New Vs. Existing Customer Marketing

[Tom]

Since so much of what we do under the category of marketing attracts both new and existing (facility, signage, website, employees) it is tough to put hard numbers on it. Much of that might be considered passive.

If we look primarily at active marketing…which sounds more like what you are referring to…about 80% existing to 20% new. 

But, the majority of our response comes from the passive. 

[John Bamford]

Actually we categorize them as educational and relationship marketing.  You only get to educate at the counter a couple of times a year if you’re lucky and are above the national average of visits per year per customer per year.  Educational tends to be new customer acquisition and Existing Customer or Internal Marketing tends to be more relationship oriented.  So….you need marketing to consistently acquire and educate high quality new customers in addition to maintaining and developing your relationships with your current customers.  Further…there are additional things you should be doing that are not specifically viewed as marketing that will help you improve the quality of your customer list and the $ results.  I’ll take one $1,800 a year customer over 2 cheapskates any day…since while you may get an occasional larger RO out of the cheapskates…it’s not consistent enough to make it pay.

Be very interesting to see the split %’s.  Great question.   

John Bamford
Auto Profit Masters

[Alan Ollie]

We spend apx 3% of our gross on marketing. I send usps service reminders mailers to customers who have not been in the last 6 months apx 1200 mailers per month . Cost apx $750 we also email all customers every 3 weeks . Then in between Customer Link sends factory scheduled maintenance reminders usps and if no email addy they send postcards. It seems to work. If we send more or less our # s show it. Too much people unsubscribe i try to keep under 1% unsubscribe rate so it is a balancing act. The cost is evenly split new customer ( internet PPC, Remarketing ads, new site articles and link building) every month vs Existing customer retention . We have about a 21% new customers per month and retain about 65% of existing customers per year. I think everyone is different we are located off the beat and path.

[Alan Ollie]

JustTheBest Thanks for the insights.

 “It seems to work”. Huh? If you can’t measure it, don’t do it. “

We track most everything we do .How do you track postcards with offers when the customer does not bring in the coupon.If they come in on there own it is kinda tough to give points to the postcard .

We have at  many different offers going at the same time fact is only 25% of the customers use the offers. 

I am a strong believer in tracking where the lead comes from web leads are the easiest i can listen to my leads phone call or look at the weeks search quarry’s. IE: “Audi A6 fuel pump repair ” The guy comes in with the fuel pump problem that week i know where the lead came from. 

Matthew,  Could you post a few sites with downloadable  automotive info? 

[lowellnigoff]

We would ask the customer what brought them in. Many time though a customer might say the internet, the phone book, etc. In these instances we would ask the for more details like why did you go to the internet…phone book. Many times they would answer that Joe Blow mentioned he is a customer and I looked in the PB or internet to find your number. We would track the responses and be able to allocate our marketing dollars more wisely.

[Alan Ollie]

LowellNigoff  thats a no brainer of course we do it Thanks