Successful Marketing Tools Blog

Joint Partners

Joint Partners

You may worry that focusing on your current customers is too narrow to generate enough sales for your business. Here’s another way to use your customer base to generate more sales.

Your can use your existing customer list to generate additional customers by doing joint ventures with other businesses. You start this process by identifying products and services that compliment but do not compete with your products. Make a list of these products and services. Then you do your homework and find potential business partners who sell these complimentary products and services.

For example in the home remodeling industry, you have plumbing, painting, deck building, flooring, landscaping, lawn care, and many other businesses who sell to the same group of customers.

Look at these businesses as if you were the customer. How does business perform? Are they the right fit for your customers? Can a trust relationship be established with these other businesses? Do they sell quality products and services? The ideal situation is to look for a win-win situation where both businesses prosper from a joint relationship.

You can use your list of potential joint partners in three different types of relationships.

First, you can use an endorsement letter. They have a customer base, you have a customer base. Approach them and invite them to send an email endorsing your services to their loyal customers and you will do the same for your loyal customers. Have the email already created so there is no effort on their part. Within a week’s time you can be getting business from the new list.

Second, do what is called a joint venture. This is one of the most powerful ways businesses on the internet are making it big. Go to your joint partner and tell them for every product they sell for you, they will get a finders bonus. It is in their best interest to promote your product. They make money and you make money and get a new customer added to your list. You do the same for their products and services.

This is a low risk offer because if they don’t sell any of your products or services, you have not spent any money. If they do sell product, these are probably sales you would not have got on your own.

Third, you can use common discount programs. You offer a discount for their services at the point of sale when you sell your product or service. They do the same. They offer a discount coupon to their customers for using your product or services.

Since these joint relationships take time to build and establish, limit the number of your joint ventures. Over the process of a year, you can keep adding new businesses to your list of joint ventures.

Conclusion

Do you see how you can use joint ventures are a way of expanding your business and your customer data base? In a joint venture, your partner has a special relationship with their customers just as you have one with your loyal customers. Each of you is piggy backing your business on the loyalty of each other’s business.

If it took two years to build your customer list of 200 customers, now by doing a joint venture with another business who has a customer list of 200, you have doubled your customer data base by using the list of your joint venture partner. And it didn’t take you two years to accumulate the list. This is the power of joint ventures using your website.

Use Your Website To Suggestive Sell

How to Use Your Website to Suggestive Sell Your Customers

Recently, a group of top financial advisors got together at a national meeting to identify ways they could make inroads on the baby boomer market. They started with the question, “What innovative products can we deliver to them?” Their conclusion was: instead of chasing after new customers, we should cultivate our existing customers and sell more and different products to them. They already know us. They can help us determine which new products are best suited to their life style. Instead of chasing, let’s farm for success.

These executives are learning what McDonalds has known for years. You’re standing in line at McDonalds, waiting to buy a hamburger. The clerk says to you, “Would you like fries and a soft drive with your hamburger?” Without hesitation, you say, “Sure.” Did you know that McDonalds makes 25% of their profits from that one line? This is suggestive selling. It’s an easy way to add more profits to your bottom line.

Why Businesses Don’t Suggestive Sell

I am puzzled why only 7% of today’s businesses use suggestive selling. Some tell me they don’t have time; others say it’s too complicated. The biggest obstacle seems to be the fear of being perceived as “greedy”.

Keeping in contact with your customers offline can be complicated, time consuming and expensive. (Newsletters, postcards, follow-up phone calls, etc.) Most business owners get too busy to develop the relationship.

Build a Relationship with Your Customers

Your customer has made a purchase with you. They obviously like you and trust you. They chose you over other purchasing options. You now have the opportunity to start a long term relationship with the customer. You can either waste the opportunity or you can use it to grow your business.

If making the customer’s life better is the core of your selling activities, it’s easy to ask additional questions. How can I make the customer’s life even better? What things can I do that will enrich their satisfaction of my product? How can I make the use of my product or service more complete for the customer? Since I have more experience than the customer, what additional things could I make the customer happier with my products or services?

