50 Ways to Increase Revenues

 

In my other posts, I have explained many ways that one can increase sales through a wide variety of marketing strategies and tactics. In this post, I will focus on other ways to increase revenues.

Here are some approaches to consider:

1. Explore new markets and market segments for your existing products and services
2. Explore new, different uses for your products or services
3. Explore different distribution channels for your products or services
4. Explore geographic expansion for your products and services
5. Offer your products or services in different quantities or amounts
6. Create single use and multiple use versions of your product
7. Offer your product in different sizes or colors
8. Bundle or unbundle your products or services
9. Suggest add-on sales to the purchased product or service
10. Offer complementary products or services
11. Create variations of your current products and services
12. Charge for technical support
13. Adopt a subscription model
14. Charge a set-up fee for complex products
15. Offer training for a fee
16. Develop and sell new related products based on rigorous customer research
17. Partner with a non-competing organization to share customer lists and marketing expenses - cross-promote and co-market your products with them
18. If your product can become an "ingredient product," sell it as an add-on or component of another organization's product
19. License your product through third parties
20. Move up or down the the price spectrum, inviting higher-end or lower-end customers
21. Identify opportunities for upselling
22. Pursue circular entrepreneurship, creating sustainability and multiple revenue streams
23. Explore ways to add value to and charge a related fee to your suppliers and business partners
24. License the technology underpinning your product, while still selling your products separately
25. Offer customized products and services for an additional fee
26. Offer personalized products and services for an additional fee
27. Add highly stylized products to your product range - focus on in-demand designs or styles
28. Offer concierge-level services for an additional fee
29. Offer your products as private-label in addition to selling them under your brand name
30. Rent or lease unused spaces or resources
31. Create a timeshare program
32. Add a program element or special ingredient to make your product or service unique
33. Tie your products or services to different types of events
34. Identify and work with as many strategic partners as possible
35. Set up a franchise model for your product or service
36. Partner with trade associations
37. Pursue a tiered pricing model
38. Pursue price segmentation
39. Create high-end packaging to increase perceived value and charge a premium price
40. If your product or service is building a database, consider selling the information from that database as a separate revenue stream
41. Create a customer tribe, club or community
42. Create customer loyalty programs
43. Start a customer referral program
44. Offer volume price incentives
45. Offer as many forms of payment as possible, make payment easy
46. Offer delayed payment plans
47. Be available for purchase 24/7
48. Educate the customer about new or additional additional product uses
49. Help the customer to form a habit around product usage
50. Turn your brand into a self-expressive brand - this is also known as "brand as a badge"

Focus Groups to Determine Brand Messaging

 

Often brand messaging can be more difficult than one might imagine, especially for larger organizations that offer a myriad of products or services that appeal to different customer groups. And functional benefits may not be the most powerful things to promote to stimulate purchase and especially repeat purchase and brand loyalty. Often, it is shared values and emotional, experiential or self-expressive benefits that have the most power to motivate purchase decisions.

So, if the objective is to determine the optimal brand positioning and messaging, especially succinct and powerful messaging, the focus groups should include a discussion of the following:

• Customer beliefs, attitudes, values, anxieties, hopes, fears, motivations and behaviors
• How purchase decisions are made
• What other product or services, if any, they considered in the purchase decision
• What the purchase experience was like
• What the product or service usage experience was like
• Asking them how they felt while using the brand's products or services
• Talking about the brand as if it were a person, identifying the adjectives that best define the brand
• Identifying what they believe the brand's values are
• Perceived relevance of the brand and its products or services
• The need that led to considering the brand
• Asking them to use only one word to describe the brand
• Asking them how they would sell the brand to someone who was unfamiliar with the brand
• Asking them what the most important things about the brand are to them

Another insightful question to ask would be, "What would the world miss most if the brand ceased to exist?"

Usually, you would want to talk with loyal customers, new customers and customers who have walked away from the brand after having purchased its products and services previously.

