Spreading Cheer: How to Turn Happy Customers Into Your New Killer Sales Team

No matter what your sales and marketing strategy looks like, there is never a good time to overlook the power of “word of mouth” marketing.

With this, you don’t have to lift a finger.

Your happy customers do all the hard work for you.

They spread the word about your company, product, or service. All you do is sit back and wait for the new business to roll in. Simple, right?

To take full advantage of this strategy, you have to be proactive in turning happy customers into your best salespeople. Here is what you can do:

Related Article: How to Turn an Ordinary Client into Your Biggest Fan

1. Create a Video

If you are selling in a business-to-business environment, why not create a video to showcase your customer in action? You can show what they do and how they use your product or service.

The end result is a video that you and your customer can share on a corporate blog, social media, and through video services, such as YouTube. This approach allows you to expand your reach beyond your audience.

Example: VerticalResponse touched on the benefits of email marketing, detailing how, Bay Area artisanal spice and BBQ sauce crafters S&S Brand, used this strategy to organically grow their list from “zero to hundreds of subscribers.”

What does this have to do with creating a video? Well, the email marketing company didn’t just tell its audience how S&S Brand benefited from its services. It created a detailed “customer spotlight” video that was shared on its own website, on the S&S Brand website, YouTube, and a number of other online properties.

2. Create a Case Study

This is similar to video in many ways, but doesn’t require nearly as much time or resources. A case study is an in-depth look at how a customer is using your product or service to its advantage.

Getting started is as simple as asking your customer to answer a few basic questions about your product. From there, the answers can be formed into a case study and shared with the world.

Tip: encourage your customer to share the case study with their readers.

Example: when it comes to email marketing services, Emma knows a thing or two. The company has used many strategies to boost customers and revenue, including case studies.

Earlier this year, the company created a case study entitled “How university marketers can score a 60 percent open rate.” The study examined how the Texas Christian University Assistant Director of Student Activities uses Dasheroo for tracking KPIs as well as Emma for email marketing to his advantage.

This customer is sure to share his experience, as well as the case study, with other university marketers, thus giving both companies a strong push via word of mouth marketing. Imagine getting all this for creating a simple case study.

3. Show Them That You Care

You don’t want to ask, ask, ask. At some point, you need to give back to the customers who have helped boost your business. You can do this in many ways. For example, it only costs a few dollars to buy and mail a thank you card. Add a personal message thanking your customer for everything they have done.

If you don’t mind spending a few dollars to say thanks, send your primary contact a gift. There are many ideas, ranging from inexpensive to expensive, to consider.

Tip: depending on your industry, sales approach, and resources, you may want to setup an affiliate program. This gives customers even more incentive to push your product, as they receive a percentage of each sale they are responsible for. Here is an excellent guide on how to setup your own affiliate marketing program.

Example: there is an affiliate program out there for every small business. Your job is to choose the one that is best for you and your customers. GetApp tracks the top small business affiliate marketing software, making it simple for business owners to implement the right solution.

When you show customers that you care, such as by paying a fee for each referral, you can guarantee they will work behind the scenes for you.

Related Article: Customer Delight: The New Standard in Customer Service

4. Don’t be Shy

In addition to the above, this is definitely worth mentioning: don’t be shy when asking your customers for assistance. This doesn’t mean you should be overbearing. This doesn’t mean you should expect your customers to work for free.

Here is what it means: it is likely that your best customers are more than willing to help you out. All you have to do is explain what you need, and of course, make the process as simple as possible. When you turn this into a mutually beneficial endeavor and follow-up with a thank you, everybody will be happy in the end.

What do you think about this strategy? Are you ready to turn your happiest customers into a killer sales team?

Spreading Cheer: How to Turn Happy Customers Into Your New Killer Sales Team

Inactive Subscribers are Still Valuable Customers

You love your engaged customers. They read your emails, click your links, and buy your products. With customers like this, it’s clear you’re doing something right. Nice work.

