Hasta La Creative!

Between all the different responsibilities, running a business can be difficult. Between marketing, products, customer service, and a ton of other responsibilities, there really is no room for error. One of those things that you have to constantly be concerned about as a business owner is customer retention, as it’s one of the most important things to having success for a business.

Many businesses approach customer retention in different ways, and some of those ways work better than others. What works well for your business might not work well for another business, and vica versa. However, there are some proven customer retention strategies that are essentially universal. If you’re interested in learning what those strategies are, continue to read this article.

Promotional Products

One sure fire way to ensure that customers are coming back for years and years is to offer them free promotional products. Every time your customer buys something from your or uses your service, throw in an extra freebie that’s branded with your company’s logo or phone number, and make sure that promotional product is relevant to what the customer purchased.

You shouldn’t just pass out promotional products every time a customer buys something. Surprise your customers with free promotional products in the mail if you haven’t heard from them in a while, and you’ll no doubt hear from them soon. It’s a great way to remind past customers of their importance to you, and it’s inexpensive too.

Immediately Respond to Any and All Issues

One reason that customers typically get angry with businesses and thus leave them for other businesses is because they feel like their complaints aren’t addressed in a timely fashion. That’s why it’s incredibly important as a business owner to make sure you’re always addressing complaints immediately, and dealing with them in a way that puts the customer first.

You’ve been there before: you complain about a product or service to a company, and get an automated response. This response tells you essentially that the company is too busy to address your issue. Customers aren’t stupid, and they can smell these automated responses from far away. Taking a few minutes to personally respond to any issues will ensure the customer feels like he or she is being taken care of, and it will likely mean that customer comes back for years to come.

Listen to Your Customers

Finally, one of the best strategies to improve customer retention is to just listen to your customers. Ask them what is they liked and didn’t like about doing business with your company, and ask them for any feedback to make their experience with your company better.

Doing so will ensure the customer feels like their needs were met, and you’ll also get valuable feedback that you can use to help better your company’s customer retention rates when it comes to other customers too. Even asking your customers to fill out a short survey could vastly improve the rates at which your customers return.

Image credit: rocketwatcher.com

The post Proven Customer Retention Strategies to Better Your Business appeared first on AdPulp.

Playing write along with its promotion to send someone to space. Axe/Lynx is out with a Valentine’s Day-themed video which proves an astronaut never has to find the perfect gift. He always has one at the ready when his loved one presents his gift.

The campaign is part of the brand’s Axe Apollo Space Academy promotion which promises a few lucky winners into space.

In celebration of the apparent increase in average height of women in Vietnam, Australian coffee brand Gloria Jean launched a promotion offering free coffee to women in the country 1.65 meters (about 5’6″) or taller.

Predictably, the campaign, which followed a Vietnamese government campaign advocating official recognition of the increase in average national height, backfired following complaints the effort was offensive. The company has since cancelled the promotion

Gloria Jean issued a statement calling the promotion “unauthorized” and went on to say “This promotion did not reflect the values of our brand, as we welcome everyone into our coffee houses around the world.”

Campaigns such as this one are destined to cause controversy. Anytime you peg something on a person’s physical qualities, let alone race, creed, color, religion and the like, you are inviting backlash. One truly has to wonder what goes on inside the heads of those who dream up these disasters.

Working with a corporate brand template from Carlton Draught for a Laundry Night promotion, a Sydney Australia pub, the Imperial, part of the Paddington Pub Precinct, is promising people a night off from ironing.

A promotional email from the pub read, “Give the wife, girlfriend or partner a rest tomorrow night, because the Carlton Draught girls will be in to do your laundry (well your ironing anyway).”

Of the promotion, a spokesman for the Paddington Pub Precinct said, “This is part of a CUB promotion that Paddington Pub Precinct has embraced to re-engage people with our heritage pubs. It’s about getting people back into the pub. Our intention was not to be sexist, and we’ll be looking in to this.”

And of how it’s templated promotion has been adopted by the brand’s retail outlets, a Carlton spokesman said, “As part of getting people back into pubs we’re trialling a promo which offers people the opportunity to ‘get your shirt ironed for free’. We’ve provided participating pubs with a lock up of some creative which can be used by them to encourage people to take part. We’ve seen the ways some of the venues promoted this on Facebook we reckon their words could have better reflected the fact that we all hate ironing.”

Carlton’s creative agency, Clemenger BBDO said it was not involved in the creation of the promotion.

A sexist return to the 50’s? Or just harmless fun?

Lozenge brand Luden’s is looking for fans to create a video of an original jingle and upload it to the Luden’s contest website. Winners will have the chance to have the jingle heard in a new campaign and win prizes including $2,500

div class=”imageleft”a href=”http://www.adrants.com/images/olympus_pen_story.jpg”img alt=”olympus_pen_story.jpg” src=”http://www.adrants.com/images/olympus_pen_story-thumb.jpg” width=”150″ height=”91″ //a/div

Are you creative? OK, that’s a stupid question. Do you want the chance for your creative to be shown at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the US Open National Championships? That’s a better question.
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/A99V9HS2D1cjhX4Em7sp_OPjsxs/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/A99V9HS2D1cjhX4Em7sp_OPjsxs/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/A99V9HS2D1cjhX4Em7sp_OPjsxs/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/A99V9HS2D1cjhX4Em7sp_OPjsxs/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

div class=”imageleft”img alt=”fruit_shoot.jpg” src=”http://www.adrants.com/images/fruit_shoot.jpg” width=”150″ height=”85″ //div

Across the United Kingdom, Robinson’s Fruit Juice is looking for the next Juice Crew.
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5mTIr5Oe9Mc-6bN4UHeqlUN05L4/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5mTIr5Oe9Mc-6bN4UHeqlUN05L4/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5mTIr5Oe9Mc-6bN4UHeqlUN05L4/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/5mTIr5Oe9Mc-6bN4UHeqlUN05L4/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

div class=”imageleft”img alt=”austrian_army.jpg” src=”http://www.adrants.com/images/austrian_army.jpg” width=”150″ height=”85″ //div

That weird Austrian army ad? Pulled because it was deemed sexist. Dubbing it lame and stupid would have been enough to get it off the air.
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3lf0lExwM1M3Lf4qHcEURize2t4/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3lf0lExwM1M3Lf4qHcEURize2t4/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3lf0lExwM1M3Lf4qHcEURize2t4/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/3lf0lExwM1M3Lf4qHcEURize2t4/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

div class=”imageleft”a href=”http://www.adrants.com/images/american_apparel_booty_search.jpg”img alt=”american_apparel_booty_search.jpg” src=”http://www.adrants.com/images/american_apparel_booty_search-thumb.jpg” width=”150″ height=”99″ //a/div

In an effort to boost its booty collection, American Apparel is on the hunt for the world’s hottest ass.
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/–7ihuDGzjVlWkAJDS6-bVlzB8c/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/–7ihuDGzjVlWkAJDS6-bVlzB8c/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/–7ihuDGzjVlWkAJDS6-bVlzB8c/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/–7ihuDGzjVlWkAJDS6-bVlzB8c/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

No, it does, really. (See below.) While not an actual working app, or is it? (*asked in super secret hushed tones*), the NUDE IT makes any scene nudetastic.