Use Your Website to Suggestive Sell

If you are uncomfortable with face to face suggestive selling or you cannot find the time to get it done, use the power of your website to suggestive sell for you.

Thank You Notes

Did you ever order something on line and when you received the thank you page for your order, they invited you to buy an additional item that related to your original purchase? Were you offended by this additional offer? No. You may not have made the additional purchase. I am sure you read the offer. Perhaps only a few people bought the additional items. What did it cost the seller to make this offer? Nothing!

Follow Up Emails

Use follow up emails to your customer after their purchase. Automated these emails. (Easy to do on your website) In each of the emails you can show them other products, success stories on using your product, offer others services that will help them use their purchase more effectively. They will love you for having their best interest at heart.

In a recent conversation with a financial planner he told me he would love to have his own website. However, the company because of the legal implications of financial investments, will not allow him to have his own website. Instead, they send out monthly materials to his client list. Here’s what he found. He is having more of his clients call him, asking for programs they have heard about from the emails they receive. Instead of waiting for their annual review, they are calling him about new business.

Conclusion

These are just two website suggestive selling ideas you can use to build customer loyalty and to add profits to your bottom line? There are many other ways. Use the power of your website and the internet to make suggestive selling offers to your existing customers. Website suggestive selling is a win-win situation. Your customers like it; it generates more profits for your business.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Customer Loyalty Referrals

Customer Loyalty Referrals

Let’s dig deeper into the referral process that stems from building customer loyalty with a good product and a wonderful buying experience. How can you use your website to develop these referrals?

Top of the Mind Awareness

Advertising has an expression, “top of mind awareness.” A business wants to position themselves so their business immediately comes to mind as the solution to a problem. This awareness is the ideal position of a business.

Large corporations spend billions of dollars in various forms of mass media to obtain this top of the mind awareness in the market place. We have an Excedrin headache. When you absolutely need a package delivered overnight, you think of Fed. Ex.

A small business owner could never afford to spend money on mass media for market awareness. They must capitalize on limited advertising budgets and word of mouth advertising.

It’s a bad business assumption to think that just because the customer has purchased from you, they will become a walking advertisement for your business. Whose job is business awareness?

Customer Referral Shelf Life

Customer referrals have a shelf life for your business. Like foot prints in the sand, his life moves on beyond his purchase. He has family. He has a job. He has a life that has nothing to do with your business. It is not his job to remember you. It’s your job to keep in front of him.

A year ago, we purchased a new refrigerator. My wife and I did the Saturday morning expedition by going to four different stores looking for the right model and the best deal. We found one and have been happy with our purchase. Here’s the problem, if you asked me where I made this purchase, I can’t tell you. I could not refer you to the business because they have never kept in contact with me.

For most small businesses maintaining this awareness is difficult. They don’t have time. They spend their time operating their business. It’s too expensive. There is the cost of creating a mailing, postage and getting it delivered.

Your Website as a Tool

The internet and your website is the tool that small business owners can use to fix this issue. With email marketing. regular contact is easy, requires little time and is cost effective to keep your business awareness in front of your existing customers..

I have a mailing list of 300 business owners who have opted in for my weekly newsletter. Each week I write a new article. On Friday mornings, I send out the article. It takes me 15 minutes to format my article to my newsletter form. With one click it is sent to 300 people.

Do all 300 people open the article each week? No. Do they recognize the name on the email address? Yes. If in any given week only 20% open the email, is this a problem? No. I have not spent any extra money.

As long as I provide good relevant content in the articles, people will continue to get it and when they see it or open it. I have made my presence felt with them. I have created another moment of awareness with them. This allows me to sell additional products with these customers and to get referrals from them for business.

Conclusion

Your website can be the tool you use to keep top of the mind awareness with your existing customers. By keeping this awareness, when the problem your business solves arises, they will think of you or refer their friends to you as the business solution.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

The Long and Short of Customer Loyalty Continued

After Sale Selling

The follow up phase for customer loyalty began after the sale. We saw this as the third phase in customer loyalty building.

