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| Contents: |
| Competitive
Intellegence: Resources on the Web, Sharon Locken, President, Locken Information. More Sales and Profits from Existing
Customers.
Cay Villars, President, Market Value Concepts.
Importance of Brand: Research
Products. Bill Kelly, President, BioInformatics.
Consolidation:
New Marketing Strategies in Research Products. An interview with Bruce Lehman,
President, Lehman Millet, Inc.
BioTactics Parners program -
how it benefits your business.
New Job Postings |
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What's your Current Customer
IQ™? Maximizing sales and profits using your current customer base. (p. 3) |
| by Cay Villars, Market Value Concepts |
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- Managing Distributors
 ule #1: Don't
automatically assume that you can not find out to whom your distributors are selling. Here
are some tips:
- Whether you sell direct or via distribution, every product you sell should have a
customer satisfaction/customer profile business reply card included in the package. You
may wish to offer an incentive for customers to return the card every time they buy
product (perhaps all returns are entered in a monthly drawing for a give away). Or perhaps
you could offer your customers a free subscription to a valuable newsletter in return for
responding. (This same card, by the way, should thank a customer for his order and
give him all the reasons why his purchase was a good choice. We'll cover the reasons
for this technique in a future article).
- Insist that a distributor provide you with customer information on every sale.
Naturally, most distributors will balk at this, but it absolutely does not mean it can not
be done if you can figure out a way for it to be to their advantage. There is no standard
industry "rule" that a creative marketer can't break if the alternative is
legal, ethical and it's the best thing for your business.
Don't settle for the status quo!
Get creative in your agreement (prehaps a better discount) if you must, but get that
customer information so you can get better customer feedback, understand where your sales
are going, improve the targeting of your promotions, and continue to develop products for
those customers. AND in the end you will be in a stronger position should you need to
change distributors. Or, you may discover your other marketing programs are more effective
than your current distribution method. At the very least, insist that
your distributor provide you this information at the account, institution or zip code
level.
- Linking Leads to Sales
 dmittedly, the most reliable source of information
comes from having a direct link between an a specific customer (product user or individual
making a purchasing decision) in a lead database and the actual sale as recorded by sales
order processesing. However, other sources of buying information can come from the
customer reply cards, field sales, records in purchasing departments, and central stores
that carry your product.
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