This will lead you to a potent motivating unique value proposition and messaging for the brand. 

Did you notice that I did not include questions about the product's or service's functions and features? While this might become part of the discussion, these are rarely the things that sell the brand. 

I wish you great success in gaining insight into customer's motivations for purchasing your brand's products and services.

34 Heritage - Failed Customer Service

This is a cautionary tale of what poor customer service can lead to. 

I first bought a pair of 34 Heritage jeans from a men's clothing boutique in Portland, ME. The jeans were dressy and fit well. I loved them. They became my favorite jeans brand. Since then, I have purchased a couple more pair of jeans from the same men's clothing store via telephone orders. After that, I began purchasing them directly from 34 Heritage. Recently, I purchased two different pair of navy dress jeans. When they arrived, one pair was correct but the other pair was a washed out light blue casual pair of jeans, something that I would not wear. I immediately wrote 34 Heritage to make them aware of their shipping error. We exchanged email messages for about a week but ultimately, they would not exchange the jeans because I had cut the tags off the jeans, something in retrospect I would have been wise not to have done. I understand that 34 Heritage might have a process that guards against potentially fraudulent exchanges, however it was clear that the customer service representative thought I was lying throughout the customer service process. That was apparent in her written responses, which were curt, unfriendly and even sarcastic.  

It didn't bother me as much that they would not exchange the pants shipped in error for the ones I ordered, but rather that they would not own up to their mistake, but instead accuse me of lying.

I can understand that not every company lives by the philosophy "the customer is always right." But not to accommodate me in any way and to be curt with me in writing when I was only trying to report a shipping error is inexcusable. I would have been a lifetime customer, but my patronage of their brand has now ended. If they had accepted the return they would have seen that the light blue jeans had never been worn and they would not have been out any money at all (well, except for shipping and restocking, but that would have been a result of their error). And, most importantly, they would have kept me as a satisfied customer.

The lifetime value of any satisfied customer can add up to a significant amount. And, in my case, because I have a substantial online presence and audience, this story could have a multiplier effect on lost revenues for them. It is a shame that 34 Heritage did not handle this differently. But these types of customer service experiences happen all too often with so many different brands. One failed touch point can have more of a negative effect than one might imagine. I personally believe that every brand's operating philosophy should be "the customer is always right." And customers and potential customers should always be treated with great respect. This helps build a strong brand franchise. Ultimately, the emotional connection to brands results from the quality of interaction at each point of customer contact with those brands. And when errors are made, quick and satisfying recoveries are essential. 

Other blog posts on customer service:

• Customer Service and Brand Perceptions
• The Moment of Truth for Brands
• Creating the Total Brand Experience - Starbucks
• Emotionally Connecting with Your Customers
• Customer Service Comes of Age at Insurance Companies
• Fast Food and the Customer Experience

Trade Show Marketing

 

Often, trade shows are one of the most effective ways for B2B brands to build brand awareness and market and sell their products and services. Quite often, trade shows are associated with a trade publication or professional association. Creating strong alliances with these publications and organizations can help you in trade show marketing. 

If you are a startup and have few financial resources to participate in a trade show, often just attending, networking, passing out your business cards and gathering contact information from potential customers is the least expensive option for connecting with and beginning conversations with potential customers. If you have enough financial resources, you should consider paying for a booth on the trade show floor. At a minimum, you will need a table and table skirt, a retractable trade show banner, simple fact sheets/brochures and business cards. These can be quite inexpensive, however you can pay for much more elaborate display components. 

The most important thing to do at a trade show is to have conversations with potential customers and collect their business cards. Now days, as a trade show exhibitor, you will either receive a list of trade show attendees and their contact information or you can scan that off of their trade show IDs. If you still need to collect their information, you can do that by collecting their business cards or entering their information on a laptop computer. You can also set up the laptop computer so that they can enter their own information. Often, an incentive for collecting contact information can be helpful. Incentives can range from food/snacks, photos with celebrities (expensive), branded promotional giveaway items or free product trials. Make sure you have thought through the best way to collect all relevant customer information at the show well before the show.

