Did you know it’s more expensive to attract a new customer than keeping an existing one? If you’ve already built the know, like and trust factor into a customer, you’re losing money if you’re not using it.
Of course, you’d still want to attract new customers but if the cost is alienating the existing ones, you’re paying too much for that acquisition.
Ready? Here are five ways to make more money from those existing customers.
1. Find Out Why They Aren’t Buying More
If you’ve got any unsold products or services you know your customers should buy, you should know why. And there are common reasons why that’s happening.
>They’re Not Aware
And you can’t blame them. Customers are being bombarded with advertorials and sales messages from your business and competitors every day. It’s now natural to tune out when they see another one.
You need to warm-up the customer for a sale to get their attention. Add a human touch to the interaction so you’d be unforgettable.
>You’re Not Selling On Value
Don’t try winning the price war, win the value war instead. You need to let your customer know how this product helps them and their business.
That means marketing with the right message.
Get an understanding of their expectations through online surveys and even direct contact, then develop your marketing message to address those issues.
2. Identify Your Customer’s Customer
If you’re selling to another business, you need to find out why they’re buying from you and when they’re likely to buy more.
Look at some tips you can use:
>Ask Basic Sales Questions
Questions like “what are you hoping to accomplish this/next year?” It gives you access to their world, their successes, and struggles. You’d know how you can help them serve their customers better.
It makes perfect sense that a Christmas store isn’t buying your analytics software in March, it’s just not time for it. So you’d save money on your advertising budget.
>Check What Customers Are Buying From Your Competition
When loyal B2B customers are buying from your competition, then you know you’re not ticking all the boxes. You’re not satisfying their customers.
Look at those products or services and how it helps them better meet their customers’ needs.
Then find out where you’re lacking and get to work by building a uniquely superior product with features that clearly beat the competition.
3. Join The Affiliate Space
You can do this in two ways, hiring those brand loyalists to promote your products to others or promoting valuable products to your customers.
How To Grow Your Business With Affiliate Marketing
>Start With an Email
You want existing customers to promote your business ‘cause they are your true fans.
So you should run an email series encouraging them to earn money by telling their friends about you.
If they do well enough, they can even pay for your products with their affiliate income.
>Join an Affiliate Network
The problem with hiring affiliates is that you’d need to manage them. If you don’t, they may represent your brand poorly.
And it’s expensive doing this on your own. Sign up as a publisher on trusted networks like CJ and Linkshare.
These networks would handle all the tracking and the rules that shouldn’t be broken.
How To Earn Money Promoting An Affiliate Product
You can’t create products to solve every problem in your customers’ lives. But if you know something that’s good for them, there’s nothing wrong earning money by recommending that product. And here’s how to do it right.
>Promote Niche Products
A niche product is one that’s related to your own industry. So promoting an editing tool or an invoicing software to freelance writers makes sense.
>Go For Quality Products
Don’t do it for the money. Look for products that really do what the sales letter claims.
If you promote garbage to your customers, it’d hurt your brand.
4. Look At Past Purchase Information
Know why a customer bought the first time and you’d get them to buy again.
You need online systems in place that track customer behavior.
If you don’t, here’s how you can.
2 Tools For Tracking Customer Behavior
>>>Basic Marketing Analytics Software
Apps like Google Analytics and Mixpanel. These tools display metrics that would help you make more sales. And some of these metrics are:
>Bounce Rate
This is a measure of the percentage of visitors who leave a site after viewing only one page.
If the bounce rate on your sales page is high, the problem may not be the price.
Does the page take long to load? Have you compared the metrics on this page with other pages that sell? These are questions for you or your marketing team.
>Time On Site
Okay, your customers aren’t leaving immediately but they’re still not buying. Check the average time on site.
Maybe they aren’t interacting well enough with your pages to be able to make that buying decision.
>>>Heatmaps
Heatmaps are advanced tools that dig deeper into what software like Google Analytics(GA) gives you.
So if GA tells you the average visitor spent five seconds on a page, heatmaps like Crazy Egg and Mouseflow give you information on what parts of a page received the most clicks and sections that were ignored.
What To Do After Tracking
When you have all that data, it’s time to put it to use. See how.
>Fix The Issues
You have a slow site? Check for unoptimized images and ads. Your content isn’t engaging? Learn from the ones that are doing well.
Just do everything to make your site look good.
>Target Customers When They Have Cash To Spend
The best time to market to customers is when they’re in buying mode. And your tracking tools would help you know when that’s happening.
5. Become An Authority In Your Field
It doesn’t happen in one day but when you become so good you can’t be ignored in your industry, there’s more money for you. Here are two steps you can take.
>Be an Eternal Student
You can’t give what you don’t have. A true master is an eternal student. So learn every day, but don’t learn everything. Just work at being a master of your trade
>Have An Opinion
Don’t flow with the wind, that’s too easy. Say something (even if it’s controversial) and make sure you can defend it.
Publicly addressing industry changes would allow you to be seen as an industry leader.
It’s easy to get existing customers to buy more. Just follow this guide.
