Are You Missing This Free Advertising . . . By Abbie Drew Mar 30, 2006

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Are You Missing This Free Advertising . . .

Do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels with your business?

You’re investing in advertising but your sales are stagnant. And despite your efforts and the expense of promotion your business is just not growing. You know if you keep spending as you’re doing, you’ll soon be out of business.

What you need is to start making more sales. Right now! You know if you could get a consistent increase in your sales, your business will build and so too will your income.

So you ask the question, I see again and again, “Where should you advertise to get more sales?”

The good news is the answer is simple. And the better news is the advertising is Free!

The key to turning around your promotions and making your business a success, is your existing customer base!

Repeat business from your existing customers is critical to your business profits. Don’t ignore this principle or stop reading because you think you’ve heard it before. There are easy quick steps you can take right now to capitalize on your current customers, even if you only have a handful.

If you don’t sell to existing customers you will sabotage your business. The simple fact is expense numbers don’t lie. When you do the math you’ll find the cost to acquire a new customer is significantly more than selling to an existing customer.

Face it, you have to get repeat business if you’re going to stay in business. And the only way to get repeat business is to advertise to your current and past customers.

How do you use the free advertising opportunity of your existing customer base to turn your business around? Here’s a 4 step strategy:

1) Back-end Products / Services

In order to sell to your existing customers you have to have something to sell.

You either need to sell more of your product / service, as the customer needs more. Printer ink as an example is a product that will be purchased again and again by the same customer.

Or you need to have other products / services to sell. If you’re selling an ebook, you’ll need a second, third, fourth ebook or course or seminar to sell to your customers.

Finding other products / services to sell is not difficult. There are thousands of companies which offer affiliate programs. These companies will pay you a commission if you sell their product or service.

The key to selling backend products / services is to make sure what you sell is a good products / services. If your initial product / service is weak, you won’t make repeat sales. And if any of your backend products / services are poor, you’ll loose the customer as well.

Invest the time and effort to make sure what you sell is excellent. Your own products / services should be well worth what you charge. And any affiliate product you promote should be fully researched so you are confident it too is a quality item.

2) Customer List

You have the contact information of your customers. Are you using the information to stay in touch?

Following up with customers is essential! And email makes following up even easier. Put your customers’ names and emails into an emailing program and start emailing them.

Don’t wait or think you have to be sending out a regular ezine to email past customers. All you have to do is drop them the occasional email. Let them know what’s new in your business or inform them of any new products / services you’re offering or provide them with a tip or resource if you come across one.

Informal emails work. What’s more when you make the effort to stay in touch it will have a dramatic impact on your sales. These customers having purchased from you in the past are very likely to buy from you again.

You’ll find the sales rut you’ve been stuck is will disappear as you market to existing customers. And when you add new customers, you can think in terms of a new customer purchasing multiple items, not just initial order.

How can I be so confident customers will re-order or buy more from you?

Let me share an example from our CustomLead service, which works with you to build a targeted optin email list for your offers. Recently, I put into place with this service, a simple email follow-up to our customers. ( I know, I know – what took me so long . . . Yes, we’re all susceptible to procrastination.)

With the follow-up now place, half of my customers are ordering more subscribers. Previously I was seeing only 1 in 10 re-order. I expect as I continue to follow-up with my customers even more than 50% will re-order.

As the CustomLead service, provides quality subscribers which are always in demand, step 1 of having a good product /service was in place, I just needed to follow-up to encourage customers to re-order. By not follow-up I was loosing sales.

The free advertising opportunity was right in front of me, send out email follow-ups to existing customers, I just needed to do it!

You too will start to make more sales if you simply follow up.

3) Automatic Renewal

An easy way to start making more sales from your existing customers is to put in place a product / service option with automatic monthly renewals.

You then have built in repeat orders from your customers every month. If you think you don’t have the ability to easily do repeat ordering, PayPal makes it easy. They have a subscription service payment option that is very easy to set-up.

You simply need to come up with the product / service that a customer would want / need to re-order every month.

What are some possibilities? Web services, like hosting or our SendFree autoresponders, are automatically renewed monthly service. Subscription sites and informational publications are frequently automatically renewed monthly services. Food and health products are also commonly sold with automatic renewals.

Evaluate your product / service and see if a automatic renewal option could work for you.

4) Customer Service

A key to getting repeat business is customer service. Once you’ve made the sale, you have to continue to provide support. Respond to your customers as promptly as possible. Provide feedback to both their negative and positive comments.

With good support you keep your customers happy. Happy customers buy more. Plus you get the added benefit that a happy customer tells their friends about you. And word-of-mouth marketing is not only free it makes you even more sales.

Statistics show 90% of Americans cite word of mouth as one of the best sources of ideas and information. 75% of consumers feel most comfortable when purchasing a product if it’s a recommendation of a friend. So getting a referral is like being handed another sale.

How do you know if your customer support is working to improve your business? Your customers will tell you. If you’re not being thanked for your support, you need to keep working at it.


Consider how you can implement the above tactics into your business. I guarantee you will make more sales from your existing customers if you simply reach out to them. Your business will grow and your profits will rise!

Don’t miss out on the free advertising right in front of you!

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Abbie Drew
DEMC Editor

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