There’s a common saying in Internet Marketing.. you’ll have heard it regularly. It says that “the money is in the list”. Unfortunately that isn’t strictly true. In truth, the money is in our customers pockets until they decide to part with it. So technically, customers are the most important part of our online business. Buying, money-ready customers are the only cog in our business which CANNOT be removed!
So, it’s really important that we take care of them as best as we possibly can. We need to keep them satisfied, whatever this takes! One disgruntled customer will be able to ruin your internet reputation faster than you can imagine, and you’ll need 1,000 raving fans to begin reversing the damage. The nature of the internet (and media outlets in general) is such that bad news travels FAST and praise takes time.
How do we keep customers happy? Well here’s a few ways to get you started:
1. Underpromise and Overdeliver
Make sure that your products/services, whether they are free or paid, provide much more value that you promised. It’s a great way to get people on your side and raving about you. There’s a couple of aspects to this:
- Firstly make sure that your products are actually of a high quality. I know it sounds ridiculous but I’ve heard many marketers say “Oh, it’s OK.. they’ll like it. And nobody asks for their money back anyway!”. PLEASE don’t take this attitude. You should never release ANYTHING that you wouldn’t be delighted to buy yourself!
- There’s a great way to increase your “over-delivery”. I like to write a sales letter for my products and then take a few things out of the copy. This way the product is sure to contain more than they expect, giving them a really nice surprise upon purchasing the product! It’s simple, takes a few minutes to implement.
2. Refund With A SMILE
If you’ve been selling online for any length of time, then chances are you’ll have sold something and had someone ask for a refund. It’s inevitable and impossible to avoid. None of us are perfect enough to give everyone exactly what they want. Our products won’t be for everyone and there will always be those who simply wanted to nosey at what you are offering.
Unfortunately there’s no way that we can know who is just out for a free ride and who is genuinely disgruntled with our products. But, assuming that the refund rate is LOW, we can guess that its the person, not the product. So, refunds are the nature of the internet marketing beast. Please don’t argue it out, just refund. It isn’t worth your time, hassle or reputation to cause problems. You never know who the person on the other side of the battle is, or how powerful they could be. Information products don’t cost you anything so refunding is definately the most painless option. Simple as that.
3. Keeping On Top Of It…
As your customer base grows, so does your potential for problems. The more people that you have buying from you, the more problems, refund requests and queries you’re going to get. So it’s important that you keep on top of it. Nothing annoys customers more than having their “cries for help” ignored. And this is hard.
I’ve found this recently as my business has grown to the next level. I always vowed that I would always run my “support” by myself. There wouldn’t be a support team, it seemed impersonal. I wanted to handle all support queries myself, by personal e-mail. I’ve quickly realised that this simply isn’t possible. No inbox solution in the world is powerful enough to keep you on top of your support queries, however many you get!
So.. I’ve had to go back on my word and employ the services of a help desk solution. And guess what? I should have done it in the first place! Because now its harder than ever. I’ve given myself a lot of extra work because I have to move over to the support desk and make sure that everyone knows that e-mailing me personally for support issues won’t get a reply. Instead, they have to go direct to my help desk. It isn’t fully set up yet, but is mostly functional at: www.MarcMilburn.com/Support.
I STRONGLY suggest that you get your support desks up and running FAST. If you expect/desire your business to grow, then it will be necessary. So you might as well get off on the right foot, start as you mean to go on and set it up now. Even if you can’t afford support staff yet, at least handle help queries through a formal system.
But which helpdesk? Well I’ve played with a few as I was getting myself up and running. Most marketers, including my mentor Alex Jeffreys, use Kayako. It’s a smart solution which allows user registration for submitting tickets plus a knowledgebase of FAQ answers.
But then I discovered the FREE solution Hesk (that’s NOT an affiliate link by the way.. I’m NOT on commission – just giving you my personal recommendation!). Hesk is a simple piece of software. Just upload it to your server, configure it to a simple database and you’re ready to go. It’s fully customisable with a bit of playing around. Your customers can submit a support ticket which can be accessed and answered by multiple staff members. You can create unlimited staff member accounts with different levels of access and different permissions. You can even programme canned responses to answer questions that you are asked frequently. Oh and it has a knowledgebase function too. Users can’t register to become a member of the support desk, they have to enter their name and e-mail everytime they submit a new support ticket, but I prefer it that way.
Oh and the best bit about Hesk? It’s FREE! As long as you don’t mind having the (very small) credit displayed at the bottom with a link to the Hesk website. Or you can pay the very reasonable $39.95 if you wish to remove the credit. I think it’s a bargain though! I’m going to do so as soon as I’ve finished setting it up. I like to support good work like this.
