Building a loyal customer base is absolutely essential for your business if you want to achieve steady sales growth. According to Pew Research, loyal customers on average are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. Your probability of making a sale to an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent compared to 5 to 20 percent probability for selling to a new customer.
Because of this, if you want to sell your products successfully, you must spend a large percentage of your time keeping existing customers happy and the remainder on attracting new clients.
Here are five ways to accomplish both of these challenges:
1. Make it easy for customers to come to you the first time and every time.
Market what makes you different from your competitors, and emphasize your concern and service for your consumer as much as the value of your product.
As Gary Vaynerchuk, author of The Thank You Economy writes, you should be a kind of customer concierge, doing everything you can to make every one of your buyers feel acknowledged, appreciated, and heard.
You have to make your customers feel so special that when they tell stories about doing business with you (and they will) other people will long to purchase your product too just to be treated as well.
2. Make it clear just how valuable and useful your product will be in their lives.
A classic example is the way 3M’s line of removable hooks allows buyers to quickly see and comprehend that they can finally hang pictures without making holes in their walls.
The consumer knows right away that one of their problems has been solved, and they will keep coming back for more and more solutions to problems they find difficult.
3. Play on customer perceptions and use them to your advantage.
For example, as a small business, you might think that a huge chain has an advantage in winning customers. But Pew Research found that 80 percent of Americans think smaller companies place a great emphasis on customer service.
Brand your product to leverage that perception. Tell your customer that because you are small, you offer the distinct advantage of incredible customer service.
4. Show the customer how easily your product can fit into their routines.
As an example, if your product is a toilet cleaner that works by just dropping it into the bowl and letting it work all by itself, you can brand it by showing a person scrubbing with a brush and tell them they don’t have to do it the hard way anymore.
Right away they can see how useful your product could be to them because they visualize themselves as the ‘winner’ not having to do the hard work.
5. Let people try a sample of your product to see if they like it.
Average buyers are not very adventurous with their money. They tend to buy the same products because they know they work for them and their families. With that in mind, offer them a chance to try a new scrubber, a new kind of coffee, a candy, or a lotion for free and then encourage them to buy the entire box. Use in-store demonstrations, coupon giveaways, and samples for risk-free trails.
There are millions of different and creative ways you can use to sell your brand. The key is finding the right methods for the product or service you’re trying to sell. With marketing, a lot of sales come first from brand genuineness and second from a good product. Focusing on your branding and how you would want to be perceived and remembered by your customers is just as important as the actual product you’re selling.
About the Author
Roz Bahrami is a blogger for SkyPrep, an online training software. Roz regularly contributes blogs related to corporate training, L&D, and marketing.
How would I play to customer perceptions if they are all negative views of bodywork?