Best Online Affiliates

Do you know how to go about building a strong repeat customer base? Are you aware of how valuable repeat customers are to your e-commerce business? Would you like to get some ideas about how to keep customers coming back again and again?

Here are some tips that will help show you the best ways to build a strong, healthy repeat customer base for your online home business.

Having a solid base of repeat customers is extremely valuable and can help ensure the success of your online business.

What Are Repeat Customers

Repeat customers are those who buy from you once, then come back ⎯ perhaps many times ⎯ and buy from you again. They will help keep your online home business profitable even through lean times.

If you need to tighten your business belt and are cutting back on advertising and promotional expenses, your repeat customers can help keep money flowing until things improve.

Repeat Customers Save You Money

Money-wise, it costs an average of about eight times less to get a sale from a repeat customer than from a new one.

While new customers are the lifeblood of your business, repeat customers are golden because they require far less effort and money in marketing.

Repeat customers are less likely to be problem customers because they come to you with confidence and trust established during a previous transaction.

Identifying Likely Repeat Customers

To start building a strong, solid repeat customer base, try to identify the customers who are likely to come back and buy from you again.

If you are an eBay seller, check the buying history and feedback of a customer to see if he or she habitually buys products in your niche. If you have your own website or online store, look at the nature of what was purchased. Is it an item that the customer is likely to buy again?

Keep track of the customers you deem likely to become repeat buyers. Make notes about the purchase and any other pertinent info that might help you with tailoring a marketing email or offer to customers you hope to bring back for more sales.

For example, if a customer buys a dog collar from you, chances are that this same customer will need other pet-related items, such as beds, leashes, harnesses, toys and more. Armed with this information, you can target an offer to that customer.

Don't Underestimate Word Of Mouth

Repeat customers make wonderful brand evangelists and can spread the good word about your online business to friends, coworkers, relatives…everyone within their sphere of influence.

The ripple effect means that repeat customers, by telling others about you, also expand your sphere of influence, and the circle just keeps getting bigger and bigger, which means more sales for you as time goes on.

Make it worthwhile to your customers to refer others to you. Offer incentives, such as free shipping or a dollars-off promotion.

Know The Lifetime Value of a Customer

Calculating the lifetime value of a customer is a simple formula that will help you recognize just how valuable gaining repeat business really is. Figure out roughly how much it cost you to acquire that customer. Calculate about how many more purchases the customer is likely to make from you over a period of years.

For example, if your niche is business supplies and a customer buys 10 reams of copy paper from you and then comes back a month later to buy 10 more, how many reams of paper are you likely to sell to this customer in a year? Five years? Ten years? This is how you figure the lifetime value of a customer.

Knowing the approximate lifetime value of a customer lets you see how cost-effective it would be to offer incentives and discounts to keep that customer coming back again and again.

If you would make $5,000 on a customer in a year, wouldn’t it be a good investment to offer free or half-price shipping or another attractive offer to ensure repeat business?

You can see how much repeat customers are worth in the long-term scheme of things and why you should have marketing and promotions geared solely toward those customers.

Market To New Customers

There is an old saying in the world of sales: Business goes where it is invited and stays where it is well-treated. This applies to customers. Market to get new customers, which is equivalent to inviting them to buy from you, and then treat them well to keep them coming back.

Customer service is one of your strongest weapons in the ongoing war with your competitors. Treat your customers well and you build loyalty that keeps them from straying to the competition.

Use Social Media Platforms

Try to make a connection with your customers. One of the best ways to do this is to have a business Facebook page and invite your customers to “Like” you on it.

With a business Facebook page, you can interact and connect much more easily than you could without social media.

Email Marketing

You can also send emails to your customers who have opted-in to your email subscription list and target many of these emails to the particular customer.

For instance, if you have several customers who have bought hiking boots from you, sending an email newsletter announcing a new line or a sale is an excellent way to stay connected.

Remember, out of sight, out of mind. Don’t be a nuisance or bombard those on your email subscribers list with spam emails, but do stay in touch.

Loyalty Programs

One great way to build a strong repeat customer base is to establish a loyalty program. This can be tremendously effective in making repeat customers out of those who otherwise might not have come back to buy more.

Your loyalty program doesn’t have to give away the store, but it should offer enough incentive to the customer to make buying from you again an attractive proposition.

Think of the businesses that give you a card and punch it with each purchase, with a free product after X number of punches. A loyalty program can work in a similar manner.

Offer your customers promotions and deals just for them as members of your loyalty program, so that they are rewarded for repeat purchases.

The Bottom Line

Never lose sight of driving traffic that brings in a fresh, steady supply of new customers, but work hard to make those newbies golden oldies who will come back to buy from you again and again.

Repeat customers are the best advertising you can get. It costs much less to get a repeat sale than to acquire a new customer. The lifetime value of a customer shows you just how much money their repeat business means for you. Treat customers well to get them to become repeat customers.

Would you like nothing better than to drop out of the rat race and start your own home business in e-commerce, but now you are now wondering if dropshipping would work for you? Have you heard of people who are making six-figure incomes with this business model and are eager to know their secrets to success?

Do you want to find out if dropshipping would be a profitable home business for you? Do you want to discover the secrets to being successful as a dropshipper? Here are the ins and outs that will be helpful to you if you want to build a profitable business.

Dropshipping can be tremendously profitable if it is done right. To be successful you have certain work ethics, policies and habits that help them make money.

It doesn’t take a computer guru. If you have access to a computer and are willing to put forth the effort required, you can start and maintain a thriving home business.

