Customer Retention – Observing Movie Theater Industry Strategies and Tactics

Strategy Plan One

July 28, 2012

Customer Retention

Similar to other business industries, the movie theater industry has experienced ups and downs over the past few decades, with trying to build the customer base and in customer retention.

It is often stated in Customer Relationship Management strategies that it is 3 times harder to attract new customers than to keep customers through customer retention.  What do you think the logical, strategic approach is?

On a Friday night, a group of us decided to take in a movie at the theater.  Deciding to be entertained in 3-D, we slid in and bought tickets for Ice Age: Continental Drift.  After paying  the usual ticket prices, the design of the theater brings you to the unavoidable drink – snack – popcorn counter, where of course, we snack – geared everyone for the movie.

To not miss anything, like anyone else, we wanted to ensure we were there prior to the 7:15pm start time.   As you are probably aware, the first few minutes prior to the start time, movie goers are slightly entertained, with all bodies pointing forward to the screen with clips and shots of “did you remember to get…”, and all the rest of value-added, movie theater promotional stuff.  After 10 minutes of alternating between occasionally glancing at the screen and frequently engaging in conversation with our party, the lights dimmed and volume was cranked up.

In your mind 7:15pm start time is firm and you are ready to watch.  Nope, not the case.  For the next 16 minutes (yes I was the annoying one looking at my mobile device lighting up the adjacent areas) we all sat through movie trailers, ads and clips, one after another.  Then another promotion for another 3-D movie coming up.  Oh, and then one fairly entertaining movie theater industry ad attempting to generate more interest in coming to the movie theater again.  16 minutes of this!  Didn’t we all just pay to watch a movie at 7:15pm?  I can expect to click-through pop up ads on a website if I am getting something for free there, but experiencing this in a movie theater?  Why?

Don’t get me wrong that I am severely complaining here, but highlighting more of a business and marketing observation.  Quite frequently some of us put on our business hats and observe how businesses promote themselves, engage and communicate with the customer, and try to build up the loyal base of repeat customers.  Here are some of the messaging and customer retention relevant observations at the theater before the movie, during that time frame prior to the movie, and post-movie time frame:

• Customer convenience – theaters make it easy for customers to buy tickets in advance at kiosks or online
• Captivated audience – Paying customers are in front of the screen, focused on the screen and the instructions on proper movie theater etiquette tells movie goers not to be doing anything else (ie: don’t talk, don’t use mobile devices)
• Free Trial – Customers are getting a “free” glimpse at additional products, in the appropriate format (ie: movie theater ads have a bigger impact being played in the actual movie theater and not on a 21 inch, non-surround sound system at home)
• Colors, design and words used in the clips, trailers and ads can create positive responses from the consumer
• Investment – the movie industry sinks millions into advertising and test marketing these ads prior to developing the final 2 minute clip or trailer (ever notice movies had looked super appealing in those trailers?)
• Feedback – the theaters capture customer feedback in two ways – in person or by kiosk; this feedback is an important part of improving the experience and of the Customer Relationship Management process

Whatever the tactics and strategies used by the movie theater industry, they are able to hit and make an impact on the paying customer to enable a response to return.  In your business, what are your strategies to gain the continued interest from your customer?  Keep them informed? Provide them will add-on packages while you have their attention?  Offer the free trial to keep the customer coming back?  Ensure you observe certain industry and business tactics towards gaining and retaining the customer base.  Incorporate strong customer retention strategies in your business plan and marketing strategies.

More on the Customer:

• Value of Customer Retention
• Top Retail Stores – Strategies and Tactics

• Marketing Tips for Better Customer Engagement and Results [infographic]

• Customer Retention – Strategic Process
• Customer Retention Strategies – Digital Marketing
• Online Retail – Strategies That Lead to Better Sales [infographic]
• EService, Social Media and Customer Service Trends [infographic]
• Building Relationships – Key to Building Customers and Revenue
• CRM – Improving Service and Customer Relationships

More business blogs of interest:

• Efficiency – Working More with Less in Current Business Environments

• Business Issues Faced in the Summer Months

• Hiring – Strategies and Tips for Strong Staffing Processes

• High Performance – Star Qualities to Get You Noticed
• Pay Per Click – Advertising Statistics and Trends [infographic]
• Business Plan – The Next Steps
• Business Intelligence – Keeping you Wired In
• SEO Guide to Higher Conversions with a Few Steps [infographic]

Ty Col    Consultant, Mentor, Entrepreneur

Strategy Plan One

http://strategyplanone.com

Business information, resources and tips for the entrepreneur

© 2012 Strategy Plan One

Pay Per Click – Advertising Statistics and Trends [infographic]

Strategy Plan One

July 20, 2012

Pay Per Click

Businesses and marketers are always keen to observe the trends with pay per click advertising, as pay per click advertising may be proving to be more beneficial than just aligning efforts to rank sites through organic searches.