But what about those other people? You know, the ones who don’t even open your emails? They signed up for your list, but you’re not really sure if they care. Why are they still subscribed? Should you remove them from your list? What’s the deal with inactive subscribers?

Believe it or not, there’s more to the story than just opens and clicks. Your inactive subscribers might not be actively engaging with your email, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they haven’t noticed your message or skimmed through your subject lines. Even without a single email being opened, your brand can still make billboard-like impressions on subscribers from the inbox.

In order to understand the true value of an inactive subscriber, you have to analyze revenue. So, that’s what we did. Luckily for us, MailChimp sends email on behalf of hundreds of thousands of retailers and merchants worldwide, so there’s no shortage of purchase data to sift through.

After crunching all the numbers, we’ve got some great news—it turns out that 1 inactive subscriber is worth 32% of an active subscriber. That’s a lot of revenue! We also learned that inactive subscribers purchase more frequently and are less likely to churn than customers who aren’t subscribed to your email list. This isn’t what we and a lot of other folks have said over the years, so allow us to explain a little more.

Learning from 6.6 billion sends

That’s what we analyzed, and those sends included 60 million e-commerce purchases and 40 million email addresses from retailers that use our e-commerce features for list segmentation and automation. We considered an email address “active” if it had opened or clicked in the previous 6 months. If an address had been sent campaigns but not opened any of them, we considered it “inactive.” On average, 61% of retailers’ recipients in 2015 were active.

We then determined if each purchase from these retailers had been made by an active, inactive, or non-subscribed customer. We wanted to know how each customer type would differ on key retail metrics, so we focused on calculating the average purchase frequency, retention rate, and order value.

As it turns out, both active and inactive subscribers outperform non-subscribed customers in every way. Subscribers order at least 25% more frequently, and when they do, they spend at least 6% more than non-subscribers. Most importantly, they are much more likely to return. Inactive subscribers are 26% more likely to make a follow-up purchase than non-subscribers, and active subscribers were actually 38% more likely to come back.

At a higher level, it’s important to note how much revenue comes from each type of customer. On average in 2015, 56% of revenue came from customers who were not subscribed before ordering, 37% came from active subscribers, and 7% came from inactive subscribers. If we only consider revenue from subscribers, 84% came from active subscribers and 16% came from inactive subscribers. Overall, an average of 45% of a retailers’ revenue comes from individuals who were subscribed.

As we noted earlier, 61% of recent recipients are active, but it appears that they account for 84% of subscriber revenue. We can use the following calculation to compare the revenue per subscriber from the active and inactive segments of a list:

When we average this value across retailers, we found that an inactive subscriber was worth 32% of an active subscriber. We performed a similar calculation and found that inactive subscribers are also 32% as likely to convert as active subscribers. These percentages line up because, as we showed earlier, inactive and active subscribers spend about the same amount on an order. Active subscribers end up being worth more because they churn a lot less and keep spending money.

So, how should you treat your inactives?

Good question. Inactive subscribers might not engage with your email, but they still generate a lot of revenue. After all, they churn less, buy more frequently, and spend more than non-subscribers. Here are a few recommendations on how to make the most of inactive subscribers:

• Don’t prune inactive subscribers from your list. This is the opposite of what we and many other marketing companies have said over the years, but the data backs it up: An inactive subscriber is a better customer than a non-subscriber.


• generate segments for inactive subscribers who have recently made a purchase. Then, keep them engaged with customized content.


• Perform A/B split tests on your subject lines. As you test different variations, you’ll start to discover what does—and what doesn’t—grab the attention of your inactive subscribers. If you really wanna go for it, try MailChimp Pro’s Multivariate Testing.


• Encourage all of your customers to join your list. A customer’s inbox is valuable marketing real estate, even if they don’t read your campaigns. Connect your store to MailChimp to automatically capture new subscribers as they make a purchase, and consider offering list-exclusive giveaways, contests, or coupons to your customers to help drive signups.

