Repeat Sales: Make Sure your Customers Keep Coming Back

Sadly, lots of online marketers miss a lucrative opportunity. An opportunity that could increase their sales, skyrocket their ROI and make their lives much easier.

This wonderful opportunity is like a goldmine just outside their front door. And many of them ignore it completely.

What is this goldmine? It has two important parts:

1. Making add-on offers to customers at the point of sale.
2. Making repeat sales to previous buyers

This article will examine each of these two golden sales opportunities. We'll take a look at some of the reasons marketers continue to leave money “on the table” by not making add-on sales and not having a long-term strategy for generating additional future sales from their current customer base.

We'll talk about ways that online marketers like you can take advantage of this “goldmine” to make a lot more sales.

Would You Like Fries With That? 

To illustrate how so many online marketers shortchange themselves (and their customers), let's take a look at how a retail sales rep for a “brick and mortar” business might do the same thing.

Picture this: a young man recently graduated from law school and was offered a job by a prestigious firm. He's very excitedly shopping for suits. The sales rep merely acts like an “order taker” and only gives him exactly what he asks for - three new suits – and nothing else.

Deep down the young man is thinking he needs new shoes, ties, dress shirts and belts, but for some reason he hesitates to ask the sales rep for these. Maybe he thinks he'll get a better deal or find a larger selection somewhere else.

But, the store and the sales rep have already “won” at least part of his business. He trusts them enough to spend his money with them. He's mentally and emotionally primed to make additional purchases. He's already bought 3 suits. And he needs the accessories to go with them.

If the salesman offered them, if he only asked,  he would probably forget other stores and buy them in a heartbeat from the store that sold him the suits.

Talk about a win-win!

The young man would benefit, because he'd have some sharp-looking new accessories to complement his professional wardrobe. The sales rep would benefit from the commissions on the additional clothes. And the store would benefit from the additional sales revenue.

Plus, chances are the young man would be much happier with his buying experience. The sales rep would have saved him the inconvenience of going to another store. The customer just might talk highly to his friends about the store he bought his new clothes from.

1. Making add-on offers to customers at the point of sale

When it comes to add-on sales opportunities, a lot of online marketers make the same mistakes the sales rep in our story made. They don't offer any additional, related products at the point of sale, even though they could benefit the buyer, and there's a very strong chance the buyer would say “Yes!”.

Assuming they have additional, complimentary products to offer, these online marketers would do well to follow the example of McDonald's. Instead of asking “Would you like fries with that?”, at the point of online sale, they could suggest (through email, pop up offers, landing pages, thank you pages, etc.) complimentary products while their new online customer was still in buying mode.

For example, a fitness expert who sells exercise program e-books, could offer someone who just bought his e-book a separate course on nutrition. If he didn't have an e-book on nutrition, he could make an affiliate marketing arrangement with another online merchant who did.

Using a high quality email marketing program, he could send an email immediately after this first sale thanking the customer for his purchase. This email could include a link that directed the reader to an eCommerce landing page offering this add-on e-book on nutrition.

The customer has just purchased a book on fitness. He's in buying mode. There's a VERY strong chance he would happily buy the e-book on nutrition – something very closely related to his original purchase, IF the marketer would only ask him to.

So why do so many online marketers not offer additional products at the point of sale?

Here are a couple of possible reasons:

They are afraid to ask

They think the customer will be upset with them if they do. But, the customer just bought from them. Chances are he feels like he knows, likes and trusts the online marketer he just bought from. They are already in the mood to buy. It's doubtful they'll get upset at an additional offer.

Granted, a few may be upset. But this is probably a chance worth taking. If you have a great product that could benefit your customer, an additional offering to go along with the one he just bought from you, why wouldn't you offer it to him?

If it can really benefit him, if it can solve a painful problem he's sick and tired of dealing with, if it can make his life better, aren't you doing him a favor by asking him to buy it? And conversely, aren't you doing him a disservice if you don't offer it to him?

Other online marketers might not offer add-ons at the point of sale because they don't have any additional products to offer. They might want to consider adding more offerings to their product line. Like we mentioned a moment ago, they could also set up an affiliate arrangement with another marketer.

2. Making repeat sales to previous buyers

Not only do many online marketers not offer add-on products for their new customers at the point of sale, a lot also make that first sale then totally forget about their new customer. They don't follow up with them to thank them for their business.

They don't send emails to them telling them how to get maximum benefit from their new purchase (This would lead to more happy customers who would be more likely to buy their products in the future).

And they don't keep them updated on newer versions of the product. In short, they don't develop a long-term relationship with their customers – a relationship that could pave the way for future sales.

This is a huge mistake. It's much easier and much less expensive to make a repeat sale to a current, very happy customer who likes you already and with whom you've cultivated a trusting relationship than it is to sell to him the first time.

To quote a report from Adobe titled The ROI From Marketing To Existing Online Customers:

“In the US, 40% of revenue comes from returning or repeat purchasers, who represent only 8% of all visitors”.

Translation – you could make more sales and have a higher ROI with less web traffic and less marketing investment.

Yet many online marketers become so obsessed with new traffic and new, first-time buyers they forget about their current customers, because they are “chomping at the bit” to land the next sale.

Plus, cultivating and nurturing profitable relationships with current customers is hard work. It takes a commitment to developing a comprehensive marketing strategy and the tactics to properly execute that strategy. It takes a concerted effort to follow through with the strategy once it's developed.

But here's the benefit: by nurturing and growing relationships with their current customers, online marketers could pave the way for future sales without the marketing expense and acquisition cost of new customers.

How can they build this relationship? A relationship that leads to many additional sales to a very happy long-term customer who becomes a brand advocate?

"People buy more and buy more happily when in good humor” -Dan Kennedy

They can start before the first sale. They can make the sales experience a delight for the customer, instead of a painful chore. They can provide outstanding service during and after the sale. They can give the customer valuable content that shows how to gain maximum benefit from using the product they just purchased.

They can send emails to their new customer for a number of purposes:

• To offer the opportunity to fill out a satisfaction survey

• To build and maintain TOMA (Top Of Mind Awareness) of their company and products in the customer's mind

• To direct them to landing pages with new versions of the product they purchased or to tell them about related products

Whether you are making a new sale online and wisely including some add-ons, or you are making a repeat sale to a long-term, very happy customer, you need landing pages.

Why not choose landing page templates from Lander, a company committed to providing your customers the very best user experience possible. A company committed to designing and building landing pages engineered for a high conversion rate. And why not try them today for free?

Happy Marketing!