The Accelerated Marketing Process

In the mid-90s, I held monthly brainstorming sessions with my business clients where we discussed hot topics to help their business move to the next level of growth. The synergy from the group spawned a series of epiphanies that allowed me to formulate a unique marketing process that identifies the specific steps it takes to develop customer loyalty and achieve sustainable growth for any business.

I tested my hypothesis and shared it with the group to fine-tune the process before putting it into practice. I realized that I had stumbled onto something that could make a profound difference for those businesses that implemented what I called “The Villegas Accelerated Marketing Process.”

I’m going to share with you something that is usually reserved for clients I work with on a long-term basis. The process of finding and attracting prospects (marketing), getting them to buy (sales), and keeping customers so they return (customer service) is usually a fragmented process. However, it should be a seamless progression to move a prospect to become a loyal, long-term customer. My definition of marketing differs from the typical textbook description. I believe that marketing is a total process involving all business activities to profitably create and nurture a lifetime customer.

In my definition, marketing can be segmented into two broad areas: customer acquisition and customer nurturing. Everything in your business either helps or hurts those two functions. Almost every business focuses their efforts on customer acquisition; however, customer nurturing is often neglected, which focuses on encouraging customers to return, developing stronger relationships with them, and cultivating more referrals.

The Accelerated Marketing Process, or AMP for short, is broken down into eight steps, and it’s a process because what you should do is progress a likely Suspect into becoming an interested Prospect, then getting them to become a Shopper, who eventually becomes a Consumer of your goods or services. These first four stages advance a person into making a transaction with your business. Most of the time, this is where the customer is inadvertently dropped by a business and expected to return on their own volition.

The AMP moves the customer beyond the transaction through effective interaction by moving the customer to become a Client where a relationship is developed, then a Patron who is a regular purchaser, next to an Advocate that spreads the message of your business to others, and ultimately to a Partner who feels connected to your business and committed to your future success.

The power of the AMP is that it doesn’t drop customers after the transaction, but continues to nurture them through four more stages of the process using strategic activities designed to create lifetime customers. Employing all eight steps of the process is akin to developing a “greased chute” for your business, because once a person starts through the process, they should effortlessly move through each successive step. The entire process is repeated as your loyal customers continue to feed the process with new contacts they’ve referred to your business.

Imagine each of these customer levels circling a conch shell that has a series of sections that diminish into a spiral. In this instance, there would be eight sections corresponding to the eight customer levels starting at the large end with suspects. As they progress through each level, there are less individuals because of attrition. All your suspects will not transfer as suspect, and all suspects do not become prospects, etc.

Each of these eight sections should employ measurable strategies that pull individuals to the next level. The first strategy is to increase the number of possible Contacts for your business, then to Communicate through various media in order to make a Connection. Once the individuals have connected with your business, the next strategy is Conversion, or making the sale. Capitalize means you utilize strategies to increase the average purchase amount through up selling or other methods, then your efforts are to create a Constant customer who is Continuous in their repeat visits for the rest of their life. The final strategy is to Cultivate your relationships by having loyal customers share the positive experiences they have with your business to their friends and family, who then become the next crop of Suspects that continue through the process.

Ask yourself: How far in the process do I continue to work with my customers? What strategies do I have in place to help my customers advance to the next step of the process? What strategies should I implement right away to pull my customers to the highest level I’d like to realize for each customer?

In summary, the AMP is a model to help you identify your best target customers and improve both your transactions and interactions with them so you can develop them into lifetime customers who refer more qualified people to your business. As you advance more of your customers through the process, you’ll realize greater customer loyalty, which will translate into increasing sales and profits.