After implementation, the customer looks for maximum performance from the product. Most sales people fear this phase of the selling so they skip it. They are afraid the customer may be disappointed about the performance of the product or upset that promises were not fulfilled. Rather than face an unhappy customer (there is no money in this), they start the selling process all over again with new prospects.

Repeat business--sales after the sale--will only take place if you take care of your customers. You become an advocate for their business and monitor the use of your products and services. Customers will buy again and will refer their friends and relatives to the business if you have kept in contact and become a trusted advisor to them.

After the sale, important documentations like warranties would be available on the website for customers to download. Thank you notes for the sale would be generated. There would be ongoing contacts via email about tips for maintaining the carpet, cleaning spots on the carpet, related information like what vacuum cleaner was the best one to use—and even special offers on vacuum purchases.

Over the process of time, customers would see us as the expert in the flooring business. Armed with a good shopping experience, customers would tell others about our business. They would say “We got a really good deal and they were really nice to work with and they knew what they were talking about.” Now that type of experience generates wonderful word of mouth referrals.

Using Your Website to Build Customer Loyalty

Few businesses can build this type of customer loyalty before the sale, implementing the sale or after the sale. They do not have the time or resources to get the job down.

You can use internet technology and your website as an effective tool to create this type of customer loyalty and reap the benefits of more sales and referrals.

Think about the last time you called your favorite pizza place. They already have you in their data base so there’s no need to ask for your address (makes ordering simpler). They invite you to add specials like soft drinks or cheesy breadsticks. (Add on selling). When they deliver the pizza to your home, it comes with more coupons for your next purchase.

You do not have to be in the pizza business to continue this sale-after-the-sale model of selling. There are a variety of tools you can use to maintain the role of advisor. Fundamentally it comes down to an attitude, nurturing relationships, and keeping in contact with the customer.

Email thank you notes, put key information on your website, a FAQ page--frequently asked questions, installation tips, contracts, warranties, personalized follow up’s can all be done using the power of your website. When you use the speed, the efficiencies the cost effectiveness of your website to do these task—remember most of them can be pre-set to go automatically to your customers, it’s like hiring five staff people to help your business. Now you can keep in constant contact with prospects, up to date information for customers who have purchased and ongoing contacts with existing customers to enhance the relationship These loyal customers will buy from you again and spread the word about you to their friends.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

The Long and Short of Customer Loyalty

The Long and Short of Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty does not start after the sale. You begin building the process of customer loyalty the moment you start selling to the prospect. In today’s competitive environment, customers want a good product at a good price. Just as important to them is a wonderful buying process. Product and price without a good buying experience will not build customer loyalty.

Let me share with you an example on how the buying process can build your customer loyalty and how your website can be used as tool to get this job done.

Before the Sale

In my former retail carpet selling days, industry standards told us a prospect would shop at 3-4 stores before they made their purchase. (Some businesses now take 8-10 contacts to make the sale). We sent a thanking card to the customer after their first visit. We used phone calls and other mailings to provide them with additional information or to answer questions they had about products or installation. We would do a measure to determine exact costs of their new carpet, even if they had not yet agreed to the purchase.

Prospects appreciated these initial efforts before the sale. Often they would tell us we were the only story that did such a follow up steps.

Implementing the Sale

Traditional selling models place an emphasis on closing the sale. Once the sale has been closed, the sales person’s job is done. With our approach, when a sale agreement has been reached, the acquisition phase of the selling process started.

It was the job of the sales person to make sure the implementation of the sale (installing the flooring) went as smoothly as possible. This would include such items as:

Verifying the order
Keeping the customer informed
Managing back orders
Ensuring smooth installation
Addressing any billing issues or concerns

The sales person also supports the customer in this phase of the selling process. This could involve technical help getting ready for the installation, or follow-up activities after the installation.

