MARKETING & CUSTOMER SERVICE NEWSLETTER
ISSUE
01 JANUARY 2011
this issue Marketing P.1 Customer Service P.1 Tool, Tidbits, and Trends P.2 The WOW Factor P.2 Upcoming Events P.3 Web Hits P.3 Key Marketing Dates P.3 Sponsorship P.4 TEAM FMWR P.6 Professional Development P.6
CUSTOMER SERVICE Focus on making customers, not sales: Repeat customers save you money because you don't always have to reinvent the wheel to get them into your store or to your website. Every new customer comes with costs, whether it's advertising, marketing or time spent explaining and describing your products and services. Repeat customers are gifts you give yourself because you did it right from the start and your reward is their loyalty and continued patronage. OPEX & OPEX REFRESHER TRAINING DATES
21 FEB - OPEX 0730-1630 AMCC 23 FEB - OPEX Refresher 0800-1130 or 1300-1630 AMCC 27 MAR - OPEX 0730-1630 AMCC 29 MAR - OPEX Refresher 0800-1130 or 1300-1630 AMCC Remember space is limited to 28 per session so please get your staff registered now. The Refresher is for front line staff. Anyone who is a rater is to attend the Sustaining the Covenant Management Workshop – date TBD.
Customer Service isn’t a department, it’s an attitude!
What Exactly is Marketing Anyway? What exactly is marketing and why is it important to you? Simply stated, marketing is everything you do to place your product or service in the hands of potential customers. It includes sales, public relations, pricing, packaging, and distribution and more. In order to distinguish marketing from other related professional services, S.H. Simmons, author and humorist, relates this anecdote. "If a young man tells his date she's intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he's saying the right things to the right person and that's marketing. If the young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is — that's advertising. If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is — that's public relations." You might think of marketing this way. If business is all about people and money and the art of persuading one to part from the other, then marketing is all about finding the right people to persuade. The most brilliant strategy won't help you earn a profit or achieve your wildest dreams if it isn't built around your potential customers. People don't just "buy" a product or attend an event. They "buy" the concept of what that product will do for them, or help them do for themselves. They buy the experience the event/program will bring them.
Before you become consumed with entrepreneurial zeal take the time to discover who your potential customers are, and develop a plan. Note: (Your potential customer is not always “All Authorized patrons.”) While a marketing plan can be a map for success, remember that the map is not the territory. A strategy that ignores the customer isn't an accurate reflection of the landscape. A good marketing plan can help you focus your energy and resources. But a plan created in a vacuum, based solely on your perceptions, does not advance the agenda. That's why market research, however simple or sophisticated, is important. Just keep in mind that research attempts to predict the future by studying the past. It reveals what people have done, and extrapolates what people might do — not what people will do. Planning is imperative, research is important, but there's no substitute for consumer insight. After all, as Mark Twain wrote, "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus". In the Directorate of Family & Morale, Welfare and Recreation, we live, work and are committed to five ‘Keys to Success’ Customer Focus Welcoming Environments Program Delivery Resource Management Corporate Leadership Mr. Wayne Bardell Director FMWR Fort Leonard Wood
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