How To Get Your Customers Coming Back For More
A vital way to grow your business, create a steady flow of sales, and increase your profits is to get your customers to come back for more… Repeat sales and increased frequency of repeat sales are absolutely essential ingredients in growing your business – let’s look at an example: Lets’ say you know a customer is worth $30 every time they visit, and they are currently visiting 6 times a year – that customer is worth $180 to you, yes? Now, if you can increase their visits by just 3 times a year – they suddenly are worth $270 to you! Now if you can do that with 200 of your customers this year – you will suddenly have an increase in profit of $18,000 ! So you may consider a loyalty scheme difficult to implement, time consuming to work out, or maybe a little costly when you look at the monthly fees of the online services, but when you look at the return on investment for such a small increase – it has to be worth it doesn’t it?
So how will you get your customers coming back for more?
Never Take Your Customers Loyalty For Granted Your external marketing campaigns will encourage people to try you out, just like the ‘deal of the day’ and coupon campaigns are designed to do – so discounting may get them through the door, but only great service, having a fantastic product, and an authentic relationship with your customers will keep them coming back for more. A customer’s willingness to return to your business won’t just depend on your product and service, you have to remember that customers can easily choose another business ( your competitor) who may be working just as hard as you to entice these customers into their business – never never underestimate the power and value of having a more personal and one to one relationship with customers. The relationships you and your staff create with customers is viatl to theor return … Treat them as you would like to be treated, stay in touch, and let them know just how much your business values them – do that at every possible opportunity and keep strengthening the business/ customer relationship on a regular basis with continual communications. Customers return to where they feel connected, have a sense of belonging, where there is mutual esteem, where they are treated with respect, and where their care results in positive outcomes. Loyalty Schemes A great way of encouraging customer loyal and a greater frequency of repeat purchases is to implement a structured loyalty scheme into your business You can create a loyalty program yourself, or you can use some of the online software programs that will help you run your loyalty program more effectively. Some of the most popular loyalty program campaigns include the basic points per spend or visit, or double points promotions Birthday Promotions If you have the details of all your customers dates of birth, you can easily encourage them into your business with an offer that gives them a free gift or large discount on their birthday. When running birthday promotions, make sure you don’t do it too early, and don’t leave it too late, also consider how you can provide a wishlist service so their family and friends can buy gifts from you Limited Time offers You can create weekly offers, or get even more specific, if you find you are short of sales or behind budget by lunchtime. By using social media, email or text communications, you can quickly contact your best customers, and offer them an exclusive flash sale. It may be a discounted offer, but what’s the point of paying for staff and facilities if your business isn’t pulling in cash? We miss you If you haven’t seen a customer in a while, write to them. They will be so surprised to see a personal letter from you pointing out that you haven’t seen them in a while. It doesn’t have to be a complicated letter – just something as simple as, “hey Mr X, I haven’t seen you in our business for a while, and we’ve missed you. I was just wondering of everything is okay? Hoping that you are just busy, I thought you might like a special offer just to tempt you away from your busy life into a nice ……………………….. treat yourself / reward yourself with / indulge in some me time with ” …. etc Recognise and Reward Your Customers You now have a newsletter right? So what better way to ‘woo’ your customers than to recognise and reward them in your newsletter – you could have a customer of the month award, you could have a most active customer of the month. Also recognise and reward customers whilst they are sat in your business – go over, say hello, ask them how they are, remember things about their life that you can ask them about – and what’s wrong with the odd complimentary small gift delivered by you personally just to say – hey good to see you again. Always Be Marketing Let your customers know that they are important to you… Aim to touch / have contact with every one of your customers 12 times a year – that must be the absolute minimum. Make your communications like contacts with personal friends, if you sound too ‘salesy’ you will put people off – and remember, make it about them – not you!!
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