• info@vendcentral.com

  • (866) 699-VEND (8363)

Our Archive

Investigate And Be Bold To Beat Your Competitors

Written by aaron on August 23, 2017

aaron / August 23, 2017

Remember the proverb “keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” This is even more true online. Search vending or office coffee service with your city and who comes up? These are your competitors. Analyze their websites and social media feeds. Create Google Alerts that notify you when they are mentioned online. Armed with this information, you are better able to create a digital marketing strategy that will keep your SEO ranking above theirs and become the name customers know and trust for workplace refreshment solutions.

Widen your search

While vending and office coffee operators are your main competitors, they aren’t the only ones. Convenience stores, fast or quick serve restaurants, even grocery stores are all vying for the daytime quick-meal business. Check out what contests, promotions, and give-aways they are offering. How active is their social media channel? Can you imitate any of their marketing ideas and benefit from being even more conveniently located in the workplace?

Design a digital marketing plan to rival their efforts and then go beyond. Add more content to your site. Get longtime customers to write you positive reviews on Yelp or that can be displayed on your website. Create YouTube videos and articles that feature you as the knowledge expert on vending, micro markets, and office coffee service in your area. Respond on social media to comments, post news, snap pictures of charitable events, recognize employees, and offer customer incentives.

Keep an eye on your competitors and then beat them at their own game to stay front and center to potential customers.

Contact us for your digital marketing needs!
866- 699-8363
marketing@vendcentral.com
www.vendcentral.com

read more
Lead The Pack: Online Marketing Is More Than SEO And AdWords

Written by aaron on August 9, 2017

aaron / August 9, 2017

Where do facility managers go when considering a product, service, or company? They go online just like you do.  That is the power of digital marketing, ensuring that customers can find what you’re offering, when they need and want it.

 You need more

Search Engine Optimize (SEO) and Google AdWords are among some of the best digital marketing tools. However, more and more companies are using them, which means to get ahead of your competitors, you need them and a digital marketing strategy that does more. In today’s environment continuously updated content, a strong website, and active social media are musts for digital marketing. They show the customer you are an expert, trustworthy, knowledgeable, credible, reliable, approachable, innovative, and established, as well as present your product and service solutions. Digital marketing also costs a fraction of many traditional marketing methods such as newspaper, television, and radio ads. Plus, it’s usually more targeted with relevant results and ways to measure engagement.  Gain exposure and a great reputation with digital marketing – a key strategy to drive up sales!

 

Contact us for your digital marketing needs!

866- 699-8363

marketing@vendcentral.com

read more
Make Dollars On The Penny: Understanding The Customer Lifetime Value

Written by aaron on August 4, 2017

aaron / August 4, 2017

The customer lifetime value, or CLV, is one of the most important statistics in business. The CLV helps owners determine the revenue attributed to the entire relationship with a customer, present and future. It is a powerful statistic when looking at where to invest resources, especially when comparing the cost of marketing to an existing customer versus acquiring a new customer. Ultimately, it helps owners analyze marketing investments and new service offerings.

While there are many ways to arrive at the CLV, in the vending and micro-market industry, it is easiest to look at the average revenue from a location for a given time period and then multiply that number by the years the location is expected to remain a customer (based on projections or the average customer retention rate). For example, let’s say the account averages $5,000 over 4 weeks. In a year, that is $60,000. If you retain a customer on average for 7 years, that location is worth $420,000 over the lifetime of the customer.

The Role Of Quality Marketing In CLV

A key statistic to compare with the CLV is the cost to acquire a new customer, or CAC. This number can be found by first determining the money spent on advertising to and acquiring new customers, such as those associated with digital marketing, sales people, e-mail marketing, etc., over a given time period. Divide the cost by the number of leads that became customers over that time period. Although the cost per customer is often higher than marketing to existing customers, this doesn’t mean marketing to new customers isn’t worth doing.

The cost of a quality marketing services can pay for itself with just one new location. For example, say a digital marketing service costs $1,000 per month. That’s $12,000 a year and might make a bookkeeper question the expense. However, if the program adds even one new customer, it could more than quadruple sales when you calculate the CLV. Consider the following example:

Digital market campaign to attract customers Cost: $1,000 per month. For 5 years: $60,000

                                          New account

from campaign            Revenue per week    Revenue per year       LVC (keep for 5 years)

Micro market account    $1,000                       $52,000                      $260,000

Office coffee account    $350                          $18,200                      $91,000

Vending account           $500                          $26,000                      $130,000

Total gross LVC sales across all three accounts                              $481,000

 

That one digital marketing service delivered 8 times its cost in revenue. In the end, most business owners find that by using the CLV, they can invest a little and make a lot.

Contact us for your digital marketing needs!
866- 699-8363
marketing@vendcentral.com
www.vendcentral.com

read more
Subscribe to our newsletter

You can unsubscribe anytime you want