If you have questions, don’t try to muddle through and get by on guesswork. Instead, ask your wholesale product source, and they will answer your questions.

How Does Dropshipping Work?

Dropshipping works on the premise that you sell products you don’t actually have. Your product supplier houses the inventory, which means that you don’t have to hassle with it at all.

When you sell a product, your wholesale product source packages and ships it to your customer. You pay the product supplier only after a product is sold and you have collected the money for it. Successful dropshippers know that this frees them up to sell, sell, sell!

Kibo Code Quantum Training

As with any online business model dropshipping can be overwhelming until you have a proven system to follow. One of the most streamlined and easy to follow systems for beginners is the Kibo Code Quantum, here is the link to the review I wrote if you want to learn more about it (http://bestonlineaffiliates.com/aidan-booth/kibo-code-quantum-review)

Picking A Niche

To be successful in dropshipping, you must have a good niche. A good niche is one with a high enough consumer demand to ensure a steady flow of traffic and potential customers. Smart entrepreneurs who want to make money at take the time to research thoroughly before deciding on a niche.

Trustworthy Supplier

Before getting wholesale products for resale, anyone who wants to have a lucrative home business in dropshipping is careful to shop around and find a trustworthy wholesale product supplier with true wholesale prices that are low enough to allow plenty of room for profit on each sale.

Selling Only High Quality Items

A savvy dropshipping businessperson sells only high-quality items, knowing that the business will only be as good as its products. Before doing business with a product source, make sure that the merchandise is of high quality and unlikely to malfunction.

If you want to make more sales, it often helps to sell brand-name products. Online shoppers are afraid of being ripped off, so if you offer famous brand-name merchandise manufactured by companies they know and trust, you are one step further along the sales conversion process.

Putting In The Work

Success in a home drop shipping business largely depends on your work ethics. You must understand that even though you work for yourself, you have to work and put forth the effort required to make sales.

While it’s OK to take unscheduled breaks and days off occasionally, if you find yourself making a habit of it, stop and get back on track. To be successful make a schedule and basically stick to it.

Deliver The Best Customer Support

Those who are dropshipping on eBay, Amazon and other ecommerce platforms understand that customer service and maintaining good feedback and detailed seller ratings are crucial to success.

Always deliver excellent customer service, reply to messages from buyers or prospective buyers promptly and courteously and be willing to go the extra mile to keep your customers happy.

People who understand e-commerce, or sales in general, realize that you can’t compete on price alone. The most effective way to get ahead of your competitors is to deliver better customer service than they do. Research has shown that most consumers are willing to pay higher prices for a product if it comes with great customer service.

Good Marketing Techniques

If you want a booming home dropshipping business, you must use good marketing techniques. This should involve email marketing, social media marketing and more.

Be proactive about driving traffic to your listings or your website/online store. Stay on top of marketing strategies and use free services available online to track which methods work best for you.

Avoid Low Inventory Suppliers

Dropshipping can be a disaster if your product supplier fails to keep you apprised of low inventory as well as out-of-stock notices. You should check on the policies for this before you enter into a business deal with a wholesale product source. Over-selling and then having to cancel orders is a bad practice and will bring you to grief with a lot of unhappy customers.

Good Record Keeping

To be as successful as possible you must keep good records. Record keeping is important for your taxes, as well as showing your progress ⎯ or lack of it. If you don’t keep accurate records of your sales, you won’t know how well a product performed for you.

The Bottom Line

There are no actual secrets to successful dropshipping other than follow a proven system. You can have a profitable home business if you are a hard worker, self-motivated and maintain good record keeping. Marketing is key to success in dropshipping, as it is in any sales business.

Should you write long or short emails? Well the short answer is it depends. It depends on your list, your relationship with your list and the niche.

Advice From Anik Singal

The biggest advice from Anik Singal is to mix it up. If you usually write long emails, throw in a short one here and there.

If you want to learn how to make money with email marketing read my Inbox Blueprint review to learn more, you don't even need a website.

Short Email

If you are sending people to a sales page that converts really well then write a short email with a link directing them to that page.

Short works better if the page converts really high because you don't have to do the usual preselling in your emails. A short email will be much more effective in this situation and you will get a much high click through rate.

Long Email

Long emails tend to have a lower click through rate. There are of course exceptions to this especially if it's something they are expecting to receive.

You usually get a higher click through rate on short e-mails and less on longer emails. However the revenue generated by the longer email might still be better than the short one. It all depends on what page you are sending them too.

When you write a long email you have an better opportunity to presell the product you are selling. You can tell them exactly what they will be purchasing and you set up expectation in their minds and get them excited. With the short email your message is pretty much click this link.

Summary

It all depends on the page you are sending them to whether the email you send should be short or long.

The other thing to keep in mind is to switch it up sometimes. If you are always sending long emails, try sending some short emails and see what the results are.

The same goes for if you are always sending short emails, mix it up and send some long ones. It is good to change things up once in a while and you tend to get a better response out of your email list that way.

Test It Out

Test it out for yourself, if you have an offer that has a high converting video on it send short emails.

If you are selling something that cost a lot of money and you have to persuade the person more then you should write a long e-mail.

Remember you will get less click thru but the clicks you do receive will be more likely to result in a sale.

Remember that what works for someone might not work for you. It can also depend what niche you are in. The key is to test it out and follow the results. You can learn everything you need to know from Anik with his Inbox Blueprint 2.0 review.

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Internet Marketing with Anik Singal