May
21
What are you doing right this second to reach your past customers? I’m talking about the ones that haven’t bought from you in the last 6-24 months. If you’re like most of us in the business world, the answer is little to nothing.
This is interesting because you probably know the value of a repeat customer. And I bet you know that 80% of your business will come from that loyal 20% of buyers that wants exactly what you have to offer.
So while most of us are blue in the face trying to get new customers to buy, we forget how much easier it is to make sales to past customers.
And who are these “lost” customers buying from? They are probably buying from your direct competition. This means that the longer they aren’t buying from you, the more likely that they are buying from your competition. They may never buy from you again.
For most of us the problem is that we don’t know how to get these past customers to buy again. Or, we don’t know how to do it without seeming desperate or bombarding the past customer with promotional offers.
I’ll show you exactly how to bring back old customers and get them to buy more than they’ve ever bought from you in the past.
First let’s figure out how much this can make you by the end of the month. Make a list of all your past customers that haven’t bought from you for the last six-twenty four months. Then calculate the average price per customer order.
A good customer reactivation campaign can win you back anywhere from 10% to 50% of your past customer base. We will be really conservative and say that your next customer reactivation campaign only brings back 20% of your old customers.
Let’s say your average order is 100$ and you have 2000 dormant accounts. 20% of 2000 is 400 past customers. Even if you are only able to reactivate 20% of this customer base, that is approximately 40,000$ in sales in the next week or two. Not to mention that with the right customer service in place, these customers will continue to buy again and again and again. Imagine if you started one of these customer service reacquisition campaigns every year or so. What would this do to your bottom line? This one technique can make a good business great and a great business unstoppable (hence the title of this article.)
So let’s get these customers back. What’s the best way to reach these past customers? I’ll give you a hint. Anything but email! Smoke signals, ring them on their pager, or call them. Use anything but email. An email from a company you haven’t done business with in a while could be considered spam and reported as such. Granted, some businesses only have email contact with customers. If you can choose between email or snail mail, go with snail mail.
I recommend that you send letters the old fashioned way. Spend the extra money and use good old snail mail. While it may cost more in the short term, it will pay off in the form of sales. In fact a past customer is FIVE TIMES more likely to open a letter through normal mail than email.
How to craft the ultimate customer reactivation letter
The basic formula for the letter will look like this:
1. Thank the customer for doing business with you.
2. Give them a gift.
3. Give them a special reason why you are writing them. (for example the special offer)
4. Put a time limit and scarcity on this offer (this last step is the key!)
5. Add an element of exclusivity
1. Thank the customer for the business you’ve done with them so far. Gratitude will get you everywhere in life. You’d be surprised how many people would buy from you at this point just for sending a thank you letter from a business they bought from in the past.
2. Give them a gift. Don’t skimp on this part. Give them something with a lot of value. This isn’t a coupon usually, though it could be. The best bet is probably a downloadable product like an ebook or an audio. Something that is easy enough to produce but will be valuable to your customer.
For example, if your site sells mountain climbing gear, you might produce a 5-20 page ebook devoted to the most important knots used when climbing, available through a “secret” link on your site. Or maybe you can offer a guide to learning how to free climb. It doesn’t have to be directly related to you product. It only needs to be valuable to your past customer, and relevant to their lifestyle.
Digital products are the best because your customer will get the gift now and you can avoid the hassle and cost of shipping.
3. Give them a special reason for writing them. In this first letter our reason for writing them is to give them a gift and let them in on our special deal. In later follow ups with customers you should always have a reason to contact them other than “hey buy my stuff!” For example whenever you contact them later on down the road, maybe you are contacting them to let them know about a special “insider” deal only available to past customers. Or maybe it’s to let them know about your new product launch. Anything but “hey look at our stuff more.”
4. Put a time limit on the offer. This is key right here. This one step will change your closing ratio on this venture like you wouldn’t believe. Tell them that this special link is only available for the next 5-10 days.
5. Exclusivity. Make sure you tell them not to share the link with anyone. This is for insiders only. Even if you would like the entire world to see this link, make sure they know to keep it a secret.
“What product do I offer to my customers that will get them to buy again?”
Pick the product that fits the majority of your customer base, yet has enough of a profit margin to allow you to offer your customer a discount. Digital products such as ebooks and audios are great because you are likely going to be making a high volume of sales in a short period of time. A thirty percent jump in sales might be too much overhead for some companies, unless the process is automated with the digital delivery of products.
So the main point when deciding what product to offer is that it must appeal to the majority of your customer base.
Now let’s look at a sample letter you might use if your business is a website that sells marketing information. We’ll make up a business and website. Let’s say your site sells marketing information products, seminars, DVDs, the works.
Dear Sean,
I’m writing to thank you for being a valued customer of (Your business here) and for the business you’ve done with us in the past.
After checking our records we noticed that we haven’t heard from you in awhile. We wanted to check in and make sure that you were still getting the most out of the products you’ve bought from us in the past. If you have any questions about anything, always feel free to give our office a call and I’ll personally make sure that your questions get answered.
I’m also letting you know about our new 20 page special report on establishing yourself as the expert in your chosen niche. This report is only available through (your website name here) and it sells for $39, but I’d like to give you a free copy as my thanks for being a customer.
To download your report, go to (Your website name here)/nichereport.html.
I’m looking forward to keeping you as a happy customer for years to come. In fact, to show you my appreciation, I’ve set up a “Special Access” web page that features our newest DVD set at a full 25% discount.
This page is for our valued customers only and I’d appreciate it if you did not share it with anyone else. You can take advantage of this discount at (your website name here)/specialaccess.html. However, because these DVDs are sure to go quickly, I can only extend this offer for the next 10 days.
Thanks again for doing business with us. I hope you enjoy the report I’ve created and I know you’re going to love the great price on this DVD collection that we’re offering for a limited time.
Sincerely,
Mail this on a normal piece of paper with a normal envelope. Avoid headlines, brightly colored paper, exclamation points and any other marketing clichés you can think of. Think more about customer service and helping your customer than blasting them with a sales pitch. You want this to be a letter from a friend. They should feel great to receive such a letter. The more warm and personal the letter feels the better.
Nolan Barger works privately with companies and individuals to educate them on finding existing assests within their business. His specialty is helping business owners find additional streams of income already lying dormant within a business.
He is the founder of Brain Takeover, the marketing firm set to launch in late 2008. He can be reached at nolanbarger@yahoo.com
May 21, 2008
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