while attracting new and repeat customers by engaging with them.  What CaptureCode has done is taken those personal, meaningful responsiveness to different promotions and converted them into meaningful measurable buying behavior metrics in order to provide promotions that are frame-worked for reuse and customization for the future.

Demand can sometimes be created. Promotions needs to be thought of as a campaign; series of promotions to help keep the name and promotion fresh in the minds of the customer and away from the same old boring “buy one get half-off “ promotion that becomes stale after a while.  Instead consider creative promotions like time sensitive promotions. An example of a time sensitive promotion is a free offer of a smoothie during your slowest hour (3 – 4 PM) which draws customer in and while there, they buy other items.  One of our clients did exactly that and raised an additional $2,000 in revenue in that same one hour of the offer in a generally slow period.  This a good example of creatively engaging with the customer.

CaptureCode model helps you target and improve your interaction with the customer, measure their responsiveness, and if needed allows you to change promotions real-time when not working as intended.  In addition, the service model helps you capture buying behavior metrics and then helps you convert them into “intelligence”, which when leveraged results in targeted customer engagement with the right offer.  The ultimate goal is to convert your loyal customers into becoming your sales evangelist because of the very experience you give them, time and again.  This experience helps you with your brand awareness and in building a local community.  As an owner or as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), you need to consider putting together a campaign of series of strategic promotions that makes sense for you and the customer.  You need to help take the customer on a journey and create demand in such a way that makes them wanting to come back for more. So freshness in your offering and always promoting-on-the-go is key.  Promotions can vary in offering from freebies, donations, awareness, connection to a major event or whatever the captured intelligence shows that matters to the customer. The key is in messaging and reminding the customers “of you” in the offering.  Over time, this first time customer gets converted into becoming a loyal customer and comes back for more, not to mention your side benefits of “the evangelist” and “word of mouth” advertising.

From being able to provide that first meaningful measurable engagement through a series of targeted strategic promotions now helps with customer retention, right from the very start.  By listening and engaging with the customer allows you to creatively dialogue at a personal level and shows them that you were listening by the very fact that you essentially provided the right promotional offer at the right time. Frankly, businesses can’t afford not to invest in some sort of core technology service offering to attract customers and experience growth in their target markets…all thanks to the technology offering from CaptureCode, which now provides even small businesses to compete and be at “equal footings” and at the “same playing field level” as that of the big guys.