Solutions Marketing Group

Providing clients with innovative strategies that position them to understand, penetrate and retain the disability market.

SMG Tip: Retaining the Disability Market

Has your company outlined and initiated a formal customer retention strategy for consumers with disabilities?

In a study by Harvard Business School, it was found that increasing customer retention by even 5% can increase profits between 25-95%. And yet…Forrester found that 70% of CMOs did not list retention as a top priority.

There are very few general market companies, that have developed a robust customer retention strategy for the disability market.   That provides an amazing opportunity to make the competition irrelevant and opens a clear path to develop one.

SMG offers the following customer retention strategies that will be a game changer for boosting sales, loyalty and brand equity.

  1. Tell: Companies that are seriously targeting consumers with disabilities tell their story. They weave together the different lines of business – HR, facilities, technology, compliance, product and services, corporate giving, marketing, and advertising around senior level commitment and share their achievements. And, they don’t share this one time during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, but throughout the year and in various forum. Our most successful clients have developed an integrated strategy that showcases the business impact of the disability market.
  2. Capture: In our research, consumers with disabilities have indicated they are willing to provide contact information with a company if they know it will enhance customer service. They’ve also indicated that they want their information to only be used by the company they’ve provided it to.   It’s best to capture contact information at events, inbound/outbound call centers, or on a customer review site. Capturing this information provides your company with a cost-effective and efficient way to target consumers with disabilities. This platform will allow you to obtain feedback, announce special offers or events.
  3. Touch: People with disabilities respond well to companies that consistently reach them. Direct mail, targeted emails with special offers, follow up calls after a purchase, blogs, social media, at events or value-added information, resonant messaging, and exceptional customer service gets their attention. Frequent ‘touches’ not only demonstrate commitment, it keeps your company top of mind.
  4. Research: Lastly, we recommend that research should also be completed at the beginning and end of a project to inform how to best attract customers, why they are buying, and to understand why they are leaving.

If you’re interested in learning more about developing customer retention strategies for the disability market, contact Celeste Beaty at cbeaty@disability-marketing.com.

SMG Tip: Penetrating the Disability Market

Companies that successfully reach consumers with disabilities understand that it requires commitment, discipline and strategy. The truth is that there is such a barren landscape of companies that are speaking to them directly, that any company that is serious about penetrating the market has the opportunity to make the competition irrelevant. These disability-savvy companies understand that moving beyond understanding to market penetration requires well-developed tactics. The SMG Team has developed a quick list of tactics that change the culture and impact the bottom-line:

1. To Keep Get the Consumer with a Disability, Keep it Simple

Most companies get into a quagmire about what to offer and what to say to consumers with disabilities. After the research has been completed and your company understands key drivers for purchase decisions, create an efficient path for consumers to navigate to help them understand how their needs will be met, communicating with them consistently and minimizing the number of information sources consumers must touch while moving confidently toward a purchase. We’ve found the most successful brands achieve this by personalizing the route. One way to personalize this process is to have customer service staff that understands how products and services are used by people with disabilities.

2. Offer Value

In most instances, people with disabilities, and families with a disabled child, live financially below their typical peers. They have to make their dollars stretch among the basics, and have medications, therapies and medical supplies that also need to be purchased. Companies that simplify the purchase process, and offer bundled packages, incentive discounts and additional value will win the market.

3. Be Consistent

The general rule is that a prospect has to have 7+ interactions with a company before making a purchase decision. Seven! That means that companies have to develop an integrated strategy with multiple touch points with consistency to make an impact. There can no longer be limited discussion about reaching people with disabilities in July (anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act) or October (National Disability Employment Awareness Month). It must consistently happen, with resources, all year long.

 

To learn more about how your organization can penetrate the disability market, contact info@disability-marketing.com.

 

SMG Tip: Understanding the Market

The disability market is the largest untapped group of consumers in the United States, comprised of 56 million people and represents an annual disposable income of $544 billion. The disability market is more than twice as large as the tween market (20 million), and has almost 3 times the disposable spending power ($180 billion).

The facts alone are not enough.  Many companies know they should do more to reach the disability marketing, but few take decisive action. Successful companies know that in order to reach consumers with disabilities and their influencers, it’s important to understand what drives them.  What are their needs? How to communicate in ways that resonate with them? And, how can a company build a relationship that inspires the know/like/trust factor?

The Solutions Marketing Group (SMG) has completed extensive research for companies in various sectors and has discovered a few things to jumpstart disability marketing for companies.  Among the things we’ve learned are:

  1. Most people with disabilities receive and trust information on products and services from peers, conferences and disability organizations. The power of an endorsement coming from a trusted source is strong. If your company has built relationships with disability organizations, begin to identify the one/s that have programs or services that align with your company’s mission and explore opportunities to attend events, or add value at their conferences with workshops that enhance the lives of the people they serve.
  2. Peer review of products is preferred over solely receiving advertisements from a company.  Word of mouth for the market is THE most trusted way to reach them.  Determine how your product/service be experienced by ‘influencers’ so they can share their experience with their peers?
  3. Consumers want companies to demonstrate a meaningful commitment to the disability community by employing people, strengthening the buying experience, and placing products and information in an easy-to-find format.  How can your company tell its story so it resonates with consumers? This goes a long way to build credibility.
  4. People with disabilities want to be able to interact with the product or service before making a purchase. As your team plans its 2015 outreach calendar, what disability events can be integrated into the schedule so consumers can see and touch your products?
  5. When possible, promote products and services in a staggered manner – regionally, statewide and nationally.  The SMG Team has found that repeated, consistent resonant messaging that is focused in approach allows consumers to understand corporate commitment to them, and lays a solid foundation for building trust.  This approach provides companies with the ability to test and refine messaging and tactics, creating a win-win.

If you’d like to learn more about how to understand the disability market, contact the SMG Team for a 30-minute free call to gain further insights.

SMG Tip: Everything rises and falls on leadership

illustration of three people walking up stairs. the woman in front is holding a flag, leading the other two people up the stairs.

Author and leadership expert John Maxwell has said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” This maxim holds true when companies are positioning themselves to recruit and market to people with disabilities.  Companies at the forefront of disability inclusion have exemplified strong executive leadership and support, and do the following:

  • Complete an internal assessment that identifies gaps in employment, customer service, and marketing;
  • Obtain support and commitment from executives who understand the business impact of reaching the market;
  • Provide resources (staff and budget) to support disability employment, customer service and marketing;

Without executive leadership commitment targeting the disability market will lack strength and is almost always overtaken by other priorities. The most successful organizations have a C-suite leader, who is an influencer and is engaged.  

Often, leaders like yourselves are the catalyst for disability inclusion. To make progress it’s really important for you and your team to have an honest discussion to assess where you are, where you want to be and identify the ways your organization can close gaps.  A few questions to consider are:

  • Who is your customer or employee with a disability?
  • How will you reach them?
  • What are the biggest challenges your prospective employee or consumer faces when interacting with your organization?
  • How can your organization help prospective employees or consumers achieve their goals?
  • How can your organization help prospective employees or consumers overcome challenges?
  • What are your internal stakeholder’s biggest objections about disability marketing, employment and customer service?
  • How can you overcome objections?

Answering these questions begins the process of integrating disability inclusion within your organization.