The acquisition is an expensive business, and its price keeps increasing. That’s why I wrote down a few tips on surrounding yourself with customers with the most significant value for the company.
I want to write something other than general and theoretical advice. Since I run Playou, I’ll be writing about what customers are best for our business and what we do to get those customers. You can apply our strategy in most fields.
What tips will you find in this article?
Target customers for whom your products are of high value.
Educate customers before you sell.
Don’t force or pressure customers into buying.
Play an open game, don’t promise the impossible and don’t lie. Set fair and sustainable conditions.
Help customers with sales in the long term.
Educate customers and help them be successful.
Target customers for whom your products are of high value
Targeting the right prospects is essential. Try to reach and attract such clients who really need your products. Such customers will pay you the most, and if you provide a quality product or service, they will stay with you for a long time. If your potential customers don’t need the product, cooperation with you will cease to make sense to them over time. Your relationship needs a good foundation – you need each other.
Example from Playou:
Since 2014, we have focused on creating high-quality animated videos and providing top services to our clients. We have been looking for the right target group and actually the right business model for several years. We believed that our customers were the ones who wanted to advertise.
We have invested a lot of effort in acquiring such customers. However, these customers hired us only for their short-time projects, where we suited them and where we fit the budget. Many did not care about quality but rather price and speed.
But there was a different group of customers who want to explain their topics and solutions and want to educate their customers in the long term. These customers know that our videos are the best solution. It is important for them that we can understand and explain any topic. They demand high quality, stability and long-term cooperation.
We work very well with these customers, and they are willing to pay us a fair and long-term sustainable price for our services. Long-term cooperation helps us ensure the company’s stability and build better and deeper relationships with clients.
Educate customers before you sell
You should take your time to sell and wait for the right moment. If the customers are not fully convinced to purchase or cooperate, it may happen that you will not be able to keep the cooperation with them. We all need to sell, and that’s why when we feel the possibility of closing a deal, we go all out – we want to score a goal. Sometimes, however, the client still needs to understand better the full potential of cooperation.
I’ll give you an example:
At Playou today, we don’t just create animated videos. We also film videos, create online courses, build extensive customer academies, create various educational games or applications, etc.
A potential customer approaches us with a request for an animated video (this is our most attractive commodity at first sight). Let’s say negotiations are progressing well, and the client wants to implement the project. However, during a meeting with the client, our consultant discovered that she could solve the customer’s need even better. Therefore, she will explain to the customer how our services work as a whole and how, e.g. video series, online courses, etc. work.
At that moment, the customer will understand that we are a partner for him, not only for videos but that we will bring him even higher value – for example, we will take care of the entire educational project.
It’s a win for both sides at that point. Sometimes, it is better to look for the low-hanging fruit (e.g., if you see the potential for developing cooperation with the customer).
Customer education strategy
In this example, we should have ensured that the customer knew our value. And we can improve this through customer education.
How?
Educate long-term potential customers about everything that concerns them and your company and products.
Write blogs about it, create e-books and online courses, and build customer academies. It will allow your customers to learn about you and your work before they ask you. Thanks to you, they will also learn how to solve their problem and perhaps realize that you are the right partner.
At Playou, we continuously build a customer academy, write blogs, and hold workshops, consultations, and training on customer education. To help our potential and existing customers understand our company’s and products’ value.
Don’t force or pressure customers into buying.
In sales, there are situations when customers cannot make a decision. They may have various reasons for this – either they are dealing with the budget, they are considering another offer, or there is something else about it. It’s good to communicate briskly with them, but I don’t recommend pushing clients or even trying to manipulate them. If you force your customers to decide, they may change their decision, and your cooperation fails.
Another example from Playou:
Fortunately, it doesn’t happen to us much anymore, but in the past, we worked a few times with several clients who asked us for a video. We then sent them an offer, but they have not responded, so we kept reminding them to respond to the offer expressed. These clients communicate with us, and finally, after several comments and further negotiations, they accepted the cooperation. But what happened next?
