In the offline world the company that has a list of loyal customers will inevitably be a profitable one. It has been proven over the years that the cost of finding a new customer far outweighs the cost of keeping a customer.
The same applies in the online world. Finding new customers is very expensive and requires a huge amount of effort and an investment of time. Keeping a bunch of people who are loyal to you is a lot easier.
This customer relationship process is often referred to as building a list or developing an opt-in list. This is a list of people who have allowed you to email them. That means you have a people who will be happy to hear from you and possibly even buy.
How do you get such a list of customers?
It’s the same process as in the real world. You offer value. If you offer value as a business in the offline world you will get customers and keep them. This could be the best mobile phone contract because the cost is reasonable and you have great service and reach.
It could be a clothing shop where the merchandise is reasonably priced and the service is super friendly and accommodating. It’s a place where you know you can take a faulty garment back for a refund without having to get into an argument.
What gets the customers to sign up to the mobile contract or to buy that garment? It’s either advertising or word of mouth referrals. How does this process convert to the online world?
It’s not that different a process. You need to persuade people to come to your site or opt-in page and you need to entice them to sign up to your emails. This means there are several steps that need to be in place.
Firstly you need to be able to drive traffic to your site. You can do this by advertising online through search engines or other sites. You can drive traffic by using search engine optimisation technique and you can post articles on other well read sites in order to get traffic back to you. These are just some of the traffic generating ideas.
The second step is that you need to offer an incentive to your visitors to opt-in to your list. This may be in the form of a promotion. It is the same principle that the supermarkets abide by when they offer loss leader products.
This means it’s a product that they practically give away in order to bring the customer into the store. They are hoping you will buy something else so that they can make up the loss on the other product.
Finally the opt-in page that offers the free enticement needs to be persuasive. It needs to provide information that makes the visitor want to sign up and get the free product. The page has to make the person want to hear from you and get the free product or service that is being offered.
All of these steps you have seen in the offline world. Have a look at the marketing tricks and tips that shops and businesses use to get you into their store and you will be able to use these very same ideas and concepts for your online business.
