At the turn of the century you had to pay to talk to your clients. Newsletters, ads, shop fits etc. Nothing wrong with that. If it costs £1.00 a year to talk to your best clients and they spend £750 over ten years, it seems like the cheapest insurance deal in the world. Like-wise if you knew it cost £10.00 to find a new client who spent £750 over ten years, how many times would you want to spend £10.00?
But things just went and got better.
- E-mail allowed you to talk to people as often as you were comfortable with. For free
- Smart phones started accepting emails so people don’t have to ‘log on’ to a PC
- Social Media erupted. People were making connections like never before.
- On line video exploded. You can now record one message and it can play for eternity for a one off investment
- Websites mean that in cyberspace size isn’t important in getting your voice heard by the right people. But done badly they are a colossal waste of time and money.
- Surveys continue to show the value of sight and the importance of the privately owned business model (people buy people, although Apple, Google, Starbucks, FaceBook, posh restaurants, theme park owners, sports and luxury car makers show that people will pay for ‘the experience’).
- And guess what! The rise and rise of the internet means that traditional advertising (demand driven, awareness or just ‘look at me’) has never ever been more cost effective. The local paper is desperate for your custom
- Direct mail campaigns can be run from the nearest printer at a fraction of what it used to cost
- PR or public relations are not just for big corps or celebrities. A good PR strategy in your area means that when people have an optical problem they think of you first and you make it easy for them to find you and to deal with you. To pick you.
Which is why this Information, communication and education forum has a place all to itself. Carefully planned and executed your ICE strategy will find you new clients, it can encourage your lapsed clients back into the fold, or bring people back faster or ‘lock’ them into high levels of personal service.
The problem with all this free stuff and new opportunities is that time and content become big challenges. Which is where JNotes® become invaluable. Learn from the mistakes of others, benefit from the wisdom of successful people, take a short cut to building a better optical business.
Words are important, but it’s just as easy to use the right ones, rather than less effective ones and the cost is the same. The cost to your business of getting it wrong however.