The entire collaboration was lengthy, and the client took too long to respond to each output, changed assignments, etc. What was the problem? We did not fully decide the client to cooperate because he suspected he would not have the capacity for cooperation and perhaps needed to know what exactly he wanted. Today, we pay more attention and carefully perceive whether the client has a good background for cooperation and a vision for the entire cooperation.
Play an open game, don’t promise the impossible and don’t lie. Set fair and sustainable conditions.
Here in the Czech Republic, there is a saying: “A lie has short legs”. It means that the lie won’t go far, and you won’t succeed with the lie either. It’s a little different in politics, but if you’re in business and you care about good relationships, you want to play an open and fair game. Therefore, I recommend not only not lying but also not hiding information that could be important to the customer.
If the client is pushing you into disadvantageous conditions or demanding delivery within impossible deadlines, remember the situations you experienced when you had to work even at night to make it. It doesn’t even make sense to sell goods below cost. Explain to your customer that this is impossible; perhaps try to find a good compromise if possible.
90% of the time, the client will understand and make concessions on their terms. Some people always try to buy at the best possible price and are tough when dealing with suppliers, but if they are interested in your services, they will give in, or a small win will be enough for them – perhaps a small bonus. If there is a customer who will insist and ignore your refusal, then do not work with such a customer. The customer would behave like this the entire time of cooperation.
Example from Playou:
When we started with Playou eight years ago, we were looking for any order to grow, build a portfolio and learn new things for the first two years. That is why it sometimes happened to us that we also accepted cooperation with a client who was willing to pay us a lower price and was often in a hurry to get the result. It was a nightmare. In the end, we delivered everything as promised but paid a high price. They were clients who wanted the impossible and were never satisfied. Fortunately, there were only a few cases.
Today, we are careful about what we promise and take great care to understand each other with the client. That’s why before every cooperation, we hold workshops with clients and their teams, where we clarify even the smallest details of cooperation and a clear strategy. We visualize the workshop outputs and make detailed notes.
We share all outputs with the client in our project tool. The customer can see how the collaboration is progressing, tasks and goals are defined, an up-to-date schedule is available and the customer has realistic expectations. If anything changes (for example, deadlines), we always communicate everything with clients, even if it is uncomfortable situation. But we always agree with customer, and the customer and our team are satisfied.
Help customers with sales and in the long term
Please make an effort to educate the client at the moment when they buy your products. Teach the customer how to use the products and services. If you fail to do this, the customer will leave or never use the services to their full potential. Create scalable and digital educational content that will take care of customers – explainer videos, tutorials, e-books, online courses, FAQs, onboarding guides, etc. Provide clients with seminars, training, consultations, support, etc. Do everything the customer needs to succeed – to get the most out of your product. It is the best investment you can make.
Acquiring a customer is expensive, so it is important to invest in keeping them and developing cooperation. It may not be the case in all industries, but at least now, in 2022, most key companies are reducing acquisition costs and increasing investment in existing clients. Roles such as Customer Success Manager, Customer Education Manager, etc., are emerging. We live in a Customer-Centric era.
How do we do it at Playou?
At Playou, we have onboarding set up quite simply. Thanks to workshops with clients, which are an integral part of the cooperation process, the client understands well what to do and how the cooperation will work. We supplement onboarding with content in our academy and share data in the customer system.
Educate existing customers over the long term and help them succeed
Your regular customers are probably satisfied and therefore continue to work with you or buy your products repeatedly. Is there any further potential for cooperation? Can you help them even more, to succeed in what they do? If so, try to support them all the time. Again, it’s a great investment. Let them discover your other products, and help them become top users of your service. You’ll make extra money doing it, help clients, and get loyal brand ambassadors for your brand.
How do we take care of long-term clients at Playou?
Today, we provide long-term services and repeated deliveries to most clients. We support customers through regular consultations, so we have constant opportunities to get feedback from the client and learn how to optimize cooperation. We bring new ideas and consult them with the client regularly. Often, clients already bring ideas and are used to including them themselves. That’s the best cooperation, then.