Other businesses recognize the value of helping the customer during the acquisition and implementation stage. Electronic industries have recognized that while they make a quality product such as a VCR, customers who are unable to install and use the features of the product complain about the product quality. These same businesses now employ people to create user-friendly instructions.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed...

Shift Your Web Focus to Customer Loyalty

Changing Your Web focus to Customer Loyalty

The best way to show how a customer loyalty website generates more sales is to walk you through a success story. Follow along with Mona Anderson's success story.

Mona is a good interior decorator with a nice website. (www.monadesigns.com). She has tons of before and after decorating pictures on her site. She offers a free project planner. She does all the right things with her website. Her problem was, “How can I get my website to generate more business?”

My advice to Mona’s, “Stop chasing internet strangers. Turn your website into a Customer Loyalty center for your existing customers—people who know you, like you and trust you. If you provide what they want on a website, they will return over and over again and tell their friends about your site. You can use the power of the internet to quickly, easily and efficiently build and maintain relationships with the most important asset in your business—your existing customers.”

How to do build a customer loyalty website?

I told Mona, "The key to a successful customer loyalty website is to determine what your existing customers want on a website". What interests them? What gets their juices flowing? Do they want tips, information, new products, do it yourself ideas? Are they looking for links to other businesses, questions they want answered, special deals? Give customers what they want, in the way they want it and they become loyal fans of your business.

Once you generated your list of customer wants, pick a list of the top ten. If you are unsure, call 10 of your best customers and ask them. Pick out the top three components as the starting point for transforming your website. More components can be added each month.

Second, change your website to accommodate these customer components. Hopefully, you have enough control over your existing website to make changes. It is easy to create a separate page for each component. For example, a page of tips, a FAQ page.

Third, you will need to get email addresses from your existing customers. You can use a number of incentive strategies to do this. The names would then be added to your website data base. You don’t need all of the addresses before you start.

Fourth, on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, you send a short email to your customers. The email has a attention grabbing subject line to attract the attention of your customers. (Since they already know you, they are more likely to open the email.) You put a hyperlink within the email, when clicked on, it takes the customer directly to the appropriate page on your website. One week it could be an interesting article; the next week a success story; tips on how to use your decorating ideas, a new product you want to sell, etc. Each time the email and hyperlink is directed to the appropriate web page.

Fifth, you need a maintenance plan for your customer loyalty website. Once or twice a month, new materials, articles, ideas, product pictures, special offers, customer feedback, etc are added to the appropriate web pages. This involves a few hours of work.

Conclusion

Now you have a business system in place that takes very little of your time. Because it is work being done “behind the scenes”, others can do the work for you. You are in constant contact with people who know you, like you and trust you. You build and foster your relationship with them. With very little time, very little expense, you keep in front of your best customers for more sales and referrals. Now, your website will get generate more sales.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

What's Your Most Important Business Asset?

The Most Important Asset in Your Business

What is the most important asset for the future of your business?

Your Product and Services?

Is it your product or services? Products and services come and go. Business continues to change. Your products and services will need to change as your customers change.

Your competition may offer similar or the same exact products and services. Do a Google search and you will find thousands of competitors—some better than you; others not as good as you. Your product is not your most important asset!

Your Staff?

Are staff and their expertise your most important asset? Staff and expertise are important. You also know how risky it can be to build the future of your business on your current staffing or their expertise.

Staff come and go. What happens with simple things like retirement, sickness, leaving you for a competitor, downsizing, changes in family situations, staff turnover. In a relatively short period of time, staffing changes can completely change the face of a business. Look at professionals sport teams and see how they change each year.

Your Business Operations?

Computers have changed everything about business operations. They have brought speed, efficiencies and 24/7 access to businesses.

It is now said that technology has a shelf life of three years. Software has a shelf life of six months before someone copies it or improves it. If a business has an operational advantage, has it been keeping up with new changes? Or is it become obsolete?

