Be New or Be Boring

Unless you are NEW, you are boring.  You have to keep re-inventing yourself.  The best way to keep customers coming back to your small business is to be constantly creating something new and exciting.  You may be thinking, “My products and services are exciting,”  But if you aren’t creating something new, you are not going to survive.

Case in point: I love Z-Coil shoes.  I I have arthritis in my knees, and these shoes have helped me be able to walk comfortably; in fact,  they keep me from having surgery.  Over the past couple of years, I have purchased almost every kind of Z-Coil they make.  But that’s the problem. They don’t have anything new.

I recently received their e-mail newsletter, which worked hard at getting me excited about Z-Coils.  But the cool logo, the interview with the president of the company, the testimonial from Helen Bonham Carter, did nothing for me.  I wasn’t tempted to buy more Z-Coils, because they don’t have any new ones.

Missing the mark.  Z-Coil’s newsletter missed the mark.  If it was trying to attract new customers to try Z-Coils, it might have been effective, but for existing customers, it wasn’t.  There was nothing new for me to buy.  There was nothing to excite me or tempt me or get me to say, “Wow!  I have to have that!”

So, what is your small business doing that’s new? Are you coming up with new products? New ways to deliver your services?  New specials? New prices?

New products, new ads. Product retailers find new ways to package their services. They create new products that tie in to current events, like Ben & Jerry’s new ice cream flavor, Yes, Pecan, a play on President Obama’s “Yes, we can” campaign slogan.  Companies  come up with new ads that get people thinking about them in new ways.  McDonald’s and Pepsi and Coke are the masters at this.  The products aren’t new, but the ads are, and they are designed to attract new people or to get people excited about buying again.  If you can’t think of a new product, change something slightly and offer it as a new model, like the automakers do.  Like Amazon did with the Kindle 2, a new version of Kindle.

New services, new packages. Service providers find new ways to package or “re-brand” their services, like Visa’s attempt to get people to use their debit cards rather than credit cards. If you have several services, package them together, or create a new level of service that might tempt people who are getting bored, or people who might buy the next highest level of your service.

Nothing stays the same, and your customers and potential customers get bored if you don’t continually come up with something new.  I wasn’t kidding about re-inventing yourself every six months. If you want to increase sales from current customers, try thinking about “What’s new.”  Six months from now, I’ll be telling you the same thing.

(By the way, those aren’t Z-Coil’s Helen Bonham Carter is wearing.)

Image source: Newscom