There you have it—inactive subscribers can still be key contributors towards your bottom line. If you sell things for a living, it’s important to look beyond the open rate and pay closer attention to the purchase behavior of your customers. Fortunately, MailChimp makes it easy to track your purchase data, so you can act on it. Remember: it’s great if someone actively engages with your email campaigns, but it’s even more important that they actively engage with your store.

Inactive Subscribers are Still Valuable Customers

Facebook Marketing: How To Leverage Facebook"s Platform And Reach A Lot Of Potential Customers On A Shoestring Budget

Facebook Marketing: How To Leverage Facebook’s Platform And Reach A Lot Of Potential Customers On A Shoestring Budget

You are about to discover how to maximize your exposure using Facebook’s platform and how to get the best bang for your buck! In Facebook Marketing: How To Leverage Facebook’s Platform And Reach A Lot Of Potential Customers On A Shoestring Budget you will learn the best ways to promote your business or products on Facebook, taking advantage of the various tools available today. You will find out how to properly setup Facebook pages, how to operate them, how to make the best of Facebook groups and of course Facebook advertising campaigns. You will learn how to professionally setup a Facebook page for your business, product or service, how to operate it and and how to plan your content marketing campaign the right way. You will find out how to maximize your exposure using Facebook groups, how to select and use them to attract potential buyers to your Facebook page or even website. One of the best ways to reach the right audience for what you have to offer, is undoubtedly Facebook’s ad campaigns. Using Facebook advertising campaigns, you can choose to display your ads on specific segmented target groups of your choice. That way, you are getting the best ROI for your marketing campaign, as your ads will be only offered to people that have already displayed an interest for what you are offering, dramatically increasing your chances of getting a lot of potential customers. Finally, you will be given clear and concise step-by-step instructions on how to setup and execute your very first Facebook advertising campaign.

Here Is A Preview Of What You Will Learn…

• Getting You To A Quick Start


• Facebook Pages – Kick Start Your Marketing Campaign


• Operating Your Facebook Page The Right Way


• Facebook Groups And How To Make The Most Out Of Them


• Facebook Advertising Campaigns Explained


• Making Your Very First Advertisement With Step-By-Step Instructions

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Facebook Marketing: How To Leverage Facebook"s Platform And Reach A Lot Of Potential Customers On A Shoestring Budget

New vs. existing customers in the affiliate channel

Affiliate marketing has grown considerably over the past few years. The latest Online Performance Marketing Study from the IAB in conjunction with PWC estimated that advertisers spent £1.1bn on the channel in 2014. With the increase in spend, it is no surprise to see the channel coming under a greater amount of scrutiny with data analysis being at the heart of understanding the value delivered.

As affiliate programmes mature, attention is switched to focus on qualitative measurements rather than just volume in order to determine success. One of the metrics that is becoming more regularly considered within the channel is the split of new versus existing customers. While monitoring this split is nothing new, there have been some recent high-profile cases where advertisers have reduced the commission rates offered for existing customers.

With this in mind, it’s important to examine the issue and how best to reward affiliates based on this measurement. Rather than penalising affiliates for driving sales from existing customers, it could feasibly be argued they are maintained with new customers paid on an increased tier. By reducing (or in extreme cases removing) commission for existing customers, an advertiser is effectively saying an affiliate is providing little to no value in driving existing customers.

What constitutes a new customer will vary for each advertiser and sector. For example, some will classify this as someone who has never purchased before while others will stipulate that anyone who hasn’t purchased for a period of 12 months or more should be classified as a new customer.

In addition to the classification of new customers, the length of time an advertiser has traded online will impact their share of new customers. As time passes there will invariably be a tipping point at which it is no longer possible to maintain such a high share of sales from new customers.

With only a finite amount of customers, is reducing commission for existing customers counter-intuitive? Shouldn’t advertisers also understand the additional value that can be attributed to retaining and nurturing its existing customer base?

