We've done postings before on how much cheaper and easier it is for small business owners to increase sales through existing customers as opposed to searching for new customers. In fact we did a a posting a little over a year ago (my how time flies) comparing your existing customers to oranges or baskets of oranges. In that posting they had a list of ways to increase your sales from your current customers. Now comes an article that provides five different ways in the the article Five Ways to Increase Sales From Existing Customers in which they suggest:
- Show your face.
- Ask customers what they need.
- Sell additional services.
- Exceed expectations.
- Incentivise your employees.
These are good general suggestions, but it got me curious. I wondered what some of Tacony Corporation's most successful sewing machine dealers were doing to increase sales to their existing customers, so I visited a few Web sites and got a few great ideas. All of the stores hold classes on a regular basis, post sewing projects, and have special offers. Some of the sites posted testimonials and coupons and brought in celebrity instructors. Notice a trend here? All are designed to keep customers excited and coming back to your Web site or store even in an off season, if you have one.
A couple of other ideas are to hold a new machine owners' lunch once a quarter at your store. Or how about a a tailored e-mail to new machine purchasers with suggestions as to how they can get the most out of their new machine? Last but not least, how about a yearly event such as we posted about here (the event is mentioned in the last third of the posting). Do you have any other suggestions to add?