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...