This is the third part in our series on “How To increase Your Sales… Without Increasing Your Marketing Budget”. If you missed the first & second article in the series then you can view Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
A quick reminder, this series of articles is about what you can do as a small business owner or self employed individual, to make the most of any existing marketing budget you have to generate additional sales, without having to spend any additional money, which we though was especially important in these uncertain times create by COVID19.
And now, on to the third tip/tactic for you to employ in your business…
#3 – Nurture Your Existing Customer Relationships
One of the fastest ways to increase your sales without spending more money on advertising, is to make more offers to your existing customers. After all, these are people who have trusted you in the past, so don’t you think they’ll be likely to purchase more from you in the future?
It makes perfect sense, but you’d be amazed as to how many businesses don’t consider this tactic. They focus solely in getting more customers into their business and forget about the fact that they have a whole lot of people who have already purchased from them in the past.
Now, if you sell a single product or you have nothing more to offer to a customer, then this is a tactic that isn’t going to work (although you could offer them other people’s products and make a commission).
However, if this really is the case, then I’d definitely be talking to you about developing new products or services that can complement what you are already selling, because selling to existing customers is easier than finding new ones.
And the great news is, as you saw above when we were talking about prospects, a lot of this process can be put on autopilot, meaning it won’t take a ton of effort on your part to gain further sales from customers you already have.
So, how does this tactic work?
Well, it’s pretty simple really, just utilise portions of the information that you collect when you make the original sale (Name, Email, Address – optionally) and use this information to create your buyers list (or tag people).
If you are electing to do follow up marketing via email, then you will ensure that these people and their details are placed into your list as customers and then you would configure a campaign to follow up with them in the future. Here are some examples of “customer” campaigns I have received in the past (no doubt some of these emails also go to prospects, but these are businesses that I have signed up with as a customer).
All of these are designed to do a couple of things; firstly they remind me that I have previously purchased a product from these places in the past, reinforcing my awareness of the brand and what they can offer to me.
Secondly, they draw my attention to the latest offers that are available to me which might be relevant. Some are better at this than others as they use extra information to remember my behaviour in the past, whereas Domino’s for example is a more general “here’s todays special” type of offer.
Beyond these more simplified marketing emails, you can also create some advanced automation that sends email to a customer depending on actions they take (clicking a link, buying a certain product etc).
By tracking how your customers behave, what they are looking at on your website and what prior purchases they have made, you can create highly targeted email messages to different customers, improving your chances of presenting the right offer, at the right time.
But it doesn’t have to be this complicated, by simply collecting customer details and sending them regular updates (and offers), you will remain on their radar when they are next in the market for a product you can offer.
Additionally, by including useful, helpful and relevant information (not offers) as part of your campaign you are also building trust in your brand, ensuring they see you as something more than “a place they bought that thing once”.
So there you have it, another great tip for maximising your sales, without splashing extra cash on advertising or flashy marketing stunts.
What do you think? Is this a tactic you have used in the past or plan to use in the future? Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think.
Until next time.