9 Ways to Create the Right Customer 'Experience'

Why do some customers spend money with you and others don’t? Why do some customers come back again and some don’t? You could really increase your profits if you could get them to spend money the first time and get them to return. Return shoppers provide a larger profit margin because you did not spend as much to get them to come back as you did to get them to purchase the first time. Here are some things to do:

Customer service is about the ‘experience’ not the sale
The customers ‘experience’ is what you are trying to create. When sales people appear uncaring and/or unhelpful you lose a lot of potential sales. Create a company policy on interacting with each and every customer that comes in the store. For ecommerce, interact with live chat, FAQ’s and follow up from visiting the site. Also have strategies to prevent communication breakdowns with customer and how to settle customer disputes.

Shopper Education
The general public has become much more savy in shopping these days. They will search online for the best price and customer reviews. You must provide information in the store as well as online for today’s shoppers. If they can find more information about another product, there is a greater chance you will lose the sale. In store and online you can provide fact sheets, video, publications and reviews.

Male vs Female
Women account for 60% - 80% of buying decisions in today’s market. Understanding how men and women shop is a must. Many industries have not embraced the fact that the majority of the buying decisions are made by women. Your store set-up and website design should appeal more to women – don’t ignore the men – but remember 60-80%!

Create an atmosphere to maximize potential
Customers will spend more money the longer they are in your store or on your website. In store – create an area for men and women to sit and relax – provide coffee or water – use video to educate and entertain. Online – design an entertaining and educational experience that will draw them to different products. Remember – relaxing, fresh, visually stimulating and of course clean.

Available and Open
It is a must to be available and open to customers. Not just being in the store – be with the customer assisting them in their shopping ‘experience’. Online – make it very easy and obvious how to connect with a live person via chat or phone. This will lead to increased sales and increased return purchases. Remember – the experience is more important than the sale.

Layout/Design to increase sales
Know where to put what merchandise in your store and have related products on the page for your ecommerce store. Place the sale items in a store in the middle to back of the store with visible signage to attract the customer. Online – always have related sale items on the page.

Create an environment that expresses emotion and product related
Your in store environment should be one that causes the customer to react emotionally. Appeal to the target market. The look and features of your website should do the same. If you sale sporting goods – create a competitive atmosphere with action photos of popular athletes and sport video games. This will maximize your sales and create enthusiastic customers.

Show your trust and ethical business
A study (www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog) has shown that saying “trust us” will increase the customer’s perception of fair price, caring, fair treatment, quality and competency in your business. Create an atmosphere and reputation of high morals and ethics will attract consumers. Display in your store and online any involvement in community and charitable organizations.

Create an environment for feedback
Ask for your customers opinion. You will build a larger loyal customer base by asking and implementing ideas from your customers. You don’t know what they want or if they had a ‘great experience’ unless you ask.

You may not think these topics are related to marketing – I strongly disagree – anything that is related to increasing leads or sales is marketing. Customer service is marketing and the ‘experience’ you create for your customer will make or break your business.

7 Tips To More Effective Email Marketing

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any direct sell tool available. You have an interested audience that is waiting for you to give them a reason to buy from you. So is it that easy to get your customer to take action? If you avoid some of the more common mistakes many email marketers make, you will increase the number of customers that take action and buy from you and not the competition.

1. Get permission - All email marketing campaigns should use permission based email lists. The customer has given you permission to send them emails about a particular topic. If they gave you permission to send them information about helpful tips only, don't send them a sales piece without asking first. I delete many emails without opening them if I have not given permission.

2. Use an Email Service Provider (ESP) - You think you can do this without an ESP? It is possible, however; it is alot less expensive and less risky to use an ESP. They provide many benefits in design and format, but the most valuable benefit is keeping you off blacklists. If you try to place all the email addresses in the 'To:' line - there is a very good chance you will end up on several blacklists. It also violates the CAN SPAM Act and will get you blocked by many ISP's.

3. Links to all your inbound marketing - Providing links to all your inbound marketing; blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and all others; gives the customer the opportunity to be a part of all your conversations and information. The more you interact with a customer, the more they buy. Obviously you have a link to your website. Your website should be the foundation to all marketing.

4. Always provide an unsubscribe option - Very simple - it is the law. Don't make it an inviting link, but always have it on each and every email.

5. Don't use too many pictures - The pictures should compliment the text, not dominate the email. Many individuals have images blocked on emails. You do not want your email showing up blank on someones screen. In order to have a call to action, you must have good text.

6. Know the recipients name and gender - You do not want to send a women's accessory ad to men. In order to personalize the email, you must know the individuals name. So, when asking for a customers email address, also get their first and last name and gender. Remember this when you are developing your sign up page.

7. Don't just sell, sell, sell - Yes your main objective is to have the customer take action and buy. However, you must earn the customers trust in the process. Providing 'useful' information and 'value' to the customer - what the customer perceives useful and valuable - will increase the customers trust in you and your product. This will lead to buying from YOU.

These 7 tips seem to be common sense - you would be surprised at the emails I receive that break at least one of these points. With the right information and message - your emails can produce lead generation and purchases.

Inbound Marketing - Issues

There are still dinosaurs out there that have not embraced inbound marketing. The traditional advertising marketing is the only thing they know and 'it has worked for many years', so why change. If this sounds like a client or the CEO of your company - then this article will be very helpful.

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6100/10-Steps-to-Get-CEO-Approval-for-Online-Marketing.aspx?source=Blog_Email_[10+Steps+to+Get+CEO+]