If you cannot afford a booth (or even if you can), another strategy is to sponsor a happy hour at a nearby bar, restaurant or hotel the evening before the trade show begins. You would invite potential customers to that happy hour. You could offer one drink for free, or depending on your budget, have an open bar. Make sure as many sales people from your company attend as possible so that they can "work the crowd." It is usually cheaper to hold the happy hour at a venue other than the trade show hotel or hotels as their charges will almost always be higher. 

If your company has significant marketing resources, it could hold the happy hour on a boat, on which the attendees are a captive audience for a couple of hours. Twilight or evening cruises tend to attract a larger number of people. 

Having a speaking spot at the trade show or conference can be very helpful. However, those spots almost always require an extra payment. It is best to have one of your very satisfied customers speak on your company's behalf. And it is always better if the talk is about a topic of general interest, such as a new industry development, how to best use AI in the industry or some similar topic. But the talk should also convey your company's unique value proposition.

Some conventions and trade shows offer cyber cafes for the convenience of the attendees. You company can sponsor the cyber cafe. 

Another strategy, if you really want to "own" the trade show is for your company to offer the organization producing the trade show a parallel users conference produced by your company with a number of workshops led by industry experts, thought leaders, consultants and influencers. Usually, these people will jump at a chance to have an audience with people at the trade show. 

To promote your company during the show, you can purchase outdoor advertising space during the period of the show near the hotels and convention center at which the trade show is being held and along the highways from the airport to the hotels and convention center. 

You can also purchase advertising on hotel room television sets at the trade show hotels and you can pay to have branded door hangers placed on hotel room doors. 

You trade show presence should achieve one or more of these goals: (1) build brand awareness, (2) identify potential customers, (3) begin to create a relationship with potential customers, (4) collect potential customer contact information and (5) sell products at the show. 

If your primary goal is to sell products at the show itself, you should offer a special trade show price discount to motivate immediate purchase. 

Before the show, you should identify your top prospects so that you can schedule meetings with them ahead of time, send them special invitations to your happy hour or booth or at least make sure you connect with them at the show. If they are your most important prospects, you might also invite them to dinner at an upscale restaurant before or after the show.

Whether you are a startup with few funds or a large corporation with a huge marketing budget, attending carefully selected trade shows and conferences should be a part of your marketing plans, especially if you are a B2B company. It has been my experience that having a significant presence at a large national show is better than participating in numerous local shows. I would concentrate my marketing funds on the large national show rather than diluting them across dozens of local shows.

As salespeople, you know that if you have made a potential customer contact at the show that you suggest a next step or call to action with each prospect that you meet.

A final thing about contacts made at trade shows is that they can be entered into your company's CRM system and tracked throughout the sales funnel process to determine trade show ROI, something that chief marketing officers are always interested in as they justify their marketing spend to CEO and CFOs.  It will also help determine which shows are most and least productive, leading to reallocation of marketing dollars across shows. 

I wish you great success with your trade show marketing.

Vehicle Wrapping and Road Signs

Vehicle wrapping results in constant advertising as the vehicle drives around town, on the highways and throughout the country. Wrap company-owned vehicles or pay to wrap busses. The wrap can include compelling visuals, the company's unique value proposition, URLs, telephone numbers and QR codes. You can wrap the sides and back of the vehicle and even the roof of the vehicle for views from the sky. All of these can increase brand awareness and product sales. 

Likewise, you can work with the federal, state or local highway departments to post road signs along busy roads and highways to increase brand awareness. Consider how often a commuter will be exposed to your brand as he or she passes it twice a day every workday.

These are just two of the innovative ways to keep your brand alive via roads and highways. I left out the more common way, via outdoor advertising, as most companies have likely considered this type of advertising as a part of their marketing mix.

