Why staying in touch is vital

Why small businesses need to communicate to their customers often

When you are a small business selling to other businesses, big or small what are your priorities?

Any business is run in two basic parts; one part is in charge of producing goods or services and the other part in engaged in selling and realizing revenue from those goods and services. However, you are not the only one in the market. As you (or your salesman) struggle to get attention from the different parts of the buyer organizations, you need to, in competition with the other players, establish your presence by increased awareness of yourself, your products- quality and prices and also build over time, a lasting relationship with as many buyers as possible.

Most organizations pay a lot of attention to the “make” process, especially when they are starting off. They pay some attention to the “sell” process but ignore the path from the “make” to “sell”. By this I mean that the whole process of talking to customers with a view to getting their feedback about the product, communicating the virtues of your product and the desirability of doing business with you as a company is ignored leaving the salesman with too much on his plate.

IntAer

A simple diagram of the steps in the marketing communication process

Remember, you can’t short-circuit the above process. A customer who is not aware of your product or solution or your company, will not suddenly put you in the shortlist of vendors she is considering purchasing from. You need to cross the hurdles of awareness generation (you exist) and interest generation (in your product’s ability to solve her problem) first. Knowing where your customer is in this process is the first step to advancing her down the process.

It goes without saying that the goals of communication will change from one step to the other and a smart marketer will align the maximum resources at his disposal to solving the most critical issues.

One of my favourite (good) examples of paying attention to the “intermediate” steps has been the old Eureka Forbes advertising. Anyone old enough to remember those? The ads not only positioned the benefits of the products (cleanliness and hygiene of your home) but most importantly, at a time when it was still a novelty, de-risked the sales model where the door to door salesman would actually enter your home to demonstrate the product. Eureka Forbes does not do those ads any more because today so many companies are engaged in direct marketing that it is no longer a perceived risk to let a company salesman in your home, but without doubt, the phenomenal success in market penetration of Eureka Forbes could not have been achieved just on the strength of their products and the aggressiveness of their salesmen. This was achieved because Eureka Frobes correctly assessed the overwhelming market sentiment and the challenge thereof and communicated correctly to bridge the right gap.