There is also the argument of who owns the customer. By not rewarding an affiliate for driving existing customer sales, the advertiser is effectively saying that the customer would have purchased from them anyway, irrespective of the affiliate’s involvement. The counter argument to this point is if the customer was going to purchase from the advertiser anyway, why were they interacting with the brand through an affiliate’s site? That interaction is indicative the affiliate had an element of influence over the transaction, despite them being an existing customer.

This is especially true in sectors where there is a homogenous product offering. Just because a consumer has purchased from you before doesn’t mean they won’t purchase the product from a competitor if they are influenced to do so having visited an affiliate’s site. What value should be placed on customer retention when they could have easily transacted with a competitor instead?

It can also be short sighted to reduce commission for existing customers. While some promotional types such as cashback and voucher code sites have levers in place to target new customers, content sites have very little control over whether they are able to attract new or existing customers, but are able to target particular sectors. By reducing commission for existing customers there is a chance they will stop promoting these advertisers, so they will also lose out on any new customer sales too. With another key focus for advertisers being to recruit relevant content sites, reducing commission for existing customers will have a negative impact upon this.

New versus existing customers is a key metric to be monitored but it is important that advertisers are looking beyond this split. The value of the customers that are being driven as well as their post-conversion behaviour – such as how often they are returning and how much they are spending – should also be considered. Affiliates should be rewarded for driving valuable customers rather than penalised for influencing existing customers to purchase from a retailer again. With the significant volume of data available, advertisers are now in a good position to understand the true value of customers referred through the affiliate channel and reward accordingly.

Matt Swan, Head of Business Intelligence, Affiliate Window

Tel: +44 (0) 844 557 9240
Email: @AffWin

New vs. existing customers in the affiliate channel

Attract Customers to Your Personal Brand with Facebook

With the recent Facebook changes on Pages, selling can become more of a challenge for brands because of a lack of visibility in the news feeds. When Pages were first launched it was easy to attract Fans and their engagement. Today, paid advertising has become an important component for Page growth – but there are also professional apps that allow brands to sell without ever having to leave Facebook.

Many brands and businesses rely on their Facebook Page as a place to attract new leads, drive promotions and website traffic. By tapping into social media resources you can attract new Fans and drive sales.

Is it possible to increase your reach on Facebook without a big budget? With the right tools in place you can greatly improve your brand’s presence there.

When you use traditional e-commerce methods along with the social media your brand can greatly increase its bottom line. A simple selling strategy is not difficult to achieve if your business has digital products to offer.

Benefits of Selling on Facebook

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Here are several reasons your personal brand should leverage your sales on Facebook.

• Sales from social media on the rise – While having a professional website and blog is still an important part of your sales strategy, social media is increasingly effective for attracting new customers. Facebook in particular attracts a large number of leads, along with other big networks like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.

• Attract a new audience – Your brand will not only benefit from sales on social media, but also from driving more Fans and followers who can be directed to your website. It is fairly inexpensive to leverage a marketing campaign versus traditional advertising. Once you have established an active and interested community it is easy to draw attention to your products or services.

• Capture new leads for conversions – Depending on which tool you take advantage of your brand can build your email list right from Facebook. These leads can be nurtured with follow-up campaigns that present them with special offers, tips, and other helpful information that can lead to more sales.

• Improved social proof – When a Fan makes a purchase from your Facebook Page and makes a comment this helps spread the word about your brand online. This in turn attracts loyal brand ambassadors who have already decided to trust in you.

Take advantage of apps like Heyo Cart, setting up a Facebook store, or Shopify to get started.

While a Facebook Page is great for sharing content, images, and video, your personal brand can greatly benefit from this top social network just by selling directly there. Over time your community and sales will grow much faster than relying upon marketing and Facebook ads alone.

