SEOBusiness: Domain stats followed by good old fashioned sales strategies

10/21/2008

Instead of pumping too much money into attracting clicks, why not start along-term customer-focused approach? Manual submission to search engines, and site linking are great for clicks and occasional sales.

Personalized e-mails:
However, sending customers personalized e-mails in addition to the two system order emails (one to confirm order, another to confirm order has been shipped), brings in even more sales than are referred through links.

Ask for the referral:
In this third and customized e-mail, we actually ask for my customer's continued patronage if they are happy with the product, and ask for a referral to his/her friends. It also helps that we offer an additional customized service only available to actual customers, not currently offered by any other site (too detailed to mention here).

Signatures:
Do begin to take stock of services your customers might find helpful, match them with your strengths and resources, and offer them. Do list these in your 'signature' when sending e-mails to your customers. This frees up your time spent on each e-mail.

Convey personal touch:
Do make the effort to convey your personality when communicating with customers. Use a friendly, 'chatting with you face-to-face' tone-simple, straight to the point sentences. Do explain yourself further if you slipped and used terms the customer may not understand.  Do take that extra step to begin AND close your communications with 'thank you for shopping at ---.com', etc.

Real life example of one phase of killer sales strategies:
Once, a customer left a phone message asking us to call her about changing some specific detail of her order. Her husband answered the phone. At the end of the call, I did not think it was appropriate to say 'thank you for shopping at ---.com', since it was his wife who made the order (I'm still kicking myself). Instead, I asked him to please give my regards to (his wife's name). He made a tiny gasp in surprise! I knew then that I had a 80% chance that they would refer my site to their friends.

Customers rule:
The point here is, go with facts and intuition, add warmth, and a touch of your personality, and whisk, whisk, whisk Think all this is a tall order? Oh, kick scream and vent all you want: we are all back in school, learning how to 'bake a cake'. Just when you think you have the perfect 'cake', dynamics change, and we are back to square one. Don't get discouraged, ingredients for baking that perfect 'cake' have some constants that do not change too often- use these to your advantage. We all seek the right combination of skills/value added services that will clinch a sale from our potential customers. Only these days, we want our customers to feel even closer to us- like family. The fact is, customers rule, to get them, you earn them the old fashioned way.

Hammering home one or more of the above 'killer' strategies is crucial to business success in these times. It's time for us 'customer sales seekers' to act...and fast!

About SEOBusiness.com: SEOBusiness.com is a leading business search engine optimization, business software, and business tools resource. In addition to its business directory, SEOBusiness.com as a thought leader in emerging Search trends that leverage all aspects of search engine optimization, search marketing, customer service, site usablility, sales, and marketing, anchored in key variables such as communication.

Contact:
To contact SEOBusiness.com
for a consultation please contact Iris Turner at
communications@seobusiness.com. To add your business to this directory
please visit: seobusiness.com and click on the "Add URL" navigation button.