Your current customer list is the foundation for the future of your home based online business. These people represent future sales and profits for your enterprise and they should be nurtured and treated as such because the loss of even one client represents a decrease in potential future income for your venture.
An emphasis on a continued high level of customer service is probably the best approach to take for retaining happy, loyal and satisfied clients who will remain interested in and are willing to read any future promotions you deliver to them via email.
Once you have persuaded a potential customer to become a paying client how do you advertise to them again to persuade them to spend more money on your products or services? Here are 10 techniques you can use to entice your loyal patrons to open their wallets once again and purchase your merchandise:
1. It’s never too early, after their first buy, to plant the seed for future sales. For example, you can include a coupon with your customer’s receipt from their first purchase for a 15% discount on any future buy. This may encourage your customers to purchase again, sooner rather than later, especially if they saw something of interest at the time of their first purchase.
2. Follow up with your customers on a regular basis to see how their product is working for them and ask if there’s anything you can do to help. When you follow up make them an offer on a complementary product which can help improve the over all performance of their initial purchase.
3. Take the time to send your clients a greeting card on special occasions and holidays with a brochure attached outlining special offers for current customers only. This makes them feel appreciated and special in the sense that this offer is only being made to loyal patrons and this may persuade them to buy.
4. Create an annual customer appreciation day and advertise it widely on the web well in advance of the date. This advertising should include special promotions and discounts for your current clients with bigger bargains being reserved for people who have been associated with your home business the longest.
5. Send your customers gifts and freebies on a regular basis in appreciation of their business and their loyalty to your enterprise. When you email the link to the download page have other offers front and center on that page which may entice them to make a purchase while downloading their gifts.
6. When your visitor is making their first purchase include an up sell of a complementary product which some how enhances the merchandise they’ve just bought. You could create a package deal containing several related items and offer the whole deal at a reduced price because you’ve bundled the products together.
7. Send a mass email to your customer list offering a special, one time only, two for one sale while emphasizing that it’s a limited time offer. You could add a counter to the email which highlights the time remaining to take advantage of the special which will help create a sense of urgency within your clients and prompt them to take action now rather than later.
8. When your potential customers become paying clients give them access to a special customer’s only area containing special offers and discounts reserved for them only. After they make their first purchase you could email a username and password to each client so they can gain access to this special back room, while emphasizing this is a reserved area for customers only. Once again, this may instill a feeling of being special within your clients and make them feel appreciated by your home business.
9. Offer your customers the option of signing up to receive future special offers and discounts from your enterprise in exchange for a free subscription to your ezine. This will help build your email list which of course is where the real money is for future profits.
10. Offer your customers the opportunity to purchase the private label rights (PLR) to your products. This will allow them to make any changes they want or feel are necessary to your merchandise and claim them as their own for resale in order to keep 100% of the profits.
These are 10 very effective strategies for encouraging your customer list to buy again and again in order to help prove the old Internet marketing adage “the money is in the list”.