Communicating With Customers
In this case, ‘communicating’ means doing so in a marketing context, not just chatting about the weather to your customers!
Why Do You Need To Communicate?
Communication is a two-way process that achieves the following:
- Helps you understand customer requirements.
- Helps you convey how you can satisfy a customer’s needs.
In order to understand customer requirements you have to listen to them. Running a pub has the advantage over many other kinds of businesses in that you are in direct contact with your customers. Feedback is a constant process, enabling you to gauge customer response instantly; however, a thick skin is occasionally needed! Be aware that you cannot satisfy all of the people all of the time. There can be a danger of listening to only a small number of very vocal customers who are not representative of your clientele. Take time to assess any feedback and ensure you take into account the opinions of a representative sample of your customers. Good
quality feedback is essential for keeping in touch with customer needs and sounding out potential changes you may be planning. Regard it as free market research.
You must also convey to customers and potential customers how your pub will satisfy their needs. This ‘marketing message’ needs to be communicated regularly and in a variety of ways to your target customers. This reinforces the loyalty of existing customers and attracts new customers who may not have previously been aware of you.
Purpose Of Your Marketing Message
Marketing messages are used to promote your pub, its products and services. Messages can focus on different things and have different specific objectives. For example, to make the public aware that you have refurbished your pub, promote a theme night or launch a new menu.
To be effective, your marketing message should adhere to the AIDA acronym:
Your message should make customers aware of what you are offering and stimulate their interest. The message needs to be appealing enough to motivate them to take action and try whatever you are promoting. Whatever you are planning to promote to your customers, make sure your message contains the AIDA elements and with your target customers in mind, ask yourself the following questions:
- What is your objective?
- Will the message catch their attention?
- Will it build awareness of your pub, and what you offer?
- Will it appeal to their needs?
- Will it motivate them to do something?
- Will they be clear about what they have to do?
- Will the message be memorable?
- Will it be consistent with your marketing plan?
Communicating Your Marketing Message
Marketing messages can be communicated in a variety of ways from word of mouth to expensive advertising campaigns. The key to deciding how your messages are to be communicated depends on:
- What you are trying to communicate.
- Who your ‘target audience’ is.
- What your budget is.
Customers respond best to messages that are simple, distinctive, consistent and repeated. Messages that are too complicated, unclear and inconsistent fail to be effective.
Your ‘target audience’ is the particular type of customers you are trying to get a response from. They will dictate the method you will use to communicate your message. Research may be required to ascertain how best to reach this audience: finding out where they live, where they go, what they read and listen to, will help you find ways of communicating with them.
Marketing activity costs money and you should set aside a budget to cover this. Costs vary depending on the method used to communicate your message. Some very effective methods of communicating are inexpensive, though you may need to spend time putting them together; and more expensive methods do not necessarily provide better results. You should aim for the most cost-effective methods that are within your budget.
How much you set aside for your marketing budget will depend on your circumstances and your objectives for the business (ie the position you start from and where you want to get to). The larger the gap between these 2 points, the more marketing activity you will need to do. Pubs typically spend an average of 2%–3% of their sales turnover (ex VAT) on marketing activity, most of which is on newspaper advertising. Many other types of marketing activity are more effective but sadly are often ignored in favour of easy to arrange advertising.