Keep,Winning,Those,Customers,T marketing Keep Winning Those Customers That You've Already WON

Awhile ago, I got an email from one of the "gurus" I follow and it shocked me. The gist of it was this person wanted to trade services for a household item.To say it floored me would be an understatement.What was worse was a few days later t Automation technologies represent a fundamental aspect of any modern industry. The major types of industrial automation solutions, such as DCS, PLC, SCADA, and MES, are used on a large-scale in process and discrete industries.DCS technologie

Have these things ever happened to you?You buy a cup of coffee from the neighborhood café, and asthey hand you your receipt you get a calling card sized,attractively designed "loyalty record," promising that ifyou come back for 8 more cups anytime within the year you'llget your 10th cup for free.A few days later you call for pizza, and the person on thephone announces: "Congratulations! This is your 5th orderfrom our store in the past 6 months! You automatically geta Preferred Customer's Value Card with this delivery, FREE!"And when the card arrives you happily discover that you cannow get a 10% discount on every succeeding order you placefor the rest of the year.The next day you go to your local supermarket for groceries.As the cashier rings up your purchases she asks if youalready have a Privilege Card, and since you don't have oneyet she encourages you to get one -- just keep today'sreceipt along with other receipts from their store (fromprevious and future purchases), and once the recordedamounts total up to $500 or more, you get a "Privilege Card"that rewards you with discounts and product giveaways everytime you return to their store.Now, these 3 experiences might make you shake your head andsay "déjà vu," but it isn't really as Twilight Zone as itseems.Smart business people know that it costs more time & moneyto win over new customers than to keep old ones. And thisis simply what these 3 experiences are all about: keepingold customers loyal, therefore getting more profits fromtheir repeat purchases in the long run.And WE could certainly benefit from learning from these"loyalty development" strategies, even if we're doingbusiness entirely online.Be More Than A Bookmark-----------------------Most of the successful brick & mortar loyalty programs areoften created out of necessity.Chances are, several stores offering the same productssuddenly decided to invade the same target market, and the"been doing business since our grandfather" stores quicklyrealized they now had to compete for the same customers whodidn't use to think twice about buying from them.This same phenomenon can never be more parallel than whenrunning a store on the net: It takes customers practicallythe same amount of effort to visit ANY website in cyberspace(i.e. the same neighborhood), so you MUST give them acompelling reason to particularly visit YOURS.You think it's enough to tell them to "bookmark" your site?Think again: Chances are, they've got another 2 megabytes'worth of bookmarks, too -- and they've never had the chanceto visit most of them again.4 Kinds of Loyalty Rewards--------------------------Now that you're looking into ways to keep winning theclients you've already won, here are the 4 kinds of "loyaltyrewards" that other businesses have successfully used, bothonline and off: 1) Outright DiscountsNothing convinces more people into buying something (orsomewhere) than the thought that they'd be getting more forless.So capitalize on this "I got a better bargain than everyone"mentality by giving loyal customers exclusive "bargainprices" for an entire year or more.Give them a card (or a username & password) that they coulduse to get discounts on ALL succeeding purchases made for ayear -- then give them the option to renew their cardprivileges, either through more purchases or an outrightrenewal fee.2) Points Equals ProductsBut if you're not too keen on having too many people gettingtoo many products for marked-down prices, then considersetting aside a number of items as giveaways, which loyalcustomers can get after earning enough "points."(Something those credit card companies are doing all thetime!)Just award a proportionate number of points for eachpurchase a client makes, then encourage them to earn morepoints so they can get this or that for free.At its best it will encourage them to make more repeatpurchases -- and help you get more marketing mileage whenyou brand those giveaway items as well.3) Raffle Tickets For PurchasesThis is quite similar to the "points for purchases routine,"but instead of "points" they need to accumulate a totalamount in purchases in exchange for a raffle ticket; usuallythe amount required is low enough to encourage people to getmore than one ticket, but high enough to make the effort ofprinting tickets worthwhile for the store.(Online, however, you don't need to have anything printed:Just create uniquely generated pages and/or assign rafflenumbers for your clients to hold on to, and enter them intoyour draw!)The prizes here have to be larger, too, ranging fromelectronic gadgets to vacation trips. These will dependentirely on how long you want the raffle period to go on,how many raffle tickets/numbers you are prepared to assign,and how much money you can actually spend on prizes.And speaking of big prizes, it pays to recruit partners fora raffle, too. Not only could they help provide for prizesout of their own inventories; they could also help spreadthe word by distributing raffle tickets, themselves.4) Club MembershipFinally, you can also choose to reward loyal clients bycreating an exclusive membership club just for them: a clubwith specific benefits, discounts, and privileges.You can either host this club entirely online, or maybeschedule offline activities as well (so members could getthe chance to actually meet each other).Just be sure to make club membership advantages attractiveenough for them to want to join -- and synergetic enoughwith your existing business focus so it will benefit YOU aswell.But Don't Forget the Bookmarks!-------------------------------Although not entirely effective on their own, bookmarks canalso increase your loyalty programs' success when coupledwith the right rewards.So keep on telling surfers to "bookmark your page," changeyour bookmark icon into a discount card, and alter your pagetitles to make them remember the benefits of returning toyour store.Given the right incentives, clients are usually smart enoughto return to the same store over and over -- and WE shouldalways be smart enough to appreciate their coming back. © Tatiana Velitchkov