Pay per click advertising, essentially paying for advertising to rank at the top of search engines, is an effective method to generate more traffic to websites.  In a world of overwhelming information available over the web, it is advantageous for businesses and marketers to have links and information readily available at consumer’s fingertips and in plain sight.  Hence the reasons, search engine sites have sponsored ads lining the top part of the pages and right columns.  These areas of web pages result in the greatest number of user clicks.

Some interesting pay per click (PPC) advertising statistics and trends are highlighted in this infographic from WordStream:

• Pay per click ad results outweigh organic search results by nearly 2:1 (commercial content)
• PPC accounts for 64.5% of clicks (high commercial intent)
• Top 3 Sponsored links at the top of the Google search page account for 41.1% of the clicks
• Sponsored ads on Google account for over 85% of the page above the fold
• If companies already rank organically, adding pay per click ads results in 89% new visitor traffic
• Click through rates for Google ads are 600 times higher than paid ads on Facebook pages

Check out some more information and trends on pay per click advertising, comparison of SEO and pay per click, and options in paid advertising.

Source:  WordStream

Businesses and marketing specialists should carefully weigh the options of marketing and advertising activities.  As in all business activities, marketing plans should be developed, identifying marketing activities and budgets.  Pay per click advertising may form part of the advertising campaign, and with all activities, the results of efforts should be tracked, measured and analyzed.  You may want to compare the return on investment in pay per click advertising to other forms of marketing and advertising activities in your business.

More on Marketing:

• Marketing Tips for Better Customer Engagement and Results [infographic]
• Online Retail – Strategies That Lead to Better Sales [infographic]
• Digital Marketing – Conversion Opportunities for Business
• Product Mix – Designing Products and Services for the Consumer
• Content Marketing – Targeting Local Markets [infographic]
• Color and Design – Factors Influencing Commerce [infographic]

More business blogs of interest:

• Business Plan – The Next Steps

• Business Intelligence – Keeping you Wired In
• SEO Guide to Higher Conversions with a Few Steps [infographic]
• EService, Social Media and Customer Service Trends [infographic]

Strategy Plan One

http://strategyplanone.com

Business information, resources and tips for the entrepreneur

© 2012 Strategy Plan One

Marketing Tips for Better Customer Engagement and Results [infographic]

Strategy Plan One

July 12, 2012

Marketing Tips

In business it is critical to interact and communicate with customers to get the sense of what customers want and if your business is meeting their needs.  The more frequent, valuable, and genuine your interactions and communications are, the more trust you will build with your potential and existing client base.

Some simple marketing, business tips produced in an infographic by Mindspress, highlight the small things you can do to build better rapport with clients.  By making small adjustments and improvements in activities, you can achieve greater exposure in the environment and communities, and better results with customers.

• Communications – gather customer contact information such as email to give you an avenue to engage and offer to the customer frequently.
• Asking for feedback – the ability for customers to provide a feedback and reviews will create buzz around your products and services.  It also helps in creating traffic and in spreading the word through multiple sources and Google searches.
• Community involvement – according to this article, giving back to the community, such as volunteering, sponsoring, and donating creates greater exposure for your business.  It helps improve morale for those who feel good with their involvement in communities.  Customers will take note!
• Revised Marketing & Business Planning – it is extremely important to review your marketing and operational activities, to measure and to analyze the results of anything you are doing.  The global, domestic and local markets and business conditions change frequently … so should your marketing activities, marketing plan and business plan.  Stay on top!
• Continuous Learning Environment – you need to keep a pulse of customer feedback and to incorporate the constructive messaging back from the customer.  When the customer is telling your something after their purchase, they are informing you (as an added benefit to you) that they invested in you, and in order to keep them you need to improve the experience, product or service.  Listen well and incorporate changes based on feedback.

