One of the statements I often say to my clients is this:
[tweetable alt=”Are your sales and marketing teams only doing half of their jobs?”]“If you only ever hear your sales and marketing team talking about how to get more new clients, but never hear them talking about keeping them, they are only doing half their jobs.”[/tweetable]
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You know what most of them tell me?
They rarely, if ever, hear the sales and marketing department discussing how they’ll keep the customer once they’ve got them – or how to improve the customer experience for the existing customer.
They know everything they “should” be doing, but getting customers is just too exciting. In the marketing world, retention is boring, and optimization (especially around acquiring new customers) is sexy. It feels great, and you get practically immediate feedback on how good your marketing is and if it’s working–very similar to, well, sex.
In honor of my book, Evergreen: Cultivate the Enduring Customer Loyalty that Keeps Your Business Thriving, now being available for pre-order (you can find some amazing pre-order bonuses HERE), I wanted to share one of my favourite visuals from the book.
THIS is is Evergreen Marketing Equilibrium.
It’s a surprisingly simple concept, but extremely powerful when given proper consideration.
To me, [tweetable alt=”Great marketing is the equal balance of “getting customers” and “keeping customers” “]great marketing is the equal balance of “getting customers” and “keeping customers.”[/tweetable] Focusing solely on new customers is unsustainable in the long run. Far too often, organizations are focused on the “getting” and not nearly enough time, energy, or resources are spent on the “keeping.” People want to hack growth but not retention.
An equilibrium is the balance of two opposing forces. Most organizations are focused on one or the other and not doing each well enough.
Now here’s the most interesting thing…In almost every organization I’ve worked with, I’ve recognized some key commonalities from both types of companies.
Companies that are mostly focused on bringing in new customers are often the ones doing the most ineffective marketing! They’re constantly jumping to the next big thing in search of the mythical new customer.
They’re spending the most to obtain a new customer.
They’ve got the highest attrition, and they’re the most stressed out.
Now contrast that to what I call an Evergreen Organization…
They’ve got very high marketing effectiveness. Every dollar spent generates a tremendous ROI.
Customer loyalty isn’t dead; these companies have incredibly loyal customers who spend more, more often.
They spend less money to get a customer.
They receive more referrals, and there’s greater word-of-mouth from their customers.
Their customers are more profitable and valuable.
Almost exclusively, they’re far more successful.
Today’s Key Questions: How would you diagram your company’s marketing efforts? Is your marketing equilibrium balanced? If not, then what can you do to balance it out?
