In today’s highly competitive world, it’s more important than ever before to take advantage of every possible marketing scheme. Since the advent of the Internet, you now have to compete with others in the industry on a worldwide basis. With continual innovations being made, it can be difficult to keep up with all the methods being used. One of the concept’s you can use is customer marketing where you have your customers do the marketing for you, and there are a variety of ways to achieve this.
1) Go the Extra Mile
Customers like businesses that go the extra mile to help them, extending their care long after the sale is made. However, it can be difficult to find the time and resources to do this. Many business owners fail to see this investment as a potential for return. For starters, customers develop a sense of loyalty. This means even though other companies may begin fishing for their business when they become aware they are in the market for what you have to offer, your customers will want to stay where they are treated like family.
Another great way you can implement extended service is to incorporate a method such as the one used by ITIC. They offer IT courses, which is nothing unusual in itself, but unlike other schools, however, they go on to help their students after graduation with things such as providing advice on resume writing, interview skills, coaching and internship/work, experience program and helping them find jobs to start their careers. While this doesn’t provide the business an immediate financial benefit, they are essentially creating living, breathing proof that their program yields the desired results students seek.
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2) Offer Incentives
People liked freebies. A highly effective way to get your customers marketing on your behalf is to offer free products or services for having their friends download your apps or otherwise promoting you. With social media, this can quickly spread the word about your brand. Consider that the average Facebook user has 338 friends. Therefore, just having 10 customers post about your products and services exposes you to around 3,338 people!
3) Promotional Products
Another way to take advantage of the general public’s love for freebies is to offer free promotional products. This can be as simple as offering free pens at a business expo to investing in coffee mugs to give out at a popular local event. Whatever the product, it will feature the name of your business along with your contact information.
When choosing a promotional product to give away, think of one that will have a high rate of exposure. For example, while pens are relatively inexpensive, most people don’t pay much attention to what’s written on them. However, if you chose to have your company logo and phone number on a t-shirt, the person wearing the shirt will interact with dozens of people in a single day, not to mention the fact that they’ll likely wear it on multiple occasions. Keep in mind, the more you’re willing to invest, the more it will pay off.
4) Testimonials
It’s always a good thing to be able to learn lessons from others. We are often admonished by our trusted friends and family members to avoid doing business with certain establishments. However, it’s not as often that we receive a glowing recommendation. People are in search of a reputable business that offers exactly what you do, and you can get them looking your way when you offer testimonials from real customers. If you ever purchased a single thing from Amazon, you probably didn’t pass the chance to check out user’s reviews and comments on the product you’re interested in. For many people, these reviews can be a deal maker, so use them to your advantage. You can have these advertised anywhere from your own website to radio and television ads. It’s important to note that you should obtain true testimonials as fake ones are often not convincing or revealed as frauds.
5) Real Life Examples
You can use all the eloquent words in your lexicon to try to convince potential customers to try out your products or services. However, the fact remains that they have many options. You have an under-utilized tool at your disposable with your current customer base. Many tend to focus so much on acquiring new customers that they forget the ones they already have. When you keep this in mind, not only do you keep them feeling satisfied and engaged, but you can also increase your chances significantly of gaining the trust of their network of friends and family.
