When building a business, be it online or brick and mortar, it’s easy to get so focused on attracting sales that you forget to attract customers. Hocking your wares for a profit is nice, but building long lasting relationships with your target market is even better. Happy customers not only return to your store often, cost less than finding new ones and tend to purchase higher tickets items , they are your best sales people.

If a person loves your product or service, simply through word of mouth, they can funnel more traffic to you then 10 full-time, cold-calling sales people. “So, how do I get these happy customers?”, you ask. Easy, you must:
1. Provide a Class A product.
2. Offer Superior Customer Service
3. Rewards.
Numbers 1 and 2 should be the easy ones, and probably something you are already doing if you are still in business after your first year. It’s number 3 that we are going to talk about here.

If you want to convert an average “satisfied” customer to a “evangelist” customer, who will tell everyone they know about you, reward them. Often only new customers are given the freebies and first-order discounts, because so much attention is paid to attracting them. Customer retention can easily be overlooked, or loyalty programs can seem too complicated to manage.

So lets get back to basics. What is the easiest way to reward existing customers? If you have their email address (which you really should at this point), offer them something for nothing. No hoops to jump through, just a free thank you for being awesome. Afraid this might break the bank? Offer a digital gift, you can include the downlink directly into the email you send them. No postage, no manufacturing cost, only the time it take to produce the digital product.

You are an expert in your industry, and your returning customers are interested, so tell them about it. Pass that knowledge along, it has value.

Examples of digital gifts.

• Special report.
• How to
• Short video
• Mobile app.

So there you go. This also give you an excuse to contact with your customers, with an email they will most likely open. “A free gift for being such an excellent customer” makes a great subject line.

Preach to the choir, they will listen.

-Steven Coleman