Lori Camuso, Big Bark Solutions

I work with a lot of smaller companies in the A/E/C community, and nearly 100% of them experience stress about the fact that they either don’t have a clear marketing plan, or they have one and don’t follow it in a timely and consistent manner.

While there is some validity to this concern, I tell them all: good news!! The best and most effective part of your marketing plan is already in place, and you are in fact following it. We just help them to formalize it and internalize it.

What’s the best use of your marketing resources? Customer retention.

A common misconception is that the purpose of marketing is to attract new customers. This is only partially true; the purpose of a good marketing plan is to integrate with your business strategy to strengthen your organization and establish consistent work flow for growth or maintenance, whichever is your goal.

A vital part of this program is customer retention. It takes monumentally less effort and is ten times more profitable to retain good customers than it takes to attract a new customer, come up to speed, see if the relationship works, evaluate profitability, and then either try to retain or try to cut your losses and move on. Think of it as a new hire relationship, and the effort it takes to bring on a new employee. Especially in our industry, substantial losses occur when the effort is expended and then we find out the relationship really isn’t a good fit.

Retention of good customers skips all the steps leading up to the dance and just allows you to keep dancing.

First of all, data is key, and it is probably more readily accessible than you think. Establish good metrics for profitability, repeat opportunities, and effort expended to perform the work within the client environment. There are other factors as well, such as whether or not this relationship can lead to other lines of service, opportunities, or partnering relationships that may be beneficial in the longer term. Track these and then be ready to make some decisions regarding whether this relationship is a positive one and should be nurtured, or represents a “one-off” to be learned from but not repeated. Doesn’t sound much like traditional marketing, does it? But it is critical to the way your marketing integrates with your business strategy.

Once you’re on your way to determining this information, start retaining! Of course, you will always need to perform quality work at a fair price. This is a basis for all business you conduct, not part of a retention strategy. A retention strategy is anything that furthers the relationship. It starts with your brand and the expectations you set. A retention strategy includes everything from the communications you send, to any special knowledge you may have of a client’s specific needs, and the ability you have to meet these needs. How easy can you make it to work with you? How much (or how little) guidance and supervision do you require? How readily can you anticipate and deliver what they will need next?

There are many more factors to be put into play. The good news is, you are probably already doing these things with your best customers. Taking a look at how to (and whether to) expand with other existing relationships creates a marketing foundation that is hard to beat.

Big Bark Solutions offers problem-solving in marketing, business strategy, and operations to companies in the A/E/C and related communities.

Lori Camuso is the founder of Big Bark Solutions, Boston, Mass.