If you are an experienced eBay seller, you probably already have a significant amount of experience with marketing techniques targeted at new customers. But are you aware of the fact that one of the greatest potentials for new profit lies with customers that have already shopped with you? That's right. Repeat customers often constitute the backbone of a successful eBay business. This is because repeat customers require less work. Once they have completed a few successful purchases with you they are reluctant to move to a new seller. And why should they? It makes no sense to buy from someone who they don't know when they already have a friendly seller that they are used to buying from. Because of this, you can make a lot of money off of these faithful customers rather than spending large amounts of energy looking for new customers.
What I would like to explain to you in this article is how to exploit this situation to the greatest effect. First we need to define a couple of terms:
LTV LTV stands for Life Time Value and represents the total value of a given customer to your eBay store. The more a customer shops with you, the higher their LTV and the higher your profits.
Sticky Markets These are classes of products that encourage repeat purchases. Batteries, paper towels, dog food, even DVDs, basically anything that people buy on a regular or semi-regular basis, fits into this category. These types of products are the best basis for establishing customers with high LTV since they are things that people buy over and over again.
It should be obvious to you by now that you can make quite a bit of money off of repeat customers. But it doesn't stop here. You can increase both the overall profits of your eBay business as well as its efficiency (that is, the ratio of the amount of time you put in to the amount of money you get out) by channeling some of your marketing energy into reaching out to previous customers rather than trying to find new ones. Here are three great ways to start doing this:
Build a list of former customers and keep in contact with them. You can do this automatically with a program called Aweber.com. Every time that a customer purchase one of your products, Aweber.com will automatically add them to your list. In addition this tool can be used to send automatic promotional emails to every customer on the list. This is a great free marketing tool that requires a minimum amount of time, and since you are only sending it to extant customers your success rate will be higher than usual!
Use the "Selling Manager Pro" to send out instant confirmation emails. Many eBay sellers use this service as a way to continue contact with their customers during the final stages of the purchasing process. However, you can also use this tool as a free advertising technique. Since your customers can still add additional items to their order for four hours after it has been placed, you can encourage them to do this by offering free or discounted shipping on these items. Make this clear in your automatic follow up emails, and your customers are highly likely to respond.
Send complimentary "Discount Cards" with the order. This will do two things for you. First, it will boost your reputation as a professional seller and increase customer's confidence level. Second, it will encourage your customer to make another purchase using the discount that you offer them. You can offer a nominal discount such as "Free Shipping on Your Next Order" or "10% of Any Purchase Over $20" and your customer will appreciate the gesture. Print the cards on plastic, not paper, as this will look more professional. If you do this right, the small investment you make will more than pay off. Andrew Minalto runs a successful eBay & E-commerce business as well as personal coaching programs for eBay sellers to learn how to make more money on eBay.
