100 Hundred Marketing Tips: #7

Who Are Your Key Customers?

Just one key customer is a marketing tool for you.

If you have a client that they themselves have a good reputation, they become a point of difference for you. Let's look at this, using Paper Planes as an example.

One of our clients is Motorama - a large automotive retailer with a number of different retail brands in the marketplace. We happen to work for three of their brands - Big Box Cars, Motopool and Car Beagle - which, to a lesser degree, are also recognised brands. However, the main company name is the brand that is most familiar to other business owners. So we make sure we include that brand on all our proposals, drop them into the conversation and have their logo on our website.

Why does it matter?

Well, our goal is for people to think 'if XYZ trust these people, then we should trust them too. Referring to well-know legitimate brands in your own promotion is a proven trust metric and can reinforce your own value with prospective clients or customers.

But beware...

It's not that easy. If your business demonstrates one key client, and that client is a big, high-spending client, then it might suggest to other, smaller prospective clients that they might not be able to afford your services.

So sometimes it's worth presenting a range of client sizes and spends if you still want to attract those smaller clients.

Who does this a lot?

Funnily enough, agencies in the same space as us do it well, but also software companies - constantly showing off who uses their software - often have these trust elements on the front page of their website.

To conclude

Sometimes a key customer can be the difference between winning or losing a job. Just their name can get people across the line to use your services or buy your products. So it's worth thinking about the steps you take to bring such a client onboard. Sometimes it might not be about making much money from them. The prestige could make you even more profitable elsewhere.