Repeat business

Once you have secured the attention of a customer that has purchased their initial goods or services from you, you have completed the hard part – converted a prospect into a buying customer – so don’t be afraid to follow up with cross-sales offers.

For example, when you deliver goods to a customer, do you promote other products that you supply or offer a discount for a repeat order?

Many firms adopt this strategy by:

• Inserting a current publicity leaflet or brochure with the goods physically delivered, or by
• Following up orders by email, a “Hope you found our recent delivery useful…”, with a link to your website and other offers.

In this way you build your relationship and increase footfall.

Three factors influence turnover:

• The number of customers.
• The price of your goods or services, and
• Footfall, the number of times a customer buys from you in a trading period.

In most cases, increasing footfall will have the most impact on turnover. Footfall is the number of times you can encourage customers back to buy more from your business.

So, be on the lookout for ways to encourage your customers back. Once you start thinking in this way, you will be surprised by the number of strategies you could apply.