What do you think your most powerful tool is for selling
products online?
A lot of people answer "a great web site." Others think it's
having a product that sells itself, or good testimonials from
customers.
In reality, your very best tool and guarantee for success
online is the repeat customer.
Businesses everywhere pour money into attracting new
customers to their business – and that's important. New
customers help a new business get established, and an
established business to grow. But the real problem is that
many businesspeople take their current customers for
granted.
It's like getting married. You have the excitement of the
wedding, and then the honeymoon, and then all of a sudden
you just don't really notice the other partner anymore – you
take them for granted. And when the spouse up and leaves
you, you feel betrayed.
Well, it's usually your own fault if you've been taking them
for granted. And the same thing can be said for the
established customer. Reward them! Send them frequent
thank-you's if possible, and when they haven't bought
anything from you for a while, send them a special deal –
discounts, opportunities to buy things on clearance, or
anything else to get them to pull out the credit card.
But what if you don't know who your customers are?
Of course, if someone has purchased an item from you, you
have their name and contact information. But they're not the
only people you should count as customers. The faceless
people who visit your site regularly but haven't bought
anything yet are also customers, or can be converted into
them much more easily than the average consumer.
Yet a lot of web businesses ignore those in-between people
even more thoroughly than they ignore their own customers.
Instead of doing this, take action to get these people to give
you contact information. Try offering a free report in
exchange for registering with you.
Free Reports
A free report is really an informative ebook you've compiled
from articles in your newsletters, articles from your website,
and even original articles. It's a perfect tool to get your
lurking pre-customers to come out of the shadows; these
people are visiting your site for the information they've
found there, and are always happy to get their hands on
more.
What you do is advertise on your home page the free report
you've got available. You can even write a short article or a
blog entry about the report if you like. Then you set up a
download link that can only be accessed by registered site
users, or by entering your email into a text field. Your
customers don't have to agree to let you email them stuff;
all they need to do is let you know they exist. You should
include an opt-out option next to the text field so they
realize that you aren't out to spam them.
Alternatively, you can have your customers fill out a form to
have the report emailed to them. This is generally less
successful; people like to have power over downloads, even
if the file in either case is the same file. It is, however, a
good way to make first email contact with a customer, a sort
of icebreaker.
When they receive your report, they should be impressed
with the quality and quantity of information available in it.
Never give away worthless information. You should always
be striving to impress your customer with the level of your
knowledge, the amount you care about the customer, and
your generosity and honesty. All these things lead to a
trusting relationship, which is the key you'll need to seduce
your customer into eventually buying things from you.
Reports as Viral Marketing
Getting people to register with you is not the only thing you
can do with your report. After a reasonable amount of time
has passed for people to register – maybe a couple of
months – offer the report for free either through your
website or through an article directory service. And
encourage anyone who downloads it to share it with other
people.
Containing your information and knowledge, a report can be
a wonderful marketing tool to draw in new customers
interested in the things you have to offer. And by
distributing it as a viral document, you ensure it will get the
broadest possible spread, and continue working for you long
after you've moved on to other things.
