In part 1, we looked at what most businesses tend to focus on – growing your customer base. In part 2, we discussed the potency of increasing the frequency of purchases. In this last segment, we will look at how to get your current customers to buy more from you, also known in the marketing world as up-selling and possibly cross-selling. How this is different from increasing purchase frequency is the emphasis on getting your…
Everyone’s talking about Go Daddy these days. And not in a good way. In case you missed it, Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons not only shot and killed an elephant on a recent trip to Zimbabwe, but he posted the video of the kill online for the world to see. The controversial video, and Bob’s response, have been flooding the media. PETA has deemed Mr. Parsons the “scummiest CEO of the year.” He however defends…
In part 1 of this series, we looked at the most common way that businesses tend to approach growth – by trying to get more customers. Today, let’s take a look at the second way that companies can boost their business profits – increasing the frequency that current customers buy from you. Contrary to the first way, which involves a huge investment of both time and money to reach these new potential customers,…
I thought it would be a good time to relook at the 3 basic strategies that can be used to grow any business and yes this includes the hosting industry. These are not so much alternatives but strategies that should be used simultaneously. The first way is to grow your business by getting more customers. The second way is to increase how frequently these customers purchase from you and the third way is when they…
Appetite for Risk Purchasing customers is certainly more risky than growing organically due to some of the areas I’ve mentioned. The upside however is growth is much faster and may give you a boost in market share and will ideally lead to economies of scale that may provide you with a boost to your bottom line. Access to Capital How do you intend to fund an acquisition? Generally it will require a significant upfront cash…
“Should I grow my business through acquisitions or organically through marketing?” Sometimes I hear variations on this question – “I would much rather grow through acquisition than through marketing – it’s much less risky”. More and more frequently I am being asked some form of this question so I thought I would share some of my insights. There are a number of considerations to evaluate. This is not a comprehensive list but a few of…
The previous two marketing tools I have written about – white papers and special reports – need to be free of obvious bias, or they lose their strength to persuade readers. But case studies cover some of the same ground, while making your case, entirely. One of the beauties of case studies is that they can be long and exhaustive, short and sweet, or any length in between – it all depends on what you…
I was talking with our copywriter John here at eBridge and a number of years ago he wrote for a marketing newsletter in a natural resource industry. At various times the publisher would approach him to tell him that he needed more subscriptions in order to keep paying the big bucks. These were the days before the Internet, so everything he tried had to be based in direct mail, faxes and phone calls. Not a…
Sooner or later if you do any marketing online, you will hear about using whitepapers. But I wonder how many of the people who talk or write about them really know what a white paper is. The term has been around for at least 100 years and was first used to describe deep background documents or position papers published by the British government. They were called white papers because they were printed on white paper…
The problem with marketing on social media is that the campaigns that work are viral in nature. And you can’t create a viral campaign. You can only put your campaign out there and hope it is catching. Here’s recent example of a Twitter campaign: On a Friday night not long ago, Amanda Palmer, lead singer of the alternative girl band, Dresden Dolls, was sitting at home, alone, when she idly posted the following tweet (without…