Good Morning ,
A good friend of mine called the other day. She wants to send out an announcement to her customers that she is open for business. (She’s been open this whole time, but now you can physically enter her business.) We talked and she developed a post card to remind her customers about her services. We tweaked the card a bit, and she was going to pull her customer list off her Point Of Sales (POS) system to see if we can send them out bulk mail.
She found something very interesting about her system. Which I found very common in a lot of POS systems (better know as Piece Of Sh** systems) which can increase cost, lower profitably and are just plain very expense, crappy software!
I’m talking about a system that among other things will not let you export your own customer list into anything except printed-out labels. Newer POS will let you do emailing through their email server. Most of these POS’s are part of a franchise package and/or professional software to make appointment setting and billing easier. It also lets the franchiser monitor the franchisees’ sales or let tech support maintain the software.
I even see some systems that will connect with the main/home/corporate office where they at a “reduced cost” send out ineffective but “approved” communication to your customer base and make a copy of your list with which they can do whatever they like.
Now, if you have a POS that will not let YOU communicate effectively with your customer, you’re struck.
Now let me state that I’m not a lawyer, have never played one on television, but have been on television. I am not giving you legal advice; in fact, you might want to check with an attorney.
I know that over the 20-plus years I have been in business, a number of franchisees have set up a separate computer and entered their customers’ information into an Excel or database file so that it could be exported to do a mailing or email campaign.
Well back to my friend. She’s talking to the software people about how to save it as either an Excel file or as a PDF that we might be able to convert to Excel. Then we can run it through my software to make sure the addresses are correct and up to date, address her cards with a barcode and send them out at about half the cost of normal first class postage.
For the names for which she has no address but an email address, I suggested using Constant Contact, which is a bit more costly than some of the others, but has a lot of ready templates where all you have to do is plug in your information and you’re ready to go. Plus they are adding lots of new service to help the small business. Now she will be able to communicate effectively with her customers on a regular basis and not let them become lost customers!
If you want to know more about any of this week’s marketing tip, just contact me.
Till next week, stay healthy,
Great Things Happen, But You Have To Take Action NOW!
Philip Freedman
Your Doctor of Customer Acquisition, Retention and Enhancement
P.S. Business is slow for everyone! Bring in business with my FREE checklist, “7 Proven, Powerful Ways To Increase In
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