INVITATIONAL MARKETING.

• Author: GRASSFIELD, MAX P.

I was born and raised in a small farming community in northern Iowa. My father owned a shoe store in my hometown. In the days when his highest priced shoe was $5.95, I'm sure his annual volume never exceeded $50,000. But his customers swore by him and drove great distances to shop with him. Why? Because he was obsessed with taking care of them in a special sort of way.

As a boy growing up, I remember a typical farm customer buying a pair of work shoes saying to my dad, "Vell, Norman, I try dem out for a couple of veeks, and if they still don't hurt, I keep 'em, OK?" And my dad said, "Fine, Elmer, you let me know. If they don't feel good, we'll make it right."

For years I have been fascinated by how specialty stores communicate with their customers. It's bothered me that "advertising" somehow missed the mark. Advertising merely carries on a unilateral conversation with customers in hopes of enticing them through some alluring feature -- art, copy, media, price.

Instead of talking to our customers, small retailers should be talking with our customers. After all, our customers are not just faceless numbers. They are real people. They belong to our clubs, go to our churches and synagogues, and share our lifestyles. Just because Mr. Neiman and Mr. Saks treat them as "current occupants" and "Dear Valued Customer," that's no reason for small retailers to do the same.

By 1990 I'd worked my way out of much of the day-to-day operations of the Grassfield's Denver store. For the first time in my business career, I had time to pursue my first love, marketing. I started by rereading The Marketing Imagination, Theodore Levitt's passionate argument for what he called "Relationship Management." Since then, I've probably read three dozen manuscripts and at least that many articles on the subject.

Pieces of the puzzle fell into place until I developed the strategy for retailers I called Invitational Marketing. It was born of the wisdom that a good customer once shared with me: "Business goes where business is invited."

Invitational Marketing means inviting customers to let us serve their needs. And what better way to invite a friend than with a personal note? Not mere "direct mail" in all its impersonal glory, but a personalized hand-signed invitation to visit our store?

We know most businesses annually lose between 15% and 20% of their customers, more in retail. Some are lost to relocation, some to competitors, still others have defected for any number of...