Free and Almost-Free Marketing

Some kinds of marketing are very expensive. Other kinds are relatively inexpensive. This lesson is about marketing that is free or nearly free, and of the many kinds, such as publicity or word of mouth, we’ll concentrate here upon two types:

• Enlarging the size of each transaction—free
• Going after repeat sales—nearly free

The first, enlarging the size of each transaction, costs you absolutely nothing. The customer has already decided to make a purchase from you. All you’ve got to do is make it a larger purchase. You can do that by offering a deluxe version, by offering the item or service as part of a package, or by turning the single purchase into some kind of subscription. That means if a person hires you to wash his or her carpets, you say, “I can give you a very special price if you sign up for carpet washing every three months.”

The cost to enlarge the transaction is zilch. Customers don’t become offended when you make the offer. Instead, many of them appreciate it. A bookseller decided to put three books, all related, into a wicker gift basket. If a person was interested in one of them, the bookseller would point out the gift basket. Very often, the person would buy the whole package, tripling the size of the transaction. The cost of marketing the package was zero.

Your publisher can even ask Amazon.com to do this very trick for you on the massive bookseller’s site. It’s called Buy X Get Y (BXGY). This promotion gives you the opportunity to offer customers an incentive by giving them an added value for purchasing two or three items simultaneously. The BXGY offer is merchandised on the detail page of both X and Y titles, which will be paired with each other during the promotion period.

You can be certain that car dealers, such as BMW, provide a lot of upgrade training to their sales staffs. A person drives to a BMW showroom with the idea of buying the least expensive model. But that’s probably not going to happen—due to that upgrade training. Upgrading the size of a transaction is simple because the person has already decided to buy from you.

Your job now is to come up with deluxe versions and package offers. Perhaps you can even link up with one of your fusion marketing partners and make a “commission” on each sale for which you’re responsible. Again, that represents no cost to you.

Repeat sales are a method of nearly free marketing—one with a payoff very disproportionate to your investment. Why do you suppose most businesses lose customers? Poor service? Nope. Poor quality? Nope. Well, then why? Apathy after the sale. Most businesses lose customers by ignoring them to death. A numbing 68 percent of all business lost in America is due to apathy after the sale.

Misguided authors think that marketing is over once they’ve made the sale. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Marketing begins once you’ve made the sale. It’s of momentous importance to you and your business that you understand this. I’m sure you will by the time you’ve come to the end of this lesson.

First of all, understand how entrepreneurial authors view follow-up. They make it part of their DNA because they know it now costs six times more to sell something to a new customer than to an existing customer. When an entrepreneurial author makes a sale, the customer receives a follow-up thank-you note within forty-eight hours. When’s the last time a business sent you a thank-you note within forty-eight hours? Maybe once? Maybe never? Probably never.

The entrepreneurial author sends another note or perhaps makes a phone call thirty days after the sale. This contact is to see if everything is going all right with the purchase and if the customer has any questions. It is also to help solidify the relationship. The what? The relationship. Entrepreneurial authors know that the way to develop relationships—the key to survival in an increasingly entrepreneurial society—is through assiduous customer follow-up. And we haven’t even talked yet about prospect follow-up.

Back to the customer. Entrepreneurial authors send their customers another note within ninety days, this time informing them of a new and related product or service. Possibly it’s a new offering that the entrepreneurial author now provides. Or maybe it’s a product or service offered by one of the entrepreneurial author’s fusion marketing partners.

Entrepreneurial authors are very big on forging marketing alliances with others throughout the community and using the Internet throughout the world. These tie-ins enable them to increase their marketing exposure while reducing their marketing costs, a noble goal.

After six months, the customer hears from the entrepreneurial author again, this time with the preview announcement of an upcoming sale. Nine months after the sale, the entrepreneurial author sends a note asking the customer for the names of three people who might benefit from being included on the entrepreneurial author’s mailing list. A simple, no-cost method is provided. Because the entrepreneurial author has been keeping in touch with the customer—and because only three names are requested—the customer often supplies the names.

After one year, the customer receives an anniversary card celebrating the one-year anniversary of the first sale. Perhaps a coupon for a discount is snuggled in the envelope.

Fifteen months after the sale, the customer receives a questionnaire, filled with questions designed to give the entrepreneurial author insights into the customer. The questionnaire has a paragraph at the start that says, “We know your time is valuable, but the reason we’re asking so many questions is because the more we know about you, the better the service we provide to you.” This makes sense. The customer completes and mails the questionnaire.

Perhaps after eighteen months, the customer receives an announcement of still more new products and services that tie in with the original purchase. And the beat goes on. The customer, rather than being a one-time buyer, becomes a repeat buyer and the kind of person who refers others to the entrepreneurial author’s business. A bond is formed. The bond intensifies with time and follow-up.

Let us put this in numeric terms to burn it into your mind. Suppose you are not an entrepreneurial author and do not understand follow-up. Let’s say you earn a $200 profit every time you make a sale. Okay, a customer shows up, makes a purchase, pays, and leaves. You pocket $200 in profits and that one customer was worth $200 to you. Hey, $200 isn’t all bad. But let’s say you were an entrepreneurial author.

That means you send the customer the thank-you note, the one-month note, the three-month note, the six-month note, the nine-month note, the anniversary card, the questionnaire, and the constant alerting of new offerings. The customer, instead of making one purchase during the course of a year, makes three purchases. That same customer refers your business to four other people. Your bond is not merely for the length of the transaction but for as long as, say, twenty years.

Because of your follow-up, that one customer is worth $400,000 to you. So that’s your choice: $200 with no follow-up or $400,000 with follow-up. And the cost of follow-up is not high because you already have the name of the person.

The cost of prospect follow-up is also low and for the same reason as with customers. However, prospect follow-up is different from customer follow-up. For one thing, you can’t send a thank-you note—yet. But you can consistently follow up, never giving up and realizing that if you’re second in line, you’ll get the business when the business that’s first in line messes up. And they will foul up. You know how? Of course you do. They’ll fail to follow up enough.