I wish you added marketing success as you consider vehicle wrapping and road signs as a way to constantly make people aware of and remind them of your brand.

Blog Posts for Startups and Business Founders

Here are some blog posts that may be of interest to startups and business founders.

• What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur
• Startup Insights
• New Product Development - Corporations versus Startups
• 26 of the Most Common Startup Challenges
• A Common Sense Approach to Marketing for Startups
• Branding & Pitch Decks
• How Can Start-Up Brands Beat Well-Known Brands?
• Startups and Unique Value Propositions

In addition to these blog posts, BrandingStrategySource.com has more than 700 other blog posts covering every area of brand management and marketing. You may find some of those posts useful as well. 

What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur

As you may know, in addition to my brand management and marketing consulting practice, I have also been a coach to dozens of startups over the past five years. In working with business founders, I have determined that these are the most important contributors to success:

• A great idea that adds value to a specific set of customers
• A passion for transforming that idea into a successful business
• Ample "customer discovery" to validate the viability of your idea
• A belief that you can accomplish anything
• A high tolerance for calculated risk - that does not mean that you are motivated by risk or seek it out, only that you are willing to work with risk in smart ways
• The ability to repeatedly overcome adversity - resilience and perseverance (the ability to repeatedly "pivot")
• Learning from failure
• Adaptability
• A strong work ethic
• Decisiveness and a penchant for action
• Ability to thrive in an unstructured environment - there are no directions, there are no hard and fast rules
• Some level of smarts - you do not need to be a genius
• Emotional intelligence
• Salesmanship - the ability to tell a compelling story about your new product or service
• A willingness to network with others - you will fail if you try to go it alone
• No fear of asking for help
• Along with this, an ability to seek out and gather the needed resources to succeed
• Knowing when to switch from an emphasis on product/service development to an emphasis on business development, sales and marketing - this does not mean halting work on product/service development
• Establishing a continuous loop of customer feedback and product/service enhancements
• It is an added benefit if you have some financial management skills, the most important of which is cash flow management
• It is also an added benefit, but not necessary for success (you can hire this expertise), to be a savvy marketer, understanding the target customer so well that you can think through the best messages and marketing strategies for them
• Most successful entrepreneurs also have an ability to delay gratification - many are willing to work tirelessly with little or no pay for a period of time with the vision of one day cashing out for millions of dollars (or at least managing a very successful business well into the future)

The most important of all of these skills is a "can do" entrepreneurial mindset. As an investor in startups, I always focus on the entrepreneur and his or her mindset/skills over the idea. I would rather back an outstanding entrepreneur with a mediocre idea than a person with questionable entrepreneurial tendencies and an outstanding idea.

Having said all of this, these are some of the common problems that entrepreneurs encounter:

• Not offering the right “value proposition,” that is, something people really want
• Not doing enough “customer discovery,” that is, understanding customer needs and desires
• Founder is too focused on product development vs. business development, especially when it is time to switch primary focus from the former to the latter
• Lots of uncertainty and risk and need to change course or “pivot”
• Access to funding/$
• Hiring the right employees and not being afraid of firing those who don’t work out
• “Scaling”/growing the business - investment in inventories (and marketing efforts) before sales occur is a particularly common problem in cash flow management
• Knowing when you need to hire a professional CEO who can take the company to the next level – knowing when the leadership role has exceeded your talents and abilities.

The good news is that entrepreneurship adds value to the world in these ways. It is often enough motivation for an entrepreneur to "push through" when the times get rough.

• Introduces new products and services
• Creates jobs and economic growth
• Empowers entrepreneurs to pursue their passions
• Creates wealth for the entrepreneur and his or her investors and employees
• Can address social issues
• Can advance technology, which can be used in other ways

If you have thought about becoming an entrepreneur, I hope this blog post has helped you think though what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.