5 Strategies For Repeated Online Consumer Business

By Joseph M Caltabiano

The customer is the most important aspect of any business. As online business owners we all want to bring as many customers to our website as possible. Keeping existing customers is just as important as gaining them. Loyalty customer service, addressing complaints promptly, and offering incentives like gifts and discounts are all great practices. However, how are we going to keep these customers coming back again and again if those great practices do not work? Since existing customers are the best source of sales, it is imperative that we have effective strategies that will keep them. Here are 5 strategies that will keep them coming back.

Make it simpler to buy from you than your competition: Customers like simplicity in this fast paced world we live in. When you list your products or services it is very important to not be redundant in your descriptions. Customers want to get what they want and get out. Redundancy can make them bored and want to move on to the next website. Have a clear and detailed description, but with concise wording. A smooth checkout process is also imperative. It is definitely necessary to have a functional and attractive website, but you do not need a fancy website. Having too many graphics can slow the process down with high-speed internet, and even more for the customers who still use dial-up connection.

Modify your pricing structure: Percentage discounts and sales are helpful, but having low prices is even better! A perfect example of a business using this strategy is the world's largest retailer Walmart. If possible, try to cut down your prices without hurting your profits. If you find this too difficult you will need to come up with creative ways to make it happen. Even if you first try lowering your prices by a small amount, that can make a huge difference in sales.

Build a plethora of products and services: A big part to keeping customers is to make sure they not only get to your website, but stay on it. Offering a large amount of products and services makes it very convenient for the customer. A perfect example of a business using this strategy would be the giant online retailer Amazon. Customers would rather enter their checkout information once instead of going to another website and entering it again. It is a fast paced world, and convenience is extremely important to a customer.

Make sure your customer knows your website is secure: With a significant increase in identity fraud these days, it is very important to make sure the customer knows your site is secure. Make sure you state on your site what information is taken and how that information is handled securely. Be specific on exactly how their information is protected. Customers want to make sure they are not sharing their information that can be snatched up by someone else. A sense of security can go a long way for repeated consumer business.

Get your business to stay in the mind of the customer: Successful advertisers have found many ways to keep customers using psychology. A good slogan and/or commercial is a great tool that can get customers to keep your business in their mind. Using a catchy phrase, song, or image that links to something they like or need can stay in a customer's mind. For example, let's say you sold dog food and made a commercial about a dog that looks unhealthy because of the plain dog food he eats. He slowly puts on healthy weight because a specific dog food product that is given to him. That specific product can stay in the mind of the customer. If they happen to see their dog looking too unhealthy, they can question their current dog food and automatically link healthy dog food to your product.

Joseph M. Caltabiano (Online Business Owner)
http://oneshotvariety.com/
I am dedicated to selling high-quality/brand-name products at affordable prices! Visit my website at the above link for more information on my products.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joseph_M_Caltabiano

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6490983

Acquiring New Customers By Giving Away Something Free

By Darren W Chow

Online businesses sound like an easy way to make money. You have this idea cooking in your head and you are wondering if it could work. After some time, you decided to give it a try and set up a website. That is when you realize you need paying customers in order to start making money. Here is how the process usually works.

The first thing you do is to set up new products for your web business. You then price them appropriately, and put them up for sale on your website.

The second step is to drive targeted traffic to your website. You can do so via pay per click advertising, article marketing, forum advertising, and other forms of online marketing.

Most people believe that traffic generation is the hardest. That is not true. The next and final step is the most difficult - and that is to get people to buy from you. Internet marketers call this conversion rate. It is the rate at which your web visitors buy from you. The higher the conversion rate, the more sales (and money) you make from your website.

When it comes to conversion, three things matter most. One, you have to have the right offer for the customer. Your product should bring as much value as possible to the customer. Two, the pricing has to be right. Even with the right offer, you can't get people to buy if they don't have the budget to pay for your products. Finally, there has to be a certain level of trust and credibility established. Yes, you can get the occasional sale from a cold visitor but the chances are low. The refund rates are also higher from cold visitors.

Assuming that you have the right offer and the right pricing, all that you need to do is to establish trust. This is where most business owners fail. In a faceless world such as the Internet, how do you go about establishing trust?

One way that has been proven to work very well is to give away free items to your prospects. Why does this method works so well?

1) Builds goodwill. Your free gift immediately builds up a certain level of goodwill with the prospect. It's like meeting someone for the first time and then you bring gifts. You are immediately making the other party happy.

2) Provides a risk free sample. Many people are unwilling to fork out hard earned money for products that they haven't tried before. By giving away something free, you can let them have a taste of what is to come. If they like the gift, they may return to make purchases.

3) Customers remember you better. If you send them something free, they are more likely to remember where they received the gift from (your website!). That may prompt them to return to buy from you.

4) Popular free items create buzz. You don't even have to use something that is related to your business for this work. If you give away popular products for free (such as audio players, computer tablets or mobile phones), that will help generate more marketing buzz for your Company and in turn, lead to more sales.

Check out that free thing for free deals and products. That free thing helps everyone win by creating good deals for everyone.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darren_W_Chow

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6482118