Keith Alston's Info Blog
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By reading this blog post I am assuming you are a fellow marketer like myself, trying to make a living selling goods or services in this massive superstore called ‘www.The Internet’.

Over the last few years I have learnt so much about the in’s and out’s of online marketing and made many many mistakes, both large and small but all important in attempting to be the best I can at what I do. To me the importance to being a success is not about getting in there first with the next big product launch and mailing the world, his wife & even his dog about it just to get a few bucks into your PayPal account. It’s the trust and respect I can achieve by giving customers what they want not what I want them to have.

Ok! this may slow down my aspirations of being a multi millionaire by the end of the month but hey, I’m in this for the long haul and I genuinely get a great feeling when I know my efforts are rewarded via ethical marketing and trust. I’ll never make a great salesman, I’m too honest for that, I’ve dealt with many sales reps here in the real world and although many are great at what they do there are as many who just want to get the money and run.

The main point of this post is to relay the importance of your customers in every aspect of your day to day running of your online empire..no matter how large or small. You will never achieve your goals without your best assets..Your customers, respect & honesty. Here are a few of things you should do in order to gain any decent level of success online.

If you selling goods or services online then you need customers to make money, It’s obvious. So it should be equally obvious that if you have a satisfied customer then that person will want to do business with you again and the odds are that the person will tell someone else how good you were to do business with.

However, if you treat a customer badly or without respect over one little conflict or request then that person will probably never do business with you again and you can bet that person will tell a few others how bad you are to do business with. Getting bad press is so much easier than achieving good press. So here’s  how to keep your customers…

Respect….
The place to start is to treat all of your customers like gold. Treat them well always! You should give them respect and your personal attention all of the time. There is no exception to this rule. These are the people who give you THEIR money, without them you would not make any money at all in marketing. Always remember this!

This part is crucial, there will be sometimes when you don’t feel like being nice. Some people are not nice or reasonable and border on being total jerks and there’s no doubt you’ll run into more than your fair share of people like this. This includes people who accuse you of cheating them, people who don’t seem to understand what you tell them and the worst kind (IMO) are the people who think you and the rest of the world owe them big time!
It’s your job to be the greatest business owner ever and do everything within reason to try to make every single person happy. However, if it gets to a point where you simply can’t continue helping someone because they are just impossible, then move on. It will happen BUT just make sure you are polite and respectful no matter what the customer does. Do not give them any ammunition to bring your reputation into dispute.

Over-Deliver….
It’s amazing how customer problems drop dramatically when you over-deliver to them. For example, you promise your customers a bonus gift if they buy a specific product. They buy the product and you give them three bonus gifts. That’s over-delivering.
Always do it. By doing this simple step you will be building unbelievable customer loyalty and you’ll also cut-down on most of your customer problems before they even happen.

Follow-Up….
Following-up with your customers is a great marketing move and a ‘must’ to retain customers, yet most people just don’t do it.
All it involves is a quick email and nothing more. A few days after someone buys something from you just send them a brief email thanking them for the sale, if everything is okay and if they have any questions for you.
Remind them that you are there for them and then say another thanks and end the email. Do not try to sell them anything else, not at this time. You can send another email a week later, but make sure you first send one email that’s just a “thank you”.

So those are the key tips to keeping your customer base. In short just remember these 3 things:

1…You need to always be nice to your customers
2… You should always over-deliver with all your products
3… Always follow-up on your sales.

If you do these three things, you’ll find that your customers will remain loyal and just as importantly, they will let others know just how good you really are. I aim to be around for many years and if I can gain a great reputation like many other marketers.. John Thornhill, Sharleen Raven, Adeel & Bobby to name just a few then I will be ecstatic.

Here ends the lesson

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