For your business to continue flourishing, you need to pursue and get more new clients and enter new markets, but it is crucial as well that you do not neglect your existing customers who have supported and given your business the success that you enjoy today. According to Harvard Business Review, it’s five to 25 times more expensive to get a new customer than to retain an existing one.
In business, both current and previous clients are crucial to your business for the following three major reasons:
- They have done business with you, and hence they have an experience with you hence they are likely to do business with you again. As you also know, it is not an easy task to get new customers hence as you continue selling to the already existing clients you will keep getting some revenue.
- Existing customers can give you invaluable feedback on how your services are. They will tell you whether your services are good enough and whether they are satisfied or they have an issue which you should look into.
- Existing customers act as a primary source of referral and new business. So through them, you will get access to more new clients who already have a positive image of your firm because your existing customers have already spoken positively about your business to them.
6 Simple Strategies That You Can Use To Sell More To Your Existing Clients
Personalized Marketing
It does not matter if your business is big or small, you can give your customers personalised marketing services also known as one to one marketing or customer relationship management.
The trick here is as simple as A, B, C. lavish all your attention on your regular client and your customer is likely to reciprocate by being a consistent customer to your store to buy your goods and services.
As you turn all your attention to your client, ensure that you create a conducive environment where they can freely share information about themselves which are business related which you can use to serve them or contact them the next time they visit.
The more your customers feel as though you are giving them personalised service, the more they are likely to be buying from your store for a very long time to come.
Reward Them
You can increase your sales to your existing clients by rewarding them for their loyalty to your store. When a customer becomes loyal to you, if you can reward them in a perfect manner, you are likely to create a vital link between your business and your clients thus improving your customer satisfaction and on your part, increasing your sales.
Here are some methods through which you can reward your customers:
- Give them bonus products or service
- Point programmes whereby each product has points, and when your clients amass a particular number of points, you reward them.
- Purchases promotion plan whereby if your client buys three items of the same kind, you will give the fourth one free.
- Lower rates for regular customers.
Keep In Touch
You can increase your sales to your existing customers by keeping in touch with them and maintaining a business relationship with them. Your customers are likely to keep coming to your store if you have a good relationship with them. You can create a good business relationship with your customers by giving them good products hence they will trust you and your products or services.
When keeping in touch with your customers, keep the following things in mind:
- Frequency of communication, either monthly or quarterly
- Mode of communication – the best method of keeping touch with your clients is via either email, phone or postal letters.
- What to communicate – a keep in touch email or letter is not a platform for hard selling, it should be information based like what products or services you deal with, any promotions that you have and so forth.
Thank Them For Referrals
Find a way that you can thank your existing customer for any referral that they make to your store and ensure that they feel that you value their efforts to boost your business. By doing so, you will make your clients feel recognised. This is likely to encourage them to make more referrals hence increasing your sales.
You can thank your client via an email, a card, a voucher, a phone call or even a bonus free gift.
Give Guarantees
A guarantee is a powerful tool for making your existing customer keep coming to your shop instead of going to your competitors.
A guarantee is when you assure your customers that if they have a complaint about any of your product, you will take their grievances seriously and that complaining to you is worth their time and effort. This will prove to your customers that you care about them.
Delight Your Customers Always
Any businessperson is capable of satisfying their customers. But to distinguish your customer satisfaction from your competitors, you should continually and consistently delight your customers. If you can do this, then be sure that your clients will keep coming back and your sales revenue is likely to improve.
You can continually delight your clients by always exceeding the expectations of your customers every time they visit your store. If you can be consistent in meeting your customer’s expectation, you can be sure they will keep coming to you.
Here is how you can delight your customer, you have written either an eBook or article about your business, and you are sure it will be of help to your loyal customer, give it for free to your client. Do not do this only once, every time you write another one, make an extra copy for your customer.
By so doing, you could have given your client a reason as to why he/she should stick to your business and spending their every penny on your store, and you know what that means to your sales, right?
Good article, thanks for sharing.
One question:
“Studies show that it’s 75% easier and 6 times faster to convert a sale from an existing customer as compared to a new client”.
I’ve seen and heard this quote many times, is there a source for this?
Hey Gary, I’ve checked our notes for this article and it seems the original source for that quote was lost. I’ve replaced it with a similar sentiment from Harvard Business Review: “According to Harvard Business Review, it’s five to 25 times more expensive to get a new customer than to retain an existing one.”
Thanks for the heads up on this, we always like to make sure we’re giving accurate info!
Informative Article! Existing Customers play an important role in the business. Sales can be increased to the existing customers by keeping in touch with them and maintaining a business relationship with them. When AI will be implemented customers can be retained in a better way. There are AI tools like CSAT.AI, MaestroQA, ScorebuddyQA, and Salesforce Einstein that have been adopted by organizations to maintain the existing customers.