Grow Your Business By Getting Your Customers Buying From You More Often - 35 Ideas
35 Ideas to Spark Your Creativity: There are 3 ways to grow any business. Just 3: - Get more customers - Get more from each sale - Sell to each customer more frequently. That's it - everything else boils down to some variation of these 3 activities. Most owners and managers want to grow their business. Most of them concentrate exclusively on getting more new customers. Odd really. There is lots of marketing research that is pretty consistent in pointing out that it costs somewhere between six and twelve times as much to get a new customer as it does to sell to an existing customer. And once you have a customer it is generally pretty straightforward to get them to buy from you more often. What's that? Your business is different. You sell a one-off product. There's no way to get customers to buy more often. Maybe so. But I don't think so. Here are 35 ideas for you to stick in your brainstorming pot, stir for a while, and then see what comes out at the other end. Customer focus 1. Actively market to your existing customers 2. Listen to your customers - deliver what they want 3. Keep Customers Informed 4. Start A newsletter 5. Superior Customer Service 6. Target Profitable Customers 7. Over deliver On your Promise 8. Priority hot line for most profitable 9. Active Customer Relationship Management Business Model 10. Target a Specific Niche
11. Look for niches within niches 12. Use Service Contracts 13. Back-End Selling 14. Pre-Sell After First Sale 15. Joint venture marketing Reward Customers 16. Establish A Frequent Buyers Club And Card 17. Find Out Everything You Can About Customer 18. Competitions 19. Previews 20. New Offers Every Week, Month 21. Personal letters 22. Reminder Schedule 23. Outgoing Calls 24. Private Unveilings 25. Master the Art Of Saying Thank You 26. Sell the Experience As Much As The Product Promotions 27. Statement Stuffers 28. Bag stuffers 29. Discount vouchers 30. Bring A Friend Free 31. Surprise Offers 32. Appeal to the emotions 33. Make Your Customers Feel Guilty 34. Direct Mail 35. Target advertisements for existing customers Now I hope you have found something in this list to get your creative juices flowing. But I regularly come across businesses that claim to have one shot products. Most recently I had a high class kitchen design and build company telling me that none of these things applied to them. They build solid wood kitchen units, equipped them with the best possible kitchen equipment and expected the kitchen to last 20 years or more. Now I don't know what the figures are like in the rest of the World but in the UK people move home, on average, every 4.7 years. Keep in touch. They just might buy from you again. And what do you know about your customer. Top of the list is that they want to improve their homes and they will pay good money to get top service. They probably are willing to spend money to improve the rest of their home. Could you do some joint venture marketing with another, non-competing, home improvement company? Look around. You will find plenty of other companies that would love to be able to market directly to your customers. Sure, you are not marketing your own service - but does that matter? If you work a deal with another home improvement company they are certain to pay a commission for each of your customers that buy from them. Still not convinced? Contact us - we like a challenge. Keith Longmire is the owner of JKL Business Growth Solutions. JKL specialises in bringing main stream business improvement and marketing solutions into the reach of smaller businesses.
The Business Growth Solutions web site is designed as a source of information for all matters to do with Small Business Development
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