Sell — After Closing the Deal

I was leafing through my old copies of business magazines and came across a great article from Direct Marketing magazine on selling after you close the deal. Small businesses often make the mistake of ignoring or failing to communicate enough to customers after their purchase, and doing so reduces the chance to promote to your own customer base.

The article then raised 4 accepted facts in after-purchase marketing:

1. For an average company, 80% of its new business comes from existing customers.
2. You are likely to get strong referrals from your customers within 3 months of their last transaction.
3. A new customer tends to buy from you again in the next 3-6onths.
4. It costs 5x as much to sell to a new customer as compared to an existing customer to buy again from you.

Whether you are selling online or not, it is important to specifically ask your existing customers for referrals. If you are marketing on the Web, sending a pass-along-to-a-friend offer may even prove fruitful.

Spend time reaching out to your customer base – they already know you; they’ve bought from you so it takes less effort to convince them to buy again from you. Remember that a sizeable portion of your profit comes to those who are already your customer.