Loyalty Marketing... or We HEART You!

Customer loyalty programs are an easy and effective way to keep customers coming back to your business. Here are a few tips to help you create a loyalty program with a simple yet important goal: rewarding repeat customers.

• Offer custom-printed punch cards or stamp cards for customers who frequent your business. A simple reward (such as "buy five car washes, get the sixth free") may be enough to keep customers from visiting your competition down the street.


• Utilize the back side of your loyalty-marketing promotions to advertise upcoming events, highlight exclusive offers, share helpful tips, and more.


• Celebrate! Be sure to recognize customer birthdays, holidays, and even the date your customer joined your loyalty club.


• Provide loyalty club members with special coupons for free upgrades, such as "upgrade to a premium deluxe XYZ for the same price as our standard XYZ."


• Reward customers who buy ahead. For example, if you own a repair shop, you might offer a year-long package of oil changes for a discounted rate. Not only will the customer be happy to save money, but you can ensure the customer will return to your business all year long.


• Invite loyal customers to join a review panel group, and offer free products or services in exchange for their valuable feedback and input on how to improve your business.


• Develop creative ways to show your company's reciprocal loyalty to customers. Send "thank you" campaigns, for example, with exclusive discounts or promotions.

Give us a call if we can help you create loyalty program marketing materials your customers will love!


Peter "The Printer" Lineal
Founder/CEO
Plum Grove
2160 Stonington Avenue
Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
Ph: 847.882.4020 Ext: 133
www.PlumGrovePrinters.com


Printing, Marketing & Promotional Products with Powerful Execution.

Why You Need to Use Pattern Interrupt in Your Marketing

From the time you wake up until the moment you close your eyes, you're bombarded with marketing messages. You may even have dreams of the ads running in your sleep!

Most of the messages you see during the day just blend together without much notice. Many are of the "me too" variety. Either the owner or the advertiser is practicing the lazy marketing technique of simply copying a competitor's ad with very little real change. Maybe the original ad had some creativity to it, but now it's lost in a sea of similarity.

For your ad to have any chance of succeeding, you must use "pattern interrupt marketing" as one component of your message.

What's pattern interrupt marketing? As the name implies, it's marketing that stops a prospect in their tracks and engages them. Your message must be able to capture a prospect's attention if it's to have any chance of being noticed.

Imagine you're driving down a street looking for a place to eat lunch. The street is packed with similar looking eateries on both your left and right. The buildings all look the same and have signs with business names on them. The business owners have all copied each other in building design, colors, and layout so much that it's very difficult to tell them apart. But one smart business owner has hired someone with a colorful costume and given them a professional-looking sign with delicious-looking food photos and a message that clearly states all the benefits of their restaurant; in addition, if you come in today, you'll receive a great discount. The guy holding the sign interrupts your attention, and the offer lures you in to try the food.

That's what pattern interrupt marketing is all about.

Now, you could try any number of gimmicks to grab a prospect's attention, but there are only a few things that will truly capture their interest and hold it long enough for you to make an impression. Here are three steps to get you started:

1. Make a list of problems your product or service can solve.


2. Pick just one as the focal point for your marketing message.


3. Think about the types of language and visual cues your customers would use to best understand this message.

With those elements in place, you can better plan your marketing.

Pattern interrupt marketing can be used in every type of business and in every type of marketing communication. Whether on a billboard, through direct mail, via email marketing, or even at a trade show, pattern interrupt marketing can be very effective. The goal is not only to capture the prospect's attention by doing something different or unexpected but also to encourage them to take further steps with you once they're engaged.

Pattern interrupt marketing is only the first step in a process, but in some ways, it's the most important step. After all, if you can't capture their attention, the rest won't matter.


Peter "The Printer" Lineal
Founder/CEO
Plum Grove
2160 Stonington Avenue
Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
Ph: 847.882.4020 Ext: 133
www.PlumGrovePrinters.com


Printing, Marketing & Promotional Products with Powerful Execution.

What is Your Customer Hiding From You?

In order to sell any kind of product or service, you first need to know the challenges your prospects face, so you can offer the best solution. On the surface, this seems like an easy problem to resolve. You send out a few surveys and questionnaires. You dig and do your research. You think you've found the answers. Yet when you build your pitch or presentation around what you think your prospect wants and needs, it falls flat.

Why? Because the prospect is hiding the truth from you.

It's not done with malicious intent. They're not even necessarily lying. They simply want to be liked and don't want to hurt your feelings by telling you things they think you wouldn't like to hear. Also some prospects don't really know what they want. Emailed and online surveys aren't the best at this type of information gathering.

That's the reason most surveys don't reveal many helpful answers. The problem isn't with the surveys themselves, but with the questions and how they're presented. Most survey questions don't get to the heart of the matter in order to pull out the answers you're looking for.

What can you do about this? Pick up the phone!

The best way to get the answers you're looking for is to call your prospects and engage them in a conversation. But before you do that (and if you don't want the phone slammed in your ear), do your homework first.

The responses will only be as good as your questions. Your questions need to be open-ended. You must be able to tap into the emotional and/or logical reasons why a prospect would (or wouldn't) buy your product or service. The more you're able to get them to open up and give you honest answers, the closer you'll get to the heart of what you're looking for. Keep good notes on the data you gather, and review it so you can make the next call even better at intelligence gathering.

Start your call with a very brief description of why you're calling, then quickly turn your attention to the prospect. Let them know you're not trying to sell them anything (so it brings down the wall and barriers they automatically put up). State that you respect and value their opinion, which is why you chose them to call. Make them feel respected and special before you dive into your questions.

Once you have your answers, take the time to carefully review all the information. Look for common themes or threads in the answers. If you don't find any, go back to your questions and reword them to get better answers. Yes, this takes real work. But the end result will be well worth your time. After you analyze the information, it will make your job of creating an irresistible offer that your prospects can't refuse much easier.


Peter "The Printer" Lineal
Founder/CEO
Plum Grove
2160 Stonington Avenue
Hoffman Estates, IL 60169
Ph: 847.882.4020 Ext: 133
www.PlumGrovePrinters.com


Printing, Marketing & Promotional Products with Powerful Execution.