Increase sales with loyal customers

PUBLISHED ON 2019-02-15

It may seem obvious, but one of the best ways to increase your sales is to encourage your existing loyal customers to make new purchases.

A customer who has already bought from you is much more likely to buy again.

Clearly, acquiring new customers is a key issue, but it has a very high cost, much higher than bringing an already acquired customer back to buy again. In addition, the effort to acquire new customers increasingly reduces the pool of available customers, especially in niche businesses.

Let's see together some of the strategies it is possible to put in place to sell again to proven customers, even outside the online sector.

  1. Managing customers in a differentiated way Objectively, not all customers are the same. Some customers deserve more attention and respect. Think not only of the immediate profit they can bring to our business as they are ready to spend more, but also of the possible profit they can indirectly bring thanks to various factors such as their ability to bring sales from new customers (it is not necessary that they are the known "influencers", even in a small community some people are able to do a "better publicity" to our business than others). Some clients, whether by profession or by role, are able to put us in touch with potential new buyers. For this reason it is a good strategy to give them special treatment.

  2. Customer loyalty through preview insight A technique often used with loyal customers is to provide them with all the previews and insight of incoming promotions. There are several ways to do this including direct communication via social media (often this way also leads to the viral spread of the preview) or by newsletter or even mail. In some special cases you can even send them dedicated brochures by ordinary mail (some jewelry shops adopt this technique to invite selected customers to premieré events and luxury showcase)

  3. Upselling We have already talked about upselling as a possibile pricing strategy for small businesses. Upselling is the classic technique that promotes the purchase of a related product on the basis of a customer's previous purchase: if a customer buys a good for example, it is often possible to upsell an additional service (for example, if you sell smartphones you can propose a warranty on damage for the most valuable models) rather than an additional accessory (if you sell leather jackets you can propose products for the care of the material). Upselling is usually more effective when combined with additional discounts.

  4. Free samples It's an evergreen! Free samples have always been an excellent technique for making new sales to existing customers. They range from the classic perfume sample, to the product given in combination with others (in the example of the previous point you can donate a sample of cream for skin care of jackets), rather than the use of online tools in trial mode. For instance, a famous professional life couch who sells his course online also offers free access for one month to an online personal-growth dedicated community whose monthly access is sold at a very high cost.

  5. Reserve special prices for loyal customers Reserving a special price for loyal customer is one of the most performant way to sell to loyal customers. It's a way to let them feel important. Just pay attention not to start a price war with other competitors!

  6. Reward programs Reward programs are generally only offered by large companies, but even small businesses can offer them. Incentives to buy through point collections, always generate an increase in sales.