Marketing Book Helps Businesses Thrive By Building Emotional Connections with Customers

Highly praised marketing book helps small businesses thrive in competitive markets by teaching them to ignore the competition and focus on innovative ways to build emotional bridges with customers and secure their loyalty for a lifetime.

Vail, CO (PRWEB) April 11, 2005 -- Highly-praised marketing book, Big Business Marketing for Small Business Budgets (McGraw-Hill), urges business owners to ignore the competition! Instead, author and talk show host, Jeanette McMurtry, teaches business owners and managers to focus on building emotional bridges with customers in order to capture their lifetime value and long-term sales revenue.

Emotional bridges exist when customers feel personally connected to a brand because of the value received, extraordinary customer service, positive experiences or added values beyond products or services purchased. Customers with emotional brand connections tend to be more loyal and refer qualified new business leads, according to McMurtry, both key ingredients to long-term profitability.

The book, Big Business Marketing for Small Business Budgets, contains numerous case studies illustrating how large brands have built customer loyalty and then provides step-by-step suggestions for executing similar programs on any budget. Each chapter contains a check list and worksheets to help readers develop their own customized marketing plan. The book is available at all major booksellers, including online outlets.

Todays customers demand more attention and service than ever from the brands they patronize, and those that measure up are those that will succeed for the long-term," says McMurtry. Success in business isnt just about selling quality products anymore; its about treating customers better and providing more value and experiences than they expect. It doesnt cost a lot to provide more overall value, it just takes a new approach to customer relationships."

Small businesses can capture lifetime customer loyalty and value through five simple steps:

1. Learning how customers make decisions

2. Assisting consumers with the decision process in an objective manner

3. Personalizing brand communications

4. Creating brand experiences that initiate and strengthen customer relationships

5. Adding value to your brand that goes beyond products or services sold

Learning How Customers Make Decisions

Getting to know customers involves much more than knowing their demographics. Businesses that make an effort to understand the emotions and attitudes behind purchasing decisions can communicate to customers in highly relevant terms, making customers feel valued and understood, both of which result in increased loyalty and sales.

Assisting Consumers With The Decision Process

After understanding the process and influences behind most customers decisions, businesses can better initiate relationships by providing objective information that helps customers make informed choices. Communications programs that address fears, uncertainties, and attitudes associated with purchasing specific products create a sense of trust and a solid foundation for building relationships.

Personalizing Brand Communications

Computer technology is allowing large brands to personalize customer communications the same way small brands have been doing for years. As a result, customers have grown to expect personalized service, care, and communications from all brands they patronize. Messages that directly address customers needs and past transactions generate far greater response than general messages.

Delivering personalized messages involves creating customer profiles that record individuals transactions, needs, attitudes, and other purchasing influences; grouping customers with like patterns, and then creating messages that address these directly. Personalization is essential to generating more frequent sales, up sells and cross sells, or in other words, maximizing the revenue potential of each customer.

Creating Brand Experiences

Brands are more than products or services. They are experiences. Every time a consumer communicates with your business or makes a transaction, they experience your brand. Consistently providing extraordinary customer service is critical to maintaining a positive brand experience. Other types of experiences include events or opportunities to interact with staff in an informal setting, such as a seminar; product demonstrations; free trials or introductory offers that initiate relationships.

Adding Value

For todays consumers, delivering quality goods or services is no longer enough. You need to create more value than competitors. Doing so is not always expensive. Added value can come in the form of extended warranties, rebates, free installation, free gifts with purchase, first-time customer discounts, frequent purchaser discount programs, etc. Basically, anything that provides customers with more than what they pay for is added value that might tip the decision process in your favor.

Businesses in all industries can better compete on any budget by engaging in simple, yet relevant relationship-building activities. This means putting customers needs and expectations first, and working hard to gain their trust, respect, and enthusiasm instead of spending money and energy on trying to match large competitors marketing efforts.

McMurtry can be contacted at 970.328.5625 or www.mcmurtrygroup.com for more information about her book and the principles discussed therein.

About the Author

Jeanette McMurtry, author, talk show host and principal of The McMurtry Group in Colorados Vail Valley, has nearly 20 years of experience in multiple marketing disciplines including strategic planning, customer loyalty programs, advertising, public relations, and sales training. McMurtry presents frequently at business conferences and is a regular columnist for the Denver Business Journal and other publications. McMurtry hosts a radio show titled, Big Business Marketing for Small Business Budgets, on the Voice America Business network.

For more information or to contact Jeanette McMurtry, visit www.mcmurtrygroup.com or email info@mcmurtrygroup.com.

# # #