So, you’re doing a lot of Internet Marketing for your ecommerce site and finding that it is resulting in increased sales. That’s great. But do you just keep looking for new customers, or is it better to develop a relationship with the ones you have?
Of course, it will take both methods to keep your online business growing. You will always need to “fish” the market to find new people who are interested in your products or services. But it also pays to keep your current customers coming back for more – and this costs less in both time and money while resulting in the greatest increase to your bottom line.
Establish A Relationship
It is a known fact that human beings enjoy doing business with a person, not a website. They want to know who the person behind the business is, to give them a name and a personality. It is easy to use this to your advantage, start by communicating directly with your customers.
If you have the time and technology, make your communication personal, use a name and any other personal factors you have gleaned from the sale. You may want to keep a database program to keep track of such details and there are tools like autoresponders that can help you do this automatically.
Send them an email message. This is the quickest and most effective way to let your customers know that you appreciate their business. The email can in the form of a simply thank you, a discount on future orders, or an offer in exchange for referrals.
Consider sending a customer satisfaction survey with each order. This can be a postage-paid postcard they can return in the mail, an email form, or an email message with a link to an online survey. You want to encourage feedback. If you get negative comments, turn it around to your advantage. Go out of your way to make an unsatisfied customer happy and chances are he will be your customer for life.
Ask for permission to add your customers to your monthly newsletter email list so you can stay in contact. Ask them to subscribe to your site to receive updates, offers, and news.
Send Exclusive Offers
Everybody likes to think they are part of an elite group. Your customers are no different. They enjoy being thanked for their business by getting an offer no one else does.
What you offer them doesn’t need to cost you a lot of money. It can be as simple as a complimentary e-book, a small discount on their next order, or even free shipping. With your mark-up on goods, this is a really inexpensive way to encourage customer loyalty.
Customer Spotlight
Most people like to be in the spotlight, at least occasionally. Take a look at your best customers and consider featuring one of them every month in your customer newsletter, or highlighted as a special case study on your website.
Interview them, and ask their permission for the content to be posted online or distributed to others. Don’t make it an obvious sales pitch for your company, instead let your customer become the star for a brief time by promoting them or talking about their accomplishments.
See how easy it is to ask your current customers to return and do repeat business with you again? When your internet business is going through a slump, you can always rely on loyal clientele to get you through, and it costs little or nothing.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi..
Thanks for giving deep information on this kind of such important fields.
I really appreciate your post.
Thank you.
Good article. Some new ideas that I had not considered. This is helpful, as it always important to keep your subscribers happy. For instance, I have never sent a survey.
The only thing I kind of differ with is the group notion. I always address my list as if I am only talking to that person only, even though I can see what you are saying about making offers to an elite group.
Thanks again.
Cris Santeiro
Another great post, this is one of the most important things. Take Walmart for example, walmart always get’s new customers no doubt, but most of their income comes from already establish customers and that’s because they’ve built a trust, relationship and creadibility with their already exisiting customers, their customers know what to expect, low prices and good quality products, so their exisiting customers bring them more customers and in internet marketing it’s the same, bring the value and create the trust, the rest takes care of itself, overdeliver and always keep it unique, one step above the rest.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Margaret
Hi Sean,
These are all great ideas. I feel that it’s best to build a core group of loyal customers that I take care of and slowly add to that group over time. I feel like these customers will get most of my time.
I will actively seek new customers regularly but I won’t let my standards drop with my core group for the sake of making some sales.