5 Ways To Get Your Existing Clients To Recommend You To Their Friends

5 Ways To Get Your Existing Clients To Recommend You To Their Friends
by Joyce Oladipo "The Home Business Sistah"


How to Generate Record Profits from Clients You Already Have

Many home business owners fail to take advantage of their most important asset, their client list. Most of the home business owners I meet are constantly searching for ways to expand their client base when it’s been proven time and time again that you can make more money from your present clients than constantly looking for new business. So, I devised some secrets to begin the process of retaining good customers and generating greater profits from them.

Get to Know Your Clients

Home Businesses today are finding that in order to survive super discount competitors and huge company advertising blitzes, they must go back to the relationship building of the good old days. In cities and towns of yesteryear, the shopkeeper knew his clients by name and the type of merchandise they needed and made certain he had it in stock. This kind of relationship coupled with personalized customer service and a genuine empathy with clients, is what keeps them coming back to you instead of going to your competitors.

Gather Clients Information

A database of clients is the most valuable asset your business has. Yet only 10% of the retailers in europe keep a current list of their clients! Statistics show that businesses spend five times as much for new clients than they do on their present clients, yet a regular customer is worth 10 times the cost of acquiring a new clients!

Today, however, a mailing list is not enough. To build relationships with clients that commands loyalty, you must gather information, which is valuable to you. For example, age and even ages of relatives, size of home, color and style preferences, date of last purchase, amount of purchase, brand preferences, important dates including birthdays, anniversaries.

Serve the Client

Waiting on clients courteously is just the beginning of good customer service. First, find out what the client expects from you. Make sure your salespeople praise every clients, show an interest, and establish rapport. Get in the habit of corresponding with your clients. Send them notes, cards, articles, and clippings that interest them. Send them thank you notes and cards telling them about private specials and trunk showings. Mail out a newsletter explaining what's new in your company.

Reward The Clients

A study by the Rockefeller Foundation found that a whopping 68% of clients stop buying from you because of an attitude of indifference toward the client by the owner, manager, or employee. In other words, if you ignore customers, 7 out of 10 will not shop with you again, for no special reason.

By segmenting clients into groups, you can treat clients individually, based on their buying habits and the information you've gathered. New clients need to know that you value them as a new client and that you actually care if they shop with you again. Send them a thank you note after their first purchase.

Use What You Know to Get New Clients

Once you've built a list of clients, their preferences, demographics and transactional data, you'll be able to use this important information to find new clients with similar characteristics. Start a Referral program by rewarding clients who refer their friends and relatives. Obtain a list of new movers to your area with similar age and income parameters to your present clients. Use testimonials from satisfied customers to attract new clients by mail. Obtain a mailing list of targeted prospects that match your client profile.

Tell a Friend

You now have the clients on your side; you now need to have a program for them to refer your products to your friends. When you have done that, aided with good products, you should be able to boost your site's traffic and have good sales. Refer-a-friend codes are available to help you put a plug-in to your website.

You should also offer incentives to your current clients to tell their friends and business associates about your site in any way that is appropriate to the content and purpose of your site. You may need to try several different incentives before you find one that works.

An inexpensive, yet effective incentive is to give them more chances to win a contest you are running for every friend they refer to your site. Another is to give them some kind of priority access to your services. It might be something as simple as offering a 10% coupon on products they purchase from your site after they have sent a few new clients.



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Online entrepreneur Joyce Oladipo, "The Home Business Sistah," is creator of the winning ‘Marketing Strategies’ to Jumpstart Your Home Business offline and online. To learn to Attract More New Customers, Sell More to Existing Customers, and Bring Back Your Customers More Often, Without Pushing So Hard — No Matter What Product or Service You Sell sign up for FREE how-to articles and FREE audio class, at www.TheHomeBusinessSistha.com