(And Other Ways Not to Build a Strong Relationship with a Brand)
By Kim J. Walsh-Phillips
Recently, my husband and I took our toddler daughter to our inaugural PicturePeople experience. If you haven’t been there before, it is kind of like a drive-through professional photography studio where you are in and out quickly and leave with your pictures in hand. We normally utilize one of the many incredible professional photographers in our area for photos, but an impulse purchase of a Groupon, that was to expire that day, had us in the Picture People world.
Thankfully the trip there was worthwhile, and not just for the one shot that we managed to get of my daughter smiling before she took off at Olympic speed into the mall. What was incredible was the plethora of marketing and sales mistakes that were made by this organization from the beginning to the end of our experience there. Even better than that, is what you could learn from them so you do not make the same mistakes in your business.
THE “DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME” LIST…
We didn’t see a staff person at the counter upon our arrival for the first 15 minutes. What we did get was just a voice from the back who said, “I’ll be with you as soon as I can finish up here.” Not only did this statement lack any type of customer service skills, but it clearly states to the person who that staff person is currently working with that they are just another task to get done in the day and not something of importance.
Lesson for your business: Build in practices to ensure that each and every customer feels special and important, starting with the first welcome, to each service offered and the followup post-sale.
They utilized no system for lead generation. Remember, we were in the shop because of a Groupon that should have been used for lead generation, yet no one collected our contact information and of course then there has been no followup with us after this experience.
Lesson for your business: EVERY marketing and sales strategy should have a system of lead generation built into it. You need to be collecting data for all of your prospects so you can add them to your communications funnel, develop a strong relationship over time and eventually be perceived as their trusted advisor. With that type of relationship, your prospect isn’t shopping around because you are seen as the ONLY choice.
They missed an opportunity to upsell. Again, we were in the store with a package that cost us $8, of which PicturePeople would only get $4 of. Right on the counter was a special photo club that cost $12, upgraded packages and monthly promotions. Instead of just allowing us to move forward with taking pictures within the confines of our package, they should have talked to us about why we were there, how often we had photos taken, and assessed if any of their other offerings could have been a good match for us. The amount we originally paid could have been converted into a credit with the overall profit increased greatly for PicturePeople.
Lesson for your business: Are you losing revenue due to missed opportunities to upsell to your customers? Assess your customers’ needs at their time of purchase and identify opportunities to increase the value of each sale.
Behind the counter, in plain sight of the customers, was a sign that said “Guests waiting to be sold to.” What is truly disturbing is that this appears to be a sign that is provided by corporate and hence is in all of their locations. From the start, they are screaming to their customers that they are commodities that are there to be sold to, an awful way to start a trusted advisor relationship. And even more ridiculous than that-no one tried to sell us ANYTHING.
Lesson for your business: What message are you putting across in your marketing? Do you appear as though you are only trying to sell the prospect something or does your messaging first try and attract the prospect into your marketing funnel, to engage them in messaging so EVENTUALLY you can sell them something? I will let you guess which method works better.
Unlike this drive-through picture factory, successful marketers start by planning their sales and marketing strategies in concert with one another, with the customer at the center of the plan. They work to create a system of lead generation, relationship building and then sales. This type of marketing will provide the greatest return on investment.
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