Attract Customers to Your Personal Brand with Facebook

Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising: How to Access 1 Billion Potential Customers in 10 Minutes (Ultimate Series)

GET BRAND NEW CUSTOMERS FROM FACEBOOK TODAY
Perry Marshall, author of the #1 selling book on Google AdWords, joined by Facebook Advertising specialists Keith Krance and Thomas Meloche, lift the curtain to the more than a billion potential customers on Facebook. You’ll discover how to pinpoint your most profitable audiences–then, how to reach them, convert them, and keep them as your fan, friend, and customer for life.
 
Introducing game-changing strategies, valuable tools and reports, Marshall and team breakdown the magic of Facebook Paid Advertising, including mobile and local. You’ll see how to gain dramatically on your investment–in clicks, customers, and profits.

Discover how to:

-Create a campaign and find new customers in minutes
-Get local customers to visit your store or event
-Profile your audience using Facebook Graph Search and Ad Manager
-Create the perfect bidding strategy for your objectives and budget
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-Track and follow leads and customers
-Achieve measurable profits while you inform and entertain your fans
-Avoid ad fatigue with the perfect Newsfeed Ad

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Ultimate Guide to Facebook Advertising: How to Access 1 Billion Potential Customers in 10 Minutes (Ultimate Series)

Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and More

The NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller―updated with today’s hottest sites!

A friend’s recommendation is more powerful than any advertisement. In the world of Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and beyond, that recommendation can travel farther and faster than ever before. Packed with brand-new case studies from today’s emerging social sites, this updated edition of Likeable Social Media helps you harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing to transform your business. Listen to your customers and prospects. Deliver value, excitement, and surprise. And most important, learn how to truly engage your customers and help them spread the word.

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Likeable Social Media, Revised and Expanded: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Amazing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and More

How digital marketing can help local banks attract – and keep – customers

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The days of most companies solely turning to print media and television ads to market their products and services are long gone. But some community banks have been slow to get the message and are missing out on instituting strong digital and social media strategies to draw and retain new customers.

“In general, banks have a case of marketing myopia. They are fixed into the rhythm and routine of what they’ve done in the years past,” said Jacques Hart, CEO of Miami-based Roar Media. “However, the media and social media landscape has been turned upside down and a ‘years-past mentality’ doesn’t cut it.”

Because of regulations in place to protect customer and bank information, a financial institution has to be very cautious with its marketing, and that can slow a bank’s social media strategy. That’s particularly true of smaller banks that often lack the resources needed for a full-blown digital marketing team.

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“Compliance is a thorn in traditional marketers’ sides, and it’s a big thorny bush for digital marketers,” Hart said. But today’s banking customers expect digital and social marketing, and by employing a smart digital strategy, banks can be both safe and maintain an active presence online, he added.

Banks are limited in how transparent they can be when it comes to social media, but a lackluster corporate Twitter account doesn’t mean that banks are behind the times when it comes to technology. In fact, on the backend security and support and customer-facing sides, banks are extremely innovative.

“They are geared, in general, on how a customer can bank now. At the ATM, online, mobile,” Hart said. “The flip side is that while banks have really innovated with their service availability, they haven’t with their digital and social marketing to drive customer engagement.”

The moment of truth

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How digital marketing can help local banks attract – and keep – customers

Instagram Power: Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures

Can you do “real” marketing on Instagram?
 
That was the question bestselling author Jason Miles wanted to answer. So he used his e-commerce company as a laboratory and he began to study what other successful marketers were doing.
 
While some marketers haven’t even heard of Instagram there is a growing group of smart marketers using highly successful Instagram monetization strategies to grow revenue.
 
If you’re not using Instagram to your advantage, this book will help you start now. Instagram is the hottest social media site today: Two years after its launch, the number of its daily mobile users surpassed that of Twitter. Then Facebook purchased it for a billion dollars–and it took the world by storm.
 
In Instagram Power Miles provides everything you need to start marketing on the world’s most popular photo-sharing App. You’ll get it all in a quick and easy to read format. Miles will take you from setting up an account, to implementing the ten proven monetization strategies, to integrating Instagram with your complete marketing strategy.

