Proven Methods of Customer Retention

As any marketer knows, the best customer is a returning customer. Assuming you’ve treated him well in the first place, you have built a trusted relationship. Trusted relationships are like currency. They will payoff time and time again. Existing customers are more easily sold because they already like you and believe in you and your products.

Now your job is to keep them thinking of you. You cannot just ignore them and assume they’ll be back. You have to keep them coming back with offers, add-ons, accessories, information, free gifts, and other things to keep their interest. If your customers are from internet campaigns, you can easily use email lists to keep your customers interested and informed.

It’s a bit more expensive in the brick and mortar world. Print ads and direct mailings are very effective. If you take the time to gather up email addresses, you can also use email lists. You can bring your customers to your business with free gifts, sales, and special offers.

With email especially, you need to give your customers a reason to stay on your list. Provide valuable information to them about the subject they are interested in. Guide them to your website to finish the letter, so that the email is light weight, and you will then be able to introduce them to other offers and products.

In the direct mail world, you may find it very advantageous to put products on sale with the use of coupons. That way you can track the success of your campaigns, and compare the results between them. You could mail one sales letter to half of your customer list, and another to the other half. Then you can compare the conversion rates of the letters. You can use this strategy with email as well.

Listen to your customers and find out what they want, and are interested in. Then, you can provide information and products to satisfy their needs and desires.

Another really great way to show your appreciation to your customers is to send them greeting cards. You can send the cards on their birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. You can even use them to announce sales, and other more direct communications. The nice things about greeting cards are that they get a higher percentage delivered than more obvious ads. They also show your appreciation in a more heartfelt way, and customer appreciation is something your customers will remember. You can bring this to a new level at http://www.ourcardsender.com

Rusty Campbell has been involved in internet marketing and software development since 1996. He also makes marketing reviews at http://www.reviewopportunity.com

His blog is at http://www.cybermarketingpro.com/dasblogce