Customer Loyalty Quiz - What is TOMA WOMA? (Part 2)

Ah...we have a new President Elect so no more political ads for a while. We should all be happy about that! Ok, let's get back to what we are actually here about - TOMA WOMA! Last week we discussed the importance of, and steps to increase, Top-of-Mind-Awareness (TOMA). Alone, it can pay off handsomely for your business.

Let's talk WOMA here... to refresh you, WOMA is Word-of-Mouth-Advertising and we all know it is the holy grail of marketing. All businesses crave those customers who become avid promoters of your wares because, as you learned in Marketing 101, it is the most effective form of advertising. It is the cheapest way to advertise and results in the highest amount of sales. Who wouldn't benefit from a little WOMA love?

The real question is, as a business how do you drive WOMA and how do you measure it to know it's really working? (Technically, that's two questions, but give us some slack here). Here are a couple of simple ways to drive word of mouth business:

1. You must have great customer service! Obvious but true. Noone will ever recommend your business if you have poor customer service, regardless of how great your product is.
2. Employ methods of making your customers feel desired. Invite your best customers & their FRIENDS & FAMILY to exclusive shopping hours, or early bird sales, etc.
3. Create a "Bring-a-Friend" promotion. One of our clients recently offered a 25% discount to anyone who brought in a friend or family member. They had to join their loyalty pogram of course but what a great incentive and an perfect example of WOMA!

Those are just a few ways. Remeber to use your WOMA to drive TOMA and vice versa - if nothing else, you can add a few fun buzz words to your vocabulary!

Customer Loyalty Quiz - What is TOMA WOMA? (Part 1)

TOMA WOMA; It sounds like a bad rap song or perhaps an acronym used by text messaging experts. That's partially correct as fellow marketers will point out, but do most retailers (particularly the small & medium sized ones) know TOMA WOMA and the power behind it? Me thinks not, and in this post we will focus on customer loyalty and TOMA - next post will focus on WOMA.

Enough babble - TOMA = Top Of Mind Awareness; WOMA = Word Of Mouth Advertising. Did the light bulbs, bells and whistles just go off in your mind? We hope so because having a strategy and, more importantly, a systematic approach to TOMA WOMA can help your business grow.

Let's first discuss TOMA by asking a simple question. When a consumer thinks of buying a product/service in your segment do they think of you first; are you at the top of their mind? For example, if you are a pizza restaurant and my family wants a pizza, are we going to think of your restaurant first? Hopefully the answer is a resounding "yes!"...but how do you know, what steps do you take to maintain TOMA with your customers?

With the worst economic conditions we've faced since the 1930's, you must be extremely savvy with your marketing and make sure your customers come back to you and not buy from one of your competitors.

Here are a few simple ways to maintain TOMA:

1. Use an precisely targeted email marketing program to send regularly scheduled communications.
   
2. Give every customer a promotional offer for a repeat visit within 2-3 weeks. This can be a simple coupon handed out at the time of sale.
   
3. Start tracking customer purchases including dates & amounts - very easy to do with a loyalty/rewards program.
4. Based on purchase behaviors send highly relevant communications by email, direct mail and SMS (if you can - if you can't there are tools out there that will).

It's time to get really serious about your marketing and make sure every dollar spent provides a healthy return back to your bottom line. If you don't focus on TOMA and have a system (ANY kind of system) to make it happen you are selling yourself, and your customers, short.

Next week we will discuss WOMA and how to really make it work for your business. We all know referral marketing is highly profitable, we'll take it a few steps further and give you a few new strategies...