Whether you’re a kitchen table entrepreneur, or a corporate marketer, this book will become one of your most trusted resources.

Click Here For More Information

Instagram Power: Build Your Brand and Reach More Customers with the Power of Pictures

Must-See Marketing: Buick courts younger customers

A weekly digest of the most important stories and ideas in advertising and media, from our colleagues at Marketing.

This week in Ads You Must See:

Other items of note from Marketing:

Buick is hoping for a comeback by courting young customers.  Its new campaign and tagline “That’s not a Buick” is intended to change consumers’ perception that the brand is only for those just around the corner from retirement.

The four-spot television ad campaign is changing the way people view the brand because it replaces the outdated image of stodgy, boring cars, Tony DiSalle, the brand’s vice-president of marketing, said. “It all goes after the same message, which is really challenging the dateness perception that’s in the minds of the consumer,” he said.

Read more here.

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Bloomberg announced that it’ll launch a 24-hour Canadian business TV channel that’s aimed at the business community.  Bloomberg TV Canada is set to launch in the middle of this year, and will have about 35% of its content produced domestically and broadcast from a new studio in Toronto’s financial district, close to Bloomberg Canada’s headquarters.  In a news release about the new TV channel, founder and majority owner Michael Bloomberg said, “Canada is a vital market for us.”

Finally, the international entertainment corporation eOne is launching Canada’s first Instagram video campaign.  To promote the movie Insurgent, the sequel to teen dystopian blockbuster Divergent, eOne (the film’s Canadian distributor), Facebook and the digital creative and marketing agency Spoke-Isobar have partnered to launch two 15-second looping ads that can be viewed on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.  “Damien Lemaitre, vice-president of media for Spoke-Isobar said Instagram’s platform made sense because of its huge adoption by Canadian teens, and that the team wanted to develop unique content for Instagram users excited about the film,” writes Marketing’s Jeff Fraser.

Watch the ads here.

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Must-See Marketing: Buick courts younger customers

Understanding the concept of Affiliate program: Contacting your customers

Many internet marketer face the problem of finding a right person who can advertise their product to the customer in a right way. And that is where so many of the new advertising schemes and techniques began – first with mass email and postal blitzes which were considered effective if they had a 1% return, and then as the web grew and people became more sophisticated online banner ads and sales. Get all the info you need here.

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Understanding the concept of Affiliate program: Contacting your customers

Make Facebook Work for your Business: The complete guide to marketing your business, generating new leads, finding new customers and building your ... Media Work for your Business) (Volume 1)

MAKE FACEBOOK WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS -Constantly updated Many businesses and entrepreneurs are still struggling to make social media work for them and are either continuing to waste valuable time and resources or giving up altogether. However, businesses that are mastering social media marketing and networking are not only reaping enormous rewards, but also building one of their most valuable assets, a following of loyal customers and brand ambassadors who are going to secure their success in the future. Whether you are completely new to Facebook marketing or you are already running a campaign, this book aims to demystify social media marketing and teach you step-by-step the principles, strategies, tactics and tips to make Facebook work for your business. In this book you will learn all about the benefits of social media marketing, the psychology behind it together with how to use the almighty power of Facebook to: Identify and find your ideal customers Generate and capture new leads Drive traffic to your website Increase sales conversions Build your brand In the book you will learn: How to plan your marketing campaign on Facebook How to create your business page for success on Facebook How to build the right audience for your page How to increase your fans and likes on your Facebook page How to post the right type of content to post on your page How to communicate on Facebook How to create a Facebook posting calendar How to advertise on Facebook How to create contests and events on Facebook How to measure your results on Facebook How and why you should create a blog What to do on your website to increase and capture leads What to do on a day to day basis on Facebook

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Make Facebook Work for your Business: The complete guide to marketing your business, generating new leads, finding new customers and building your ... Media Work for your Business) (Volume 1)