Marketing Tactics

Did you notice how companies changed their marketing for the holidays?  Black Friday - Cyber Monday – Super Saturday, they even had a couple of jingles for the procrastinators = me!  They continually modified their targets to meet a different group of people to create a steady stream of buyers.  Just like the companies working to get their fair share of customers during the holiday season you need to alter your marketing efforts to keep your shop full.  Marketing is an ongoing process, you have to continually market your customer base, you have to explore areas you are not reaching and you have to diversify your tactics over the different media opportunities.  In Michael E. Gerber’s book E Myth Mastery he discusses six disciplines involving awareness, motivation, acceptance, brand preference, purchase transaction and customer satisfaction.  From this it is evident that you have to ensure you generate awareness of your collision center, motivate potential customers to drive to your facility, create an acceptance of what you offer, identify your brand as unique, explain the processes that makes doing business with you attractive and capitalize on  your customer satisfaction index.  Kelly McDonald, President of McDonald Marketing, book How to Market to People Not Like You gives insight on how to market those areas you are not reaching with your current methods.  She explains how to “Get to Know the Customer You’re Not Getting but Should Be” in chapter two and in chapter five she describes how to “Communicate in Their ‘‘Language’’: Develop Marketing Messages Based on Their Values”.  She continues in discussion about Gen Y’s, X’s and Z’s and how to approach them.  You can find many other books on marketing but I enjoyed these two and believe you will also.