Building Customer Loyalty

The key to business success is building customer loyalty. Whether it's an MLM business or an everyday brick and mortar business, holding on to existing customers is as important, if not more important than soliciting new customers to keep feeding your list with fresh subscribers.

Customer loyalty is the key to your business growth and profit, because loyal customers generate a continual revenue stream through repeat purchases and they bring your business-increased profitability at a lower cost. As in any other revenue building business, to succeed as an online marketer, you will need to understand all the secrets that are available to keep growing your business and apply them immediately. So how do you build business relationships to gain customer loyalty?

Everywhere you go online they tell you that you must have a list to succeed. "The Money Is In The List". Ever heard that before? Of course you have.

Although it's very true, it doesn't get you very far until you understand exactly what makes your subscribers and customers eager to pay for your products. Over and over and over again. If you don't know how to build a business relationship to keep your subscribers enthusiastic, eagerly waiting for your newsletters and articles and rush to buy your product without any regard for brand, your list is virtually worthless.

No pun intended.

Hands down the main key factor of a responsive email list is the Trust Factor. If you earn your subscribers trust, you will have much more success when it comes to advertising and selling products and information to your list. Without the trust of your subscribers, they will be leery when it comes to pulling out their credit card to buy from you.

Below are some simple steps and techniques you can use to build business relationships and gain and keep customer loyalty.

1) - Earn your subscribers' trust. Honesty is essential to earning customers' trust, and that trust is the key to gaining customer loyalty. Earning customers trust is important to the success of any business. Being honest goes hand in hand with not hiding anything. Let your subscribers know your Identification and contact information, such as your name, physical address, email address and telephone number. It is important that you let your subscribers know how to contact you for assistance. The more they know about you as a person, the more they'll trust you. And when it comes to asking for money, nothing is more important than trust. This is the reason why running an online business can potentially be twice as hard as running a brick and mortar store. You miss out on the face to face between you and your customers. Your customers have to feel like they know you, and that is why I am a huge fan of online video. At least they get to see you, even though you don't get to see them.

2) - Give Them What They Want. When your subscribers sign up to your ezine or newsletter, they are doing so for a reason. They want the information you are telling them they will receive. Keep giving them that, and theyíll be happy as can be. Diverge from that, and you could find yourself losing subscribers quicker than you can get them.

Tips: Ask Your Subscribers what they want. Don't guess. Use this great, easy to use online tactic to find out exactly what your subscribers will buy from you or what subject they want to learn about. You could hold a contest. By sending them simple questionnaires or surveys you will get a sense of your market's needs, wants and preferences. Give the winner a quality prize and/ or gift that he can't find elsewhere. Getting your subscribers involved like this will also keep them interested in your emails and help get more emails opened. It will also make them feel like they are part of something. We all want to be part of something. Don't we?

3) - Don't bombard your subscribers with a ton of useless junk. Warning: Be sure to be selective in what you promote to your subscribers of course. If you suggest a product that turns out to be a scam or hype, your subscribers will likely blame you first for recommending it to them. You really can't afford to take a hit like this to your reputation. In case you haven't noticed yet, bad news travels really fast on the internet.

Two thing you really need to watch, as a publisher, is how to advertise your product or service and what products you endorse. Nothing ticks off a subscriber more than thinking a publisher is only in it for the money. This will happen if you advertise too much, or if you advertise the wrong products too often. Believe me, I've made that mistake before and it takes a long time to recover. Sending out an email newsletter with too many ads and a little or no quality information will hurt your reputation.

Remember, content is king, and there is no better place to prove that than to your subscribers. You have everything to lose, and nothing at all to gain by stuffing your Ezine with ads, hype and crap. The ads in your Ezine and newsletters aren't the only things you have to worry about. This also includes any ads you send out that are separate from your regularly scheduled newsletter. Sending out an ad each day is not the way to go if you want to build customer loyalty. It is the way to go if you want everyone to unsubscribe from your list. It's o.k. to send emails and random notes with ads, but personalize them every once in awhile and give away some free stuff also.

4) - Make your subscribers your friends! Give your subscribers a good sense of who you are. It is important that your subscribers see you as a real person, because they will likely never meet you in person. One thing every successful publisher does is just talk about whatever is on their mind in each issue of their Ezine and newsletters. They may talk about their family, their favorite sports team, politics, the weather, anything thatís going on. They usually ask the reader to write back a few comments about it, or the reader will just write back without being asked to. This creates a bond between the publisher and the reader that could result in future sales and future partnerships. This also a great way to create content for your blogs and websites. Search engines like Google love new content, and comments are exactly that. New unsolicited free content.

5) - Over Deliver. Nothing makes people happier than knowing you pay attention to them. Make sure your customers and potential are clients delighted by giving them more than they expected. After they order your product or sign up for your publication, give them a gift or a bonus that wasn't advertised, in addition to any gifts or bonus you promised they would get. I'm not talking about any ebook or software they can download from any website. Give something that no one or only a few other people are giving away. This kind of gift and bonus says that you put a lot of attention and thought into helping them succeed. Something that you created yourself. They will be able to pick up on that.

Remember, you are dealing with real, intelligent, educated people. Not a mob of hungry cattle. These guys are usually smarter and better educated than most of us. Keep that in mind. Don't try to give them a bunch of hype or they will be gone forever. It's kind of hard to get them back once they smell a scam or anything that could even be considered dishonest. In other words, don't tell them you are making $10,000.00 a month if you're not. I would rather listen to somebody making $500.00 a month and is honest about it. Also from time to time and in special events send free gifts just for the heck of it. By continuously over delivering, your subscribers will realize that you are trying to help them learn what they need to know, and they will appreciate it when you give them the tools and information they need to succeed. This is obviously geared more towards strong relationship and they stay loyal customers longer.

6) - Help Them Out. Besides giving your subscribers what they want, helping them with whatever they need help with is the best way to earn customer loyalty. While this works on an individual basis, instead of taking care of all of your subscribers at once, the people you are able to help will be very grateful, and will probably tell their friends, colleagues and neighbors about you. Positive word-of-mouth is a powerful way to acquire new customers and build customer loyalty. If one of your subscribers sends you an email asking for help, help them out as much and as soon as you can. Don't just give them a quick, one word answer. They'll probably just be back asking for a little more information. Just go ahead and tell them what you can, and be nice about it, even if you think itís a stupid question. Solving problems is what builds businesses.

7) - Don't Use Hype ( I know I already said it, but it's that IMPORTANT) I'm sure you've seen this before. It seems to be everywhere you look people trying to hype-up their offer to make it sound better than it is. Most people just want you to be straight with them. If you just stick to telling the truth about a product, without making it look like hype, your subscribers will have much more respect for you. Personally, I think its stimulating when someone sends me a sales letter and outlines how I can benefit from it without trying to make it sound better than it is. Most people can tell the difference, and will most likely be turned off by the hype. Don't say it unless you know it to be true. That's what honesty means.

When you combine all of these keys, you'll build a stronger relationship with your subscribers and they will stay loyal customers for years. All you need to do is find a way to include all of these keys into your business marketing strategies, and you'll soon find yourself getting new subscribers, building relationships with and earning customer loyalty day in and day out. Remember that your customers want to be your friends and they want to feel included. Don't mess with that and you will be far ahead of your competition.

If you like what you read please feel free to leave a comment below. I would truly appreciate it.