By Lindenberg Junior
On one occasion in May 2016, I was in local Italian restaurant and after waiting patiently in the queue, my pizza was eventually placed in the oven. While waiting I saw that the place was buzzing and the queue to get in was getting bigger and bigger. The restaurant was doing a roaring trade and the owner must have been delighted because he was so busy. It was to be expected though as it was a Friday night and virtually every restaurant is busy at the end of the week. However the owner was making a big mistake.
I was watching all of these people making their orders and I saw something that the restaurant owner didn’t. All of those happy contented customers were walking out of the door and the owner had no way to contact them again in order to encourage them to come back again soon. True, a lot of them probably would return again in the near future but I knew that he could easily generate extra business by getting these happy customers to come in more often…and spend more…simply by sending them a promotional email or text message once or twice a month.
He could have easily have been doubling his sales by using the most effective, yet most overlooked marketing strategy in existence. It is a strategy that every business no matter which sector they are in should be putting into operation. Experts estimate that each year, businesses lose on average around 12% of their clients. There can be a number of unavoidable factors: It could be that the customers have died, moved to another area, or they just don’t need the product or service any more. Whatever the case, it is inevitable that your business will lose some customers.
Let’s think about your average customer. Depending on your business they might by from you once a month, every 6 months or once a year. But if you could get each of your customers to buy from you just one more time that would be a 100% increase in business.
Image Customer FeedbackAt the moment you have 3 choices:
- Get more customers: This is the most expensive way to get increase business.
- Get more customers that already buy from you to buy more often. This is great but you want an even better way. See But there is a third choice.
- Get your existing customers to visit you more often AND spend more money every time they visit you.
Isn’t option “3” the most appealing? This article will show you one of the fastest and most effective marketing strategies that will increase your sales by 100%, simply by getting your customers to come to you more often and spending more on every visit.
From a business point of view it is madness. It is far better to concentrate on building a database of clients so you can market directly to customers you already have. As a business, your focus should be on bringing existing customers back to buy from you again. Customers need to feel special. They want you to show that you appreciate the business they give you. You want them to feel important so that they become super loyal customers for life. Repeat customers can make you wealthy, so treat them like gold.
Setting up a Preferred Customer or Exclusive Loyalty Club program is the easiest way to do this. Who doesn’t want to be known as a preferred customer or to be part of an exclusive loyalty club? People know that “preferred customers” get treated differently. They know that they will get special treatment and that they are set-apart from your ‘regular’ customers.
The whole reason why you create a preferred customer program is because preferred customers want to do more business with you. They want you to send them offers. They want to know about your sales, special offers, discounts, coupons, new product announcements and exclusive offers not available to anybody else. People in general love to be treated like they are special!