Reaching Your Customer Base

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit in on a development meeting for a new digital product. The thrust of the meeting was how to package the product (a home related diagnostic/repair program) and reach the target audience.

Honestly, I was so over my head in this meeting it was not even remotely funny. Between the abbreviations, acronyms and technical jargon the team members were throwing around, they could have been speaking in Swahili for all I could tell. It was a humbling, yet enlightening experience.

A New Way to Communicate

The meeting lasted an hour, and by the end of it, the product, its development and the target audience were clearly delineated. The way forward was clarified and the path set. Surprisingly, although I could not understand all of the tech issues, I was able to piece together what the product was intended to do, and how these young people were attacking the development, from scratch, of the who, what, why, where and how of this never-before-tried product. Their grasp of the digital realm and marketing was extremely thorough. Their attention to the smallest detail was equally impressive. These folks were, in my estimation, the tops in their fields. If they were merely representative of the average talent out there, then there are a lot of really, really good people working in the digital marketplace.

The details of the development process were astonishing. Everything from the usual (target audiences, product name recognition, etc.) to the unusual, to me anyway, (the time spent “clicking” through the site, and the percentage of people who they “lost” after a certain point, and how to mitigate that loss) were discussed in a way that left me feeling totally out of touch with the process and its production.

Previously, avenues of attracting customers centered on print media and radio with television coming in later, as costs associated with TV advertising began to decline. Today, the marketplace has shifted to the Internet. Costs are low, saturation is almost 100% and your customers make Internet research their go-to for anything from medical and legal help to which pet food is the best—and of course, their preferred service professionals.

The degree to which the Internet has become the route of choice of the information superhighway is staggering. Understanding this is critical for your business growth and success.

Listening to how the development team approached the problem, and their thoroughness down to the most minute detail, drove home just how much things have changed with respect to how you reach and communicate with your customers. Not having a good understanding of the “whys and wherefores” of Internet advertising and customer relations will put you at a distinct disadvantage in the marketplace.

Reaching Your Base

Approaching your customer base via the Internet is the wave of the future. Print media is, for all practical purposes, relegated to a supporting role as to how people find the things they are looking for. As an example, even junk mail has declined in volume and frequency over the years as it is supplanted by ads on your Internet platforms, telephones and other smart devices.

To be sure, stores like Ace Hardware, Home Depot and Harbor Freight (and, of course, supermarkets) still put out flyers which have coupons, but those are not their best way to reach their customers, merely a tangible incentive for the customer to visit their brick-and-mortar stores. Those mega corporations can and do buy huge blocks of television ad time as well. All that advertising funnels people to their stores but their Internet presence does the same thing at much less cost.

You can do the same. It is not necessary to have a shop these days. Unless you have a showroom where your customers can touch the products, there is no need for that kind of overhead. Material stock might be a consideration (especially today, with supply chain interruptions) but other than that, your customers will be more than happy to reach you via the Internet.

Putting your time, money and effort into a solid, and intelligent, Internet presence makes more and more sense these days. What you can save in overhead can be invested in developing your customer base online.

Quality Still Shines

While it may seem that online advertising is the pinnacle of customer relations today, it only seems that way. A business can be great at marketing but fall short in providing the customer with a quality product. That can be anything from on time performance to the quality of the workmanship.

You can have the best web site in the world, but if you show up late, don’t present a solid, professional image and do shoddy or sloppy work, you won’t last. Along with great web design and lots of links there are also any number of platforms that allow your customers to rate your performance (Yelp is one that comes to mind). Too many bad reviews will hurt your image, and your bottom line more than anything. Likewise, presenting a professional appearance, performing good work, on time and with good price structure will leave your customers singing your praises to anyone who clicks on that review. We all want to have that company work on our stuff. Be that guy!

Naturally, the downside of these forums is the never satisfied customer who will give a bad review of your business no matter how good you are, or just to be spiteful. You have to ignore that when dealing with your customers. If you get a bad review every now and then, most people can see through it. If you consistently are getting Fs on your report card you had better look into your business plan, your employees, or both.

Investing in your online presence, and cultivating your business there, will help reach your customers in ways that were not available to the trade before and improve both your business model and the bottom line.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born author is a retired third generation master plumber. He founded Sunflower Plumbing & Heating in Shirley, N.Y., in 1975 and A Professional Commercial Plumbing Inc. in Phoenix in 1980. He holds residential, commercial, industrial and solar plumbing licenses and is certified in welding, clean rooms, polypropylene gas fusion and medical gas piping. He can be reached at [email protected].