Keeping customers coming back should be every Indiepreneur’s top priority. Here are five very good reasons.
Never underestimate the power of a happy customer
Customers are what bean counters call an acquired asset. Good customers return to buy again and again. Great customers spread the word about your goods or services. Indie buyers tend to show off unique purchases to friends or relatives. If those friends and relatives like what they see and trust the word of mouth recommendation, they become good customers who also spread the word about your business. When such a multiplication effect happens, your business will take off faster than you ever dreamed. As your reputation grows, so does business and hopefully, profit.
It costs your business to acquire new customers
It costs on average six times more money to sell to a new customer than it does a happy, repeat customer. No matter what your strategy to find new customers, it has a cost on your business.
A good number of Indie’s do their own marketing to dig up new customers. Blogs, a shop on Etsy, participating in chats and forums usually don’t cost a lot of money, but they certainly cost time. Your time is valuable. Don’t ever forget that.
Some Indie’s send free products to reviewers, buy ads in traditional and electronic media. Antique dealers and designers spend money on unique display pieces not to mention oodles of time and money to haul wares across the country to shows just to find and reach new customers.
Statistically, one sale to a new customer generally doesn’t earn you a profit. Once you hook ‘em with that first sale, make sure you treat them with the respect an acquired asset deserves and turn them into repeat customers. You want them to buy again and again to make all your time, money and energy pay off for the long run.
By the way, don’t neglect existing customers in favor of gaining new ones. Remember, it costs six times more money to get a new customer than it does keeping the ones you have happy. If it comes down to it, please existing customers FIRST.
Repeat customers give you a competitive advantage
Steady business increases your profit, but it can also free your mind and time to build your business. Instead of sinking all your resources into beating the bushes for new customers, you can invest in improving existing products, and creating or finding new products for your customers.
While you’re building your product base, your existing customers are beating the new customer bushes for you by sending you referral business. It’s good practice to reward those referrals. You don’t have to make a big production out of it or plaster your marketing materials with tacky referral pleas. Just send a small thank you gift to the referring customer – and let the surprised customer spread the referral news, too!
Repeat customers are the best consultants
Trying to decide whether to add on to your line or upgrade existing products? Is the Pantone color of the year really all that? Ask your existing customers what they think. They obviously love your style and usually aren’t shy about letting you know when you’re on the wrong track. In fact, listen to their unsolicited advice, too. Good or bad, it’s free feedback! Take it and run with it!
Happy customers give you confidence
I can spend hours upon hours fluffing my booth at the antique mall – redecorating and styling my space to make it really stand out. While I have a good time doing that, there was a time when I doubted whether all my sweat and those trips up the ladder were cost effective. Did all that effort really matter when it came to sales?
My answer came from a shopper who happened to come by on a day I was in a major refluff. She went on and on how much she loved the stuff I sell, detailed everything she ever bought from me and told me she makes a beeline for my space whenever she shops the mall. The compliments went right to my head – and my confidence. I really knew what I was doing! And, well, to paraphrase Sally Field, they like me … really, really like me. Better yet, she had a friend with her and several shoppers strolling by heard her gushing.
When customers come back to you, it removes some of the doubt from your business equation. Repeat customers are a sign that you’re doing something right.
At the end of day, smart Indiepreneurs make building repeat business a priority. It’s just smart business. You can start by posting the following quote somewhere in your business office: “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all” – Michael Leboeuf
Related Articles:
- How Do Your Customers Pay? For good or for bad, consumers prefer to carry credit...
- SHIPPING 101 The biggest challenge for me when it came to ecommerce...
- E-Commerce: Lesson One So, you want to open your very own eshop do...
- HOW TO SET YOUR PRICE Setting prices for your goods and services seems to be...
- Reveling in Success Reading a post by Sue on her kickin’ blog Vintage...
{ 1 trackback }