Why Building a Customer Base Is Essential To Sales

This post was written by Internet Marketing John on December 18, 2011
Posted Under: Internet Marketing Information

All successful Internet marketers know why building a customer base is essential to sales.

It is much easier to sell your product or service to someone you have had prior contact with, than it is to sell a complete stranger.

Whether it’s a participant in a forum, an email contact or an existing client; selling to someone who already knows you is much easier.

Total strangers have walls built around them.

Rightly or wrongly, they instinctively distrust sales people.

There is no doubt that it is harder to sell to a total stranger who does not know your credentials, whether or not you are honest and trustworthy or believe that your product or service will benefit them.

This is precisely why building a customer base is essential to sales in any type business.

People you know who trust you, will most likely buy your product or service and continue purchasing additional goods from you in the future.

If your goal is to have a consistent recurring source of income online, building a customer base is essential to sales and your future product endorsements.

The three most often used strategies for building a customer base are listed below.

  • Participation in online discussion forums

Giving advice and free help to online forum participants about products or services in your niche area of expertise, will soon get you recognized as an authority.

As forum participants realize the worth of your advice, they will perceive you as a “teacher” of sorts and gradually begin to trust you more.

As the bond becomes greater, your product or service recommendations will be looked upon as “gospel”.

  • Building a mailing list is the most common strategy used to build a customer base.

Building a customer base is essential to sales only if the customer base is targeted.

There are a zillion strategies used to collect email subscriptions however, to get targeted email lists, you need to demonstrate your value to your subscribers by offering an incentive to people to opt in to your list.

Targeted websites that are loaded with valuable free content will attract visitors to the site.  Offering a valuable incentive to get people to opt in to your mailing list using a squeeze page will ensure a targeted customer base.

Special reports, free instructional videos, free learning courses, eBooks, etc. can be used as incentive to collect email addresses from your visitors.

Your website is providing your visitors with VALUE, and your free offering is providing the additional INCENTIVE for your visitors to sign up.

  • An often overlooked source for building a customer base is to include your existing customers.

Provided your customer support is stellar, past sales are the obvious source for building a customer base.

When your customer gives you their money,  it should not be the end of the relationship.

Unfortunately, many businesses for what ever reason fail to capitalize on current and past sales.

You can have a lifetime source of income if you keep in contact with your customers and maintain a relationship with them after the sale is completed.

Many “old time” customers will buy from you in the future just because you maintained a relationship with them.

Think about it! If you had 100, 500, 1,000 or 5,000 customers all “champing at the bit” to buy your newest product before you even release it; how awesome would that be for your business?

As you can see, in addition to saving you a lot of time, effort and advertising money, building a customer base is essential to sales.

The Ultimate List Builders Course can help you create and grow your own responsive database list of customers for maximum profits.

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