Your customers are, in a very real sense, the backbone of your business. Without them, you wouldn't have a business. While it's essential to treat your customers well to ensure they return to your business again and again, you must also learn how to generate more sales from each customer to increase your business's profitability.
Upsell your customers
An effective way of generating more sales from each customer at the time of purchase is to upsell. Upselling requires you to convince your customers, without being pushy or overbearing, that they need the product or service. A key to upselling is to only upsell products your customers actually need, especially if you want those customers to become and to remain repeat customers.
One way you can upsell your customers is to offer leveled products or services. For example, if you are a Web designer, you might want to offer a Gold package, a Silver package, and a Bronze package. The Gold package might include Web design, content, and Web hosting and would offer your customers the most bang for their buck, making it an attractive upsell. The Silver and Bronze packages would also offer services at a discounted rate.
Cross sell your customers
Cross selling to your customers can also generate more sales from each customer. Cross selling simply means you're selling another product to the customer that is comparable to the product they already plan to purchase. For example, if you're selling your customer a pair of shoes, you might want to cross sell him socks to go with those shoes. Or, if you're selling golf clubs, you might want to cross sell a golf bag or golf balls.
Regardless of whether you are upselling or cross selling, make sure that the products or services you're trying to sell to your customers are relevant to the product or service they are already purchasing.
Offer bundled products
Bundled products allow you to generate more sales from each customer while also offering your customers a discount if they purchase the particular products in a bundle. Bundled packages are increasingly popular with communications companies that offer telephone, internet, and television services in a bundle.
A customer who opts for the telephone and internet service will receive a discounted rate on that bundled package just as a customer who wants the telephone, internet, and television bundle will get a discount on the package compared to someone who purchases each service separately from another company.
Think of how you can bundle your products or services to offer your customers more value and to increase your bottom line.
Start a customer loyalty rewards program
Customers like to be treated well. One way to reward your customers for being loyal, repeat customers is to start a customer loyalty rewards program. Many businesses successfully offer customer reward programs. For example, there are hotel chains that offer a customer card. Each stay at the hotel earns the customer points, and once enough points are earned, that customer earns a free night's stay.
Make sure your customer loyalty program is easy and free to join.
While there are literally hundreds of techniques to increase targeted website traffic, I've found a great deal of success through article marketing.
Done right, article marketing will bring targeted, pre-qualified traffic to your website with little to no up-front costs. It will also help to establish your credibility and improve your sites search engine placement through the increase in one-way backlines.
It's not as fast as Pay-Per-Click advertising, but the results are longer lasting. Both methods certainly have their place and smart marketers take advantage of as many different traffic sources as possible.
There are many things to take into consideration when using article marketing to build an opt-in list but they all pretty much boil down to four things:
In order for you to generate a sizeable amount of targeted website traffic through article marketing, you must ensure that your articles are distributed as widely as possible.
Sending your article to a few distribution outlets simply isn't enough. You have to distribute your articles to as many quality sources as possible in hopes that they will be picked up by other Website Publishers, for more detail go to: www.autoresponders-unlimited.com.Blog Publishers and Edina Publishers.
Now that you've distributed your articles far-and-wide, it's important to get readership from your target market.
Writing an interesting Title that invokes curiosity and stresses the main benefits the reader will receive should be your first priority.
After that, writing useful content that is of keen interest to your target market will help increase your readership and your distribution.
A variety of content publishers will routinely scan the article directories looking for quality articles to produce on their sites.
If your articles are well-written, they'll spread faster than a Southern California wildfire in the dead of summer.
It does little good if you're not converting your readers into website visitors. This is the job of the Resource Box and amazingly, many article marketers seem to put little thought into this.
Your Resource Box copy should be written in the "third-person" and contain information which establishes your credibility.
If you've written a book, mention it. If you have been involved in the niche for a number of years, explain your involvement.
Don't worry if you don't have formal credentials as this is not a necessity. If you're writing about Gardening and have been actively gardening for a number of years, make a mention of it.
All article writers should be able to make a statement to enhance their credibility. If you have enough experience to write quality articles I guarantee you can come up with something.
The last element in a writing successful Resource Box copy is including a "call to action."
Do not leave your readers confused. Include a "call to action" in your Resource Box and invite your reader to visit your website or blog for more information.
In order to build a list you'll need a way to capture the information of each and every visitor that comes to your site.
Typically, a free offering, frequently referred to as an "ethical bribe," is offered in exchange for visitors contact information.
Don't ask for more information than is necessary. If you're offering can be downloaded, simply request their name and email address.
Since list building is the core of almost every successful business online, it's important to put a lot of thought into this entire process. Make sure you test your conversion rates as you may uncover areas which need improvement.
The main areas to test include traffic sources, copywriting, site graphics/layouts and the free offering itself. You may find that a "special report" increases conversion over a "mini-course" or vice versa.
The main thing is to create as many traffic sources as possible and then refine your conversion process. If you do this, you're sure to find success in your list building efforts.
Both Benjamin Bressington & Naveenk4 are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.