Your Efforts To Impress Customers Shouldn’t Stop After They Buy: 5 Effective Ways To Attract Repeat Custom
Written by
- Redaction Team
- Business Planning, Entrepreneurship
Table of Contents
Impressing customers is more than just enticing them in to buy. It’s more than making sure they can leave a good review at the end of the interaction. And it’s definitely more than putting out some great ads (despite how much of a feat that is)!
It’s also about ensuring they feel strongly enough about the experience to come back for more. Bringing back repeat customers is one of the best ways to stay in business.
It means you’re not always chasing down new leads, wherever they may be. You’re not spending tons of your budget on trying to lock down anyone who could be an efficient prospect.
Instead, your leads have already paid off. Now you’re just looking to make that happen again.
But we’re not saying it’s easy to attract repeat custom. It just has the potential of being quicker, more efficient, and less resource-heavy. You’re already ‘in’ with this group of customers, and that gives you all kinds of advantages in catching their eye and getting them to convert.
So with all that mind, let’s focus on impressing the customers you’ve already successfully brought in. Here are five effective ways to attract them back for another sale.
Offer Exclusive Deals and Discounts
Repeat customers should have access to some exclusive perks. Whether or not you run a membership program or not, if someone has shopped with you more than once or twice before, it should count for something.
You can very easily show that you respect their time and choice by offering something every customer wants: a money off discount. People download browser extensions to try and scan the web for these things, so this is definitely an attractive prospect.
Run a Referral Program
On top of exclusive deals and discounts, you can also run a referral program. This is something interested parties can sign up to in their own time, but when you get a sign up, it’s very positive. Really, a referral program sign up is the kind of interaction you can trust.
After all, no one joins a referral program if they’re not interested in patronising your company long term. Even if a year goes past before they buy something else, you haven’t had to do any other work on bringing that person back!
Create an Email Newsletter
An email newsletter has a lot of pulling power. It’s the kind of thing that keeps you on a customer’s mind, even when they’re not strictly looking to buy something right now. But that isn’t a problem; it just means you’re the first business they’ll come to when they do need a product like yours.
And when you’ve already locked down a lead and turned them into a paying customer, they’ve likely agreed to receive marketing communications from you. Newsletters aren’t just for getting a list of potential prospects that are yet to convert!
Which means it’s time to create an email newsletter that talks to both sides of your customer base. Or if you’ve already got a newsletter in place, we recommend doing an email marketing audit to check if it’s capable of bringing in repeat custom and what work you might have to do if not.
Provide Fast Shipping Options
Standard shipping times vary from place to place, and it’s all dependent on where your customer is actually located. Someone buying from another country will have to make do with a longer shipping period, while someone in the same town can probably expect 1 to 2 day delivery. There’s not much you can do about that.
However, you can invest in expedited shipping options on top. It’s a bit more costly, but the customer will shoulder the price here. And even if the majority of your customer base pays for the standard tier, every so often you’ll get someone happily clicking on the fast track choice instead.
Those people are more likely to become repeat customers afterwards as well, simply because they know you’ll get their orders to them in record time.
Remember, convenience is king in the customer service world. People don’t want to wait around, constantly check tracking numbers, or have to call up and double check where their parcel is. If that’s what they remember about shopping with you, they’ll likely find somewhere else to go.
Personalize Packaging
Personalized packaging is another part of the shipping process you shouldn’t overlook. If someone receives a parcel and it’s been made up to suit them, it’s the kind of bonus they’ll want to see more of.
And there are many ways to personalize packaging for the repeat customer. To begin with, put a note in the box that thanks the customer for their purchase. This is where you can also let them know how they can get in touch if they have a problem. Make it easy and they’ll thank you for it.
On top of this, we can go back to our point on exclusive deals. You can also provide a specific discount code for the customer to use as well. This is where you can point out that you’re keen to reward the customers who come back for more, and that they’ve earned the coupon by ordering multiple times.
Impressing Customers is a Lifelong Business Goal
It’s not a one time thing and never will be! It’s the kind of task you have to complete again and again, via various avenues, and often to varying degrees of success. But if you can pull in a more loyal, mainstay audience by doing so, you’ll always have a core group to sell to.
Plus, it proves that you’ve got a pretty excellent customer service branch to your business. That’s something every customer will look on positively, and it’s certainly something previous customers can rave about in their testimonials.
As such, think about working with the tips above and using them in your marketing. Get your previous customers back on side and reap the rewards of investing in your audience.
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