There’s only three periods during the customer’s journey where you should consider giving them something for free.
Those periods are, before they become a customer, when they become a customer, and after they stop becoming a customer. Oh Jon, you need to explain that.
I will. When I say free, I don’t mean giving away the store, giving away all of your lovely, expensive products. I mean for you to encourage them.
Yesterday, we talked about hooks when you hook the customer in. Well, it’s not just hooking the customer in; you have to encourage the customer to stay.
[player]
And by free, this could be absolutely anything. It doesn’t have to cost you much, and hopefully nothing at all.
For example, how about a free report, how about a free checklist, how about a bar of chocolate or candy? Someone recently put Mars bars in their packages that they delivered to us.
Now, we don’t think they did a good job because they just threw the Mars bar in, and we thought, um, that’s strange. It looked like it could have been a mistake.
However, we’ve had others who have included a candy or a tiny little box of chocolates with a message to say, thank you.
How about that? It makes us feel special and it makes us remember them.
And at the end, when they’ve left you, when they have not bought from you for a while, if you monitor these things, how about encouraging them to come back with something for free?
Look at their past purchasing history. Create some kind of report from that and write an explanation of why they should be buying from you.
This does not have to cost you money. You don’t have to dip your hand in your wallet.
Or when you offer them your service, or when they’re buying something from you, you may be thinking, “I don’t have to give them anything else; they’re actually buying.”
Well, how about surprising them? For example, if you ship products, Zappos.com of the USA had a trick up their sleeve.
The USA is a big place and next-day shipping is unusual. Customers expected their goods in four or five days but Zappos would always upgrade them to arrive in two or three days.
The shoes always arrived earlier than expected and the number of social media responses mentioning the faster delivery was phenomenal.
It all goes to enhance the experience and build the future relationship. And, at very little cost to Zappos.
Remember, when a customer is buying from you, it’s an experience to them. And it’s an experience they want to remember.
But that experience is at any stage of the process; before, during, after, through their entire lifetime journey. Offer them things for free to encourage them to love your products, your service and your brand.
Tuesday Toolbox Tip
It’s Tuesday and time for a Tuesday Toolbox Tip. Last week, we recommended Canva, today we are going to recommend Picmonkey.com.
For anyone who has ever used Photoshop (I personally have never been anywhere near it!), it’s complicated. And, nowadays, you have to pay for it online; it’s expensive.
Picmonkey is free. They do have a premium version where you will get extra fonts and a few extra tweaks. It’s not necessary but it’s only $2.75 per month.
Click here to instantly download our FREE Book
“The 71 Ultimate Marketing Tools”
Picmonkey does pretty much everything you need to use in image adjustment and enhancement. From cropping to re-sizing, to adding touches, adding overlays, filters, fonts, etc.
Please go look at Picmonkey. It’s a joy to behold. You will be surprised. It’s worth it, just like you.