It look America 100 years to develop communications tools like the telegraph, electricity, radio, TV, the telephone and computers--all operating along miles of wires. A third world country can erect towers and operate wireless cell phones and skip the 100 years of development!

Your Existing Customers

If you are going to hitch your future to one asset, let it be your existing customers, the gold mine of your business. These customers know you, like you and trust you. They are the future of your business. If you keep in contact with them—as the research suggests, they will buy again from you and spread the word about your business to their friends. Can you afford to overlook this business asset?

In the next blog, I will be looking at the ways you can use your website to foster the relationship with your existing customers so it can generate more business and more referrals to your business.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

What Business Reseach Tells Us About Existing Customers

What Does Business Research Show About Existing Customers?

Studies in all types of industry show that if you keep in regular contact with your existing customers, you can expect 30% of those customers to buy again or refer their friends to your business. Give customers the right reasons to return to your website and they will return many times.

Studies show that 68% of customers who leave a business do not leave because of a bad experience. They leave because they feel the business does not care about them. How many of your current customers are leaving you for your competitors?

Eight of ten former customers will come back to a business if they feel the business cares about them.

A recent study showed that only 7% of today’s businesses keep in regular contact with their customers. If 93% of your competitor are not keeping in touch with customers and you do, who has the competitive edge?

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Ways to Grow Your Business

Ways to Grow Your Business

You can grow your business in three ways:

1. Get more customers
2. Have existing customers buy more
3. Have existing customers buy more often

Most street business chose Option 1 as the way to grow their business. They do this because this is what has always been done. They got a website for this purpose. They dream of attracting thousands of new customers to their business from the internet. They overlook their other options of working with their existing customers.

Let do a simple comparison between working with new customers verses working with existing customers.

Compare Selling to Strangers Verses Selling to Existing Customers

Who spends more money? Studies show that existing customers spend more money then first time buyers.

Who is the best source of referrals? Who would you believe about a new restaurant? Someone who had never been there or someone who had been there and liked what they experienced?

Who makes more pricing demands? Strangers ask for more pricing negotiations than current customers.

Who cost more to sell? Estimates range from 5-10 times more expense to secure a new customer than to sell to an existing customer.

Where is your biggest competition? First time buyers check out more competitors than existing customers when making their purchases.

In the end, what type of selling day do you want? Do you want a day of selling to total strangers, trying to convince them that you have a good product, that you are a credible business, that your price is fair, that you are better that your competition?

OR

A day of selling to your existing customers or their referrals to your business? You know them, they are business friends, they already trust you; they don't squeeze you for lower pricing. They have come to you rather than your competition. A day of selling to business friends would leave you fresh and excited and a reminder on why you originally went into your business.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

What Acres of Diamonds Can Teach Your About Your Website

By now you have read the world famous classic, Acres of Diamonds by Russell H Conwell. If not, treat yourself, buy it and read it. I will show you how Acres of Diamonds can help make your website more productive.

The Story

Ali Hafed owned a beautiful piece of land in the Mid-East with green gardens, white sands and flowing waters. A visitor came to Ali’s house and told him about diamonds the size of his thumb. With such diamonds, Ali could gain great wealth and make his children share in influence of the world because of their great wealth.

Ali lay awake all night dreaming of the diamonds that could make him rich. He awoke the next day and sold everything he had and went on his search for the diamonds.

He went to Palestine, to Europe, and to Spain looking for the diamond mine until his money was gone. In rags and poverty he throw himself into the sea and died.

Now it happened that the man who purchased Ali’s farm discovered a shining diamond in the water of his garden brook. He dug deeper. He had discovered the great diamonds of Golconda, the most magnificent diamond mine in the world. He became the richest man on the earth.

The Morale

What does this story have to do with your website getting better results? Look for the diamonds in your own backyard. They are your existing customers. These customers like you, they trust you, they will buy from you again, but only if you nurture the customer relationships. You can search the entire web for new customers or you can use internet technology to cater to your richest source of new sales. Use your website to mine your existing customers.

To be continued, your comments are welcomed...