That’s all for today.. a simple recommendation. Keep your customers happy and they’ll keep your bank account happy for a very long time. I’ve discussed the top 3 ways to do it in this blog post. I suggest you get started today!
Don’t forget to comment with your thoughts/ideas……
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February 24th, 2010 
Marc 
Guess what! It’s FRIDAY!! My favourite day of the week I reckon… especially because in about half an hour I’ll be off out with my girlfriend Rachel and my appointed sister, Fran for a night out “on the tiles” in Sheffield City Centre. Always a cracking good night with plenty of alcohol, drink and… booze. Or as the french call it… ‘Le Booze’. 
Driving Traffic (While You Snore…)
Okay, okay, so maybe you don’t snore. Most people think they don’t. But you’ll see what I’m talking about…
Welcome back to my blog.. I’m excited to be writing this blog post today. I’m going to talk about something that has truly revolutionised my business and it can for you too. In fact, the information I’m going to share with you could actually transform your marketing success.
I’m aware of how “hypey” that sounds, and I admit that its a bold claim. But I know you’re going to love what I have to share with you today, if you put it into practise.
I want to talk about traffic (which you probably guessed from the blog title). In talking to friends, colleagues and students, the one thing that I hear again and again is that driving consistent, regular traffic is the major stumbling block that people face in their online business. And it used to be in mine.. and then I learnt how to be “smart” around traffic. In this blog post, I wanna teach you to be smartaround traffic too.around traffic too
Let’s assume that you have yourself a selected niche… a topic, subject or group of customers that you’re going to market to. They’re hungry and ready to buy. They have a need for information and you’re going to give it to them. After-all that’s probably the number 1 requirement in any online business. They are the folks who are going to be handing you shed-loads of dosh in exchange for your products.
Next you create a product and a fancy looking sales page with graphics, bells and whistles. It looks great and its bound to sell. Now you just have the biggest hurdle of all. Getting traffic to that website. After all.. no matter how INCREDIBLE your product and sales funnel is, without traffic you’re going to struggle to make sales.
But that shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, there are SO many ways to drive traffic, right?
I mean just think about:
- JV Partners and Affiliates:
- Article Marketing:
- Forum Marketing:
- Blog Commenting:
- Twitter:
- Ad Swaps:
- PPC
- Social Bookmarking
- Search Engine Optimisation
And the list goes on (and on and on and on and on…). In fact there are FAR to many traffic generation techniques for me to list here. But there is one HUGE problem, which makes all of this so damned hard…
WHO has the time to master ALL of these different traffic methods – and get them to work smoothly together as one engine? Certainly not me, I’m too busy doing other important things within my business.
So, here I plan to offer you an alternative. The chance to put all of your traffic struggles behind you and automate the processes described above.
Well, perhaps “automate” is the wrong word. What I really mean is to “delegate”. I began doing this recently and it’s really paid off within my business. If you have any form of product up and running, and you want to try running traffic then you should seriously try this out.
I am, of course, referring to outsourcing. I’m aware that outsourcing is a scary word, especially when you’re still pretty new. It’s really easy to think that its unaffordable and difficult. But honestly, in this context, it isn’t.
So here’s the plan. First of all, familiarise yourself with the process of outsourcing. Essentially you go to an outsourcing side like Odesk.com, Guru.com or Elance.com and post a “job”. It’s just a job description, explaining exactly what you’re looking for people to do for you.
After that, people can begin “bidding” for the job.. they place official quotes, through the sites’ system and you can send e-mail correspondance to make sure that everyone is “on the same page” as far as the job is concerned. Once you’ve selected a bid you can then begin working with that person.
Now normally, these would be for one-off jobs like web design, writing a sales letter, designing an eCover, etc. But no one is stopping you from recruiting someone for on-going services like traffic driving. So here’s the plan:
Go onto one of the aforementioned sites (I prefer elance.com or Guru.com best), register (FREE!) and post a job. Explain what will be required, in as much detail as possible and then offer (for example) an 8 hour contract (with the possibility of a 40 hour rolling contract afterwards). Again, fit the timings of it all to suit you and your budget.
You’ll be amazed as you watch the quotes roll in. I have found good workers who are happy to work for as little as $5 per hour, doing solid work such as article writing/submission, forum posting, blog commenting and much more…
Once you have selected an appropriate candidate then give them explicit instructions explaining exactly what they should do, how long they should spend doing it and give them a worksheet to fill in and e-mail to you afterwards with links to everything they have done. If you’re impressed with their work after 8 hours, then give them a 40 hour contract (or whateer you can afford) to do the same thing.
Seriously.. once I started outsourcing my traffic, I’ve never looked back.
Enjoy and prosper….
Marc
P.S. If you want to see a video which explains how to go about this in a slightly more organised fashion… click here.