7

The Info-funnel: Attracting lifelong customers into your inner circle

Now that brings us to probably the most important concept in all of information marketing. I sure I didn't originate this concept but I have certainly developed it to meet my own understanding of the business.

Let me explain by describing how we found customers for our real estate seminars. First, we would place a newspaper ad to invite people to come to a free 90 minute seminar or lecture. Out of all of the universe of people who might be interested in real estate investing, let's assume that 200 people showed up. These people became part of my funnel. Those that didn't show up were outside my funnel. By come to the free seminar, the 200 people demonstrated that they were "warmer." They were willing to expend effort to learn more. In sales terms these were "prospects or leads." They were warm leads but had not yet spent money. We knew that a certain percentage of the audience would always buy a seminar right there on the spot. For a $500-1,000 seminar it could be as high as 20%. Generally, it was 10-15%. Just looking out at the audience we knew that at least 10% had come there that night ready to do something. Those who bought and came to the weekend seminar became highly qualified leads...... they had tasted more of the product, had liked it and now were likely to buy other products or seminars.

Visualize the free people at the wide, open part of the funnel and those who attend the two day seminar further into your funnel and finally the few who get everything you have to offer.....passing through the narrow part of the funnel .....into your inner circle. These are your lifetime customers....your groupies. They like what you do and they'll be lifelong fans. These are your most valuable customers.

Determining the LTV of a customer in your funnel.

Just what is the value of a customer who enters your funnel and stays in there for a long time? Tom Peters says that every time a Federal Express courier comes into his office, the driver should see $180,000 stamped on the head of the secretary. His small firm of 30 people has a $1,500 a month courier bill. That's $18,000 a year times ten years for a total Long Term Value (LTV) of $180,000. And if the secretary convinces just one other customer to start using the service, the value doubles. But most mail couriers think that the value of the customer is just the $13.95 they spend today. Each of your customers is worth thousands of dollars if you'll take care of them....much more than the initial $20 book or $500 seminar. The ultimate goal is to keep that customer loyal to you and your products for ten years or more so that, by offering great service and value, that customer can be enticed to remain forever. The longer they stay, the deeper they go, the more money you make.

Sometimes you can afford to lose money on the front end in a free seminar or a free report in order to entice a customer into your funnel where you can offer more profitable services. So, the funnel starts out with your least expensive items at the open end of the funnel and ends with your most expensive item at the other end. Frankly, this is one of the reasons that you are reading this free report. I realize that many who read these very words will file this report in some forgotten folder and forget about it. But a few, sharp readers will want to know more. I’ve designed a power way to work with a few of you…to help you get started on your road to information fortunes. Just by requesting this free report, you will receive more information on how you and I can work together to launch your information empire.

How to Find Customers and Keep them.

Remember what my friend, Mark Victor Hansen, taught me:

"The sole purpose for your business is to Find Customers and Keep them."

The key to keeping customers in your funnel is to develop a long term relationship with them. A customer on your database is not just a name on a computer. It's a real person with changing and evolving needs and wants. They don't exist in a static world where nothing changes. They are being constantly bombarded with a hundred other options. You need to do whatever it takes to keep them loyal to you....and keep them out of your competitors funnel because the long term payout is so great.

Any marketer will tell you that the hardest and most expensive sale is to a new, cold customer who has never heard of you before and has never tried your product. The cheapest, easiest sale is from a satisfied customer. If you want to have a real tough time in business.....if you want each sale to be hard and expensive...then play the old game of "find the new customer." You cannot survive in the competitive in the new millennium by constantly being forced to find new customers. You must make it easy by taking care of the ones you find....and making it easy for them to tell their friends.

Building a million dollar database relationship with your valued clients.

Here is a specific example on how building a long term relationships with your most valued customers can pay off big. It comes from a great book on marketing, The Great Marketing Turnaround: The Age of the Individual and How to Profit From it. By Stan Rapp and Tom Collins published by Prentice-Hall. I quote from page 62.

"The mid-sized Ukrop's (supermarket) chain, with 18 stores and a 25% market share in the Richmond area, was facing increasingly tough competition. The area had experienced a 25% increase in the total number of grocery stores and supermarkets in just 5 years. Looking for a competitive advantage, brothers James and Robert Ukrops......set up a test program. A mailing was sent to households near the test store, inviting them to become a Ukrop's "Valued Customer" and enjoy "Automatic Savings Without Clipping Coupons." Members would receive a bar-coded plastic card to be presented and scanned each time they made purchases. And they would get a monthly statement listing the "electronic coupons" and rebates automatically credited to their account based on their purchases of brands offering special deals at the time --and telling them which product purchases would qualify them for additional credits. Every three months, members would then receive a voucher for credits earned, and it could be used like cash at Ukrop's. They sent out 5,000 test mailings and signed up 7,500 customers- a 150% response and direct marketer would envy! Within three months, overall sales volume in the test store had risen 10%, and two-thirds of the sales were coming from Valued Customers. Within two years Ukrop's had expanded the systems to all of its(now 20) stores, and was mailing out to 196,000 members each month its newsletter, Ukrop's Valued Customer News."

Did you notice what made the new program so successful? They made shopping easier, simpler and more profitable. Automatic savings without clipping coupons saved their customers time and money. Brilliant! No wonder they had a 150% response.

It has been said, "Sell the sizzle and not the steak." I say, Sell the sizzle BUT DELIVER THE STEAK! AND the salad AND the hors d'oeuvres AND the dessert AND the after dinner drink, AND the limo ride to and from the restaurant.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS. THERE'S A HUGE BOUNTY ON THEIR HEAD!

Whether your selling widgets or information, you must create a relationship with your clients whereby they feel that you are their ultimate source for everything they want in life.

