I love this approach and teach: Turning customers into your sales force. Read on …...
"The most effective sales team you'll ever find is enthusiastic customers. The reason is simple enough: Customers aren't paid to praise. When a customer becomes a passionate believer in your brand, it means you truly earned it. Whenever they buy your product or service, customers feel like special club members or rebels for your cause.But a repeat customer alone doesn't create a sales team. The trick is to transform that dedicated buyer into a missionary who spreads the word and converts friends, family and associates into customers, too. By building great word-of-mouth, you nurture an all-volunteer sales force that generates leads, boosts sales and leverages marketing dollars. Here are three basic ways to persuade people to talk up your business story. As you develop the customer sales force, you'll find other options suited to your business.
1. Set Up a Referral Program
The easiest starting point is to ask customers who are already fans to recommend you. First, let them know you're creating a referral program by sending out a letter or a postcard that explains how much you value their business and that your continued growth depends on their referrals. You'll get a better response if you include an incentive—say, a discount on the next order or a gift for every referral sent your way.To keep building advocates, send your referral program letter to every new customer within a few days of his first purchase. You might also ask for written testimonials about your products, which can be included on direct mail postcards, mailers or brochures or posted on your Web and tucked into e-mail marketing. Send these testimonials to targeted customer lists, along with your appropriate sales materials.
2. Elevate Your Profile
Whether you sell up market services or mass-market widgets, you can generate positive publicity to make your company stand out—although it takes some sustained effort to build recognition.You can publicize on your own—for instance by highlighting your family's background, like Perdue does, or its homegrown recipes, like Colombo yogurt does. Your goal is to weave an emotional story or hook that will draw press.You can also become identified with a cause or a charity. Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, for instance, was founded on only $12,000 back in 1978. But the two owners created a national powerhouse out of high-priced unconventional flavors and the good will of philanthropy. Before that, few companies talked about social responsibility. Nowadays, hundreds do.Either way, the important thing here is to be sincere. Promote only what you really believe in. To begin building publicity, create a personal and company media kit, which can be quickly done with Microsoft Publisher.
3. Choose Smart Partners
By forging alliances with businesses that target the same customers as you do, you'll create a word-of-mouth customer network that refers business. For instance, if you're a pediatrician, you might leave your business cards at the reception area of a local day care center. Likewise, the center might put up some posters on your office bulletin board. A parent who uses daycare services might recommend you to another.Or, let's say you own an auto body shop. You can partner with a car wash/detailing service. The car wash might mail out your flyers along with monthly invoices and also place a stack of flyers on the counter for customers. You obviously do likewise. Takeout delis and caterer provides another matching combo. You get the idea.You can also develop special arrangements with partners to offer discounts or perks—printed on the back of the flyers—that are only available to customers who patronize both businesses.Don't forget your suppliers and vendors. Ask them to recommend you to their customers. Remind them that by referring sales leads or business to you, you're helping to build their business, too. To make it work, you must return the favor.Experts say that customer referrals and word-of-mouth are about ten times more effective than other marketing. When it comes to bang for the buck, you can't go wrong with buzz. It's everywhere you want to be."Best;Barbara