Source: Mindspress.com

More on Marketing:

• Digital Marketing – Conversion Opportunities for Business
• Product Mix – Designing Products and Services for the Consumer
• Content Marketing – Targeting Local Markets [infographic]
• Color and Design – Factors Influencing Commerce [infographic]

More business blogs of interest:

• Business Plan – The Next Steps

• Business Intelligence – Keeping you Wired In
• Online Retail – Strategies That Lead to Better Sales

• Franchise Opportunities – Industry Outlook 2012 and Beyond [infographic]

• Retail Industry Heating up for Summer and Back to School

• SEO Guide to Higher Conversions with a Few Steps [infographic]

• EService, Social Media and Customer Service Trends [infographic]

Strategy Plan One

http://strategyplanone.com

Business information, resources and tips for the entrepreneur

© 2012 Strategy Plan One

Product Mix – Designing Products and Services for the Consumer

Strategy Plan One

May 17, 2012 

Product Mix

Determining what your business will offer for products and service to your markets is definitely a business and marketing art form.  Detailed business plans and marketing plans must be completed before entrepreneurs and companies launch their products and services.  An entrepreneur must design their suite of products and service with the overall goal of meeting the needs of the consumer base, and obviously to generate revenue for a successful, sustainable business.

Some of the questions you will need to answer include what products and services you will offer consumers, whether those products and services meet their needs, and at what price point is the customer comfortable with (buy-in).  How does one determine what is needed, the value of product or service, competition, price point, sales avenue, etc.?  Detailed marketing plans will help drawn out and plan the products and services mix.  Prior to the marketing plan development, you will need to develop some marketing research methods to extrapolate some information and data from your potential target markets.

Surveying your Markets to Determine Product Mix

Conducting your own due diligence in planning processes is critical to successful developing and implementing plans.  Surveying is one way to gauge the level of interest, the level of need, and economics and business aspects of your proposed products and services.  Whether you conduct the survey or engage with a professional marketing firm to complete those tasks, surveyed information can inform the decisions you need to make around your mix of products and services.

Product Mix – Marketing Plan

Armed with fresh, relevant data from your surveying efforts, you should be able to draft up a solid marketing plan that reflects your potential product mix, price points, competition concerns, and placement of products.  Your marketing plan should go into the depth required to explain revenue generated from such product and service mixes, and the Return on Investment in marketing activities to promote those products and service.  It will be extremely important to implement your marketing plan and to measure the results.  Reviewing the results will give you an opportunity to analyze whether your plan was working or not, and if you achieved the projected return and benefits from you marketing activities mix.  This also gives you the ability to revise and implement a better plan in the future.

Marketing Budget

Great marketing plans must be funded.  Ensure that as you plan, you also plan a marketing budget to cover marketing expenditures.  Only a few activities can be achieved at very low-cost, but some marketing activities are going to require you to plan and to provide part of your budget towards marketing.  As you fund marketing activities, you also need to determine your return on investment in those marketing activities.  For example, social media marketing is only one of many avenues that may generate a return.  Measure results and revise your marketing plan accordingly.  You may be surprised on the differential in returns between marketing activities and that may change your focus towards more support in one marketing activity category.

Designing Your Product Mix – Tips

• Always start with the why – why are we conducting these business activities, why do we think these product and services meet the needs of consumers
• Obtain solid, objective, external information from your markets, customers
• Undertake surveying to obtain market data
• Analyze your market data
• Form business plans and marketing plans based on solid outside information
• Call upon a marketing professional to strengthen your product and marketing mix (ask the professional)
• Remember that a high level of due diligence is required and that effort will be reflected in the actual results achieved. 

You may find that hitting the right markets with the right mix of products and services, timed accurately may be achieved through trial and error.  Very few successful companies and marketing strategies hit the nail on the head from the start.  Through conducting due diligence, and your readiness to adapt to the changing environment, will provide you with much better results.

Strategy Plan One

http://strategyplanone.com

Business information, resources and tips for the entrepreneur

© 2012 Strategy Plan One

Marketing Opportunities – Changing the Daily Deal Model [Infographic]

Strategy Plan One

May 9, 2012 

Marketing Opportunities

The good and the bad come with the high exposure, volume discount daily deal marketing opportunities.  One company, ConstantContact has come forward with a fresh Save Local daily deals model.  Benefits to this new model include:

• More Merchant control – on discount, timing, terms
• Deal sharing incentives – more benefits to the buyer when sharing the deal with others
• Affordability – no steep revenue sharing
• Model focuses on long-term relationship building

Check out this infographic from ConstantContact:

Through your core business and marketing planning exercises ensure that you analyze your marketing and promotional activities for effectiveness.  Measure you Return on Investment in marketing activities, and revise your marketing plan and activities accordingly.

Strategy Plan One

http://strategyplanone.com

Business information, resources and tips for the entrepreneur

© 2012 Strategy Plan One