The Info-funnel: Attracting lifelong customers into your inner circle

Now that brings us to probably the most important concept in all of information marketing. I sure I didn't originate this concept but I have certainly developed it to meet my own understanding of the business.

Let me explain by describing how we found customers for our real estate seminars. First, we would place a newspaper ad to invite people to come to a free 90 minute seminar or lecture. Out of all of the universe of people who might be interested in real estate investing, let's assume that 200 people showed up. These people became part of my funnel. Those that didn't show up were outside my funnel. By come to the free seminar, the 200 people demonstrated that they were "warmer." They were willing to expend effort to learn more. In sales terms these were "prospects or leads." They were warm leads but had not yet spent money. We knew that a certain percentage of the audience would always buy a seminar right there on the spot. For a $500-1,000 seminar it could be as high as 20%. Generally, it was 10-15%. Just looking out at the audience we knew that at least 10% had come there that night ready to do something. Those who bought and came to the weekend seminar became highly qualified leads...... they had tasted more of the product, had liked it and now were likely to buy other products or seminars.

Visualize the free people at the wide, open part of the funnel and those who attend the two day seminar further into your funnel and finally the few who get everything you have to offer.....passing through the narrow part of the funnel .....into your inner circle. These are your lifetime customers....your groupies. They like what you do and they'll be lifelong fans. These are your most valuable customers.

Determining the LTV of a customer in your funnel.

Just what is the value of a customer who enters your funnel and stays in there for a long time? Tom Peters says that every time a Federal Express courier comes into his office, the driver should see $180,000 stamped on the head of the secretary. His small firm of 30 people has a $1,500 a month courier bill. That's $18,000 a year times ten years for a total Long Term Value (LTV) of $180,000. And if the secretary convinces just one other customer to start using the service, the value doubles. But most mail couriers think that the value of the customer is just the $13.95 they spend today. Each of your customers is worth thousands of dollars if you'll take care of them....much more than the initial $20 book or $500 seminar. The ultimate goal is to keep that customer loyal to you and your products for ten years or more so that, by offering great service and value, that customer can be enticed to remain forever. The longer they stay, the deeper they go, the more money you make.

Sometimes you can afford to lose money on the front end in a free seminar or a free report in order to entice a customer into your funnel where you can offer more profitable services. So, the funnel starts out with your least expensive items at the open end of the funnel and ends with your most expensive item at the other end. Frankly, this is one of the reasons that you are reading this free report. I realize that many who read these very words will file this report in some forgotten folder and forget about it. But a few, sharp readers will want to know more. I’ve designed a power way to work with a few of you…to help you get started on your road to information fortunes. Just by requesting this free report, you will receive more information on how you and I can work together to launch your information empire.

How to Find Customers and Keep them.

Remember what my friend, Mark Victor Hansen, taught me:

"The sole purpose for your business is to Find Customers and Keep them."

The key to keeping customers in your funnel is to develop a long term relationship with them. A customer on your database is not just a name on a computer. It's a real person with changing and evolving needs and wants. They don't exist in a static world where nothing changes. They are being constantly bombarded with a hundred other options. You need to do whatever it takes to keep them loyal to you....and keep them out of your competitors funnel because the long term payout is so great.

Any marketer will tell you that the hardest and most expensive sale is to a new, cold customer who has never heard of you before and has never tried your product. The cheapest, easiest sale is from a satisfied customer. If you want to have a real tough time in business.....if you want each sale to be hard and expensive...then play the old game of "find the new customer." You cannot survive in the competitive in the new millennium by constantly being forced to find new customers. You must make it easy by taking care of the ones you find....and making it easy for them to tell their friends.

Building a million dollar database relationship with your valued clients.

Here is a specific example on how building a long term relationships with your most valued customers can pay off big. It comes from a great book on marketing, The Great Marketing Turnaround: The Age of the Individual and How to Profit From it. By Stan Rapp and Tom Collins published by Prentice-Hall. I quote from page 62.

"The mid-sized Ukrop's (supermarket) chain, with 18 stores and a 25% market share in the Richmond area, was facing increasingly tough competition. The area had experienced a 25% increase in the total number of grocery stores and supermarkets in just 5 years. Looking for a competitive advantage, brothers James and Robert Ukrops......set up a test program. A mailing was sent to households near the test store, inviting them to become a Ukrop's "Valued Customer" and enjoy "Automatic Savings Without Clipping Coupons." Members would receive a bar-coded plastic card to be presented and scanned each time they made purchases. And they would get a monthly statement listing the "electronic coupons" and rebates automatically credited to their account based on their purchases of brands offering special deals at the time --and telling them which product purchases would qualify them for additional credits. Every three months, members would then receive a voucher for credits earned, and it could be used like cash at Ukrop's. They sent out 5,000 test mailings and signed up 7,500 customers- a 150% response and direct marketer would envy! Within three months, overall sales volume in the test store had risen 10%, and two-thirds of the sales were coming from Valued Customers. Within two years Ukrop's had expanded the systems to all of its(now 20) stores, and was mailing out to 196,000 members each month its newsletter, Ukrop's Valued Customer News."

Did you notice what made the new program so successful? They made shopping easier, simpler and more profitable. Automatic savings without clipping coupons saved their customers time and money. Brilliant! No wonder they had a 150% response.

It has been said, "Sell the sizzle and not the steak." I say, Sell the sizzle BUT DELIVER THE STEAK! AND the salad AND the hors d'oeuvres AND the dessert AND the after dinner drink, AND the limo ride to and from the restaurant.

TAKE CARE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS. THERE'S A HUGE BOUNTY ON THEIR HEAD!

Whether your selling widgets or information, you must create a relationship with your clients whereby they feel that you are their ultimate source for everything they want in life.