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Practical Ways to Encourage Repeat Sales

This segment, we're going to talk about some more practical ways on how you can get how you can really encourage those past customers to come back and including what to do actually, after the sale will find out that actually your sail, the entire branding experience were talking about earlier, it doesn't stop once you have their money in one's to ship something out, it really does go beyond that, and then we'll also get into doing more of a walkthrough on how to use facebook ads to do re marketing two customers who've offering in the past, or people who have visited your website, or people who are on your emailing email list. So what happens after you make the sale? Your work is really only just begun, so I think a lot of makers, a lot of small business owners, we I tend to think that once we make the sale, once we have the money in our pockets and once we should something out, our work is done there's really an opportunity, an opportunity there after the fact that you can really start...

to also excite your customers and to really build that relationship that you have with them, so some ways that you can do this is to brand your post order emails, so what happens after someone places an order with you? If you have your own website or review depending on the shopping cart that you're using this this might look a little bit different but you would probably get your customer will probably get the typical papal email if they've paid with paypal it will say you just paid so on so this much money and then you might get that thank you email as well and this thank you email is something that you can really brand to be to reflect your own business and to reflect your own personality, so this is actually a great opportunity for you to insert like your social media links tell your your customer to come follow you in in facebook or on instagram it's also a great place for you to just talk about yourself and you may be an even introduce who you are and why you make things that you do this space here like hardly anyone takes advantage of this thank you email so make it look good if you can right make it look branded if you're able to if you're not I don't believe you can do this with etc, but if you have your own shopping cart with shopify it's great there's his app called receipt full that you can send out really nice looking receipts and at the same time asking for a customer feedback we just keep that in mind that those e mails that come after the sale has actually been made that's an opportunity for you to continue that relationship with them so another email would be say for example, if you use some of these paid shipping programs like indicia or stamps dot com worship station you have an option also to brand that email that will tell them that your your package is on the way here's your you're tracking code ran that too put your local and it put your social media in there and really talk a little bit you don't have to get too crazy but you can say that while you're waiting why don't you come join the fun with us in our community over it on facebook or instagram something cute like that could could potentially and it works automatically so what's great about that is you're generating those new fans every day so your order confirmations a place for you to do that your payment accepted email if you run your own shopping cart the nice thing about having your own website also you khun brand all of these emails your customer account email if someone creates an account on your website how can you make that fit your brands so I'm all about the cute right on my website how do I make that kind of interesting how do I make that cute how do I make that that boring customer account email how do I make someone smile from something like that any form of communication you have with your customer is an opportunity for you to build that relationship, it's an opportunity for you to make them feel good, and the tracking a melissa mentioned if you are using some of the paid shipping programs, what you can also do if you have your own website, is after someone places in order with you, they will land on a page that thanks them for their order and that it's kind of like the purchase confirmation page. If you're able to go into that page and also customize that a little bit, there are some aps out there that you can install that make it so that people can share what they just bought on social media. You don't have to go all the way to that extent, but even just putting your social media links on their helps your customer convert into someone who could be a long term customer with you. So every form of communication that you have with your customer is an opportunity to delight. Go back into your web site, even if if you want really want t really do due diligence, sit down and make the test order sit down and go through a web site and see where can you insert some parts of your branding into this experience? Just pretend you're a customer click around, fall through the checkout process and what happens after you check out what happens when you get those e mails? What do you read? Is that the boring standard template that you get with your shopping cart or can you change that around so that you're injecting your voice and your personality into these e mails? I would definitely recommend that you customize this experience for your customers brand your entire experience will talk more about this and how you can do this with your packaging as well but what I also like to do is in every order that I should out I send people packing slip and it looks really pretty and I'll show you a screen shot of what that looks like but what we always him right in pink ink pens it has to be pink we don't use blue we don't use black it always is pink because it's on brand and we say thank you so much for your support we hope you like your necklace love becky so really think of your entire shop experience as a whole your website copy your packing slips your email newsletters your social media how can you brand that? What is your brand right? A lot of times it's easy your brand is almost always a version of yourself and then maybe tweet to match who your customers might be so here's a screen shot of what that packing slip looks like it's all in pink and what I have here also I find this very specific call to action really helps translates translate this customer into someone who could be a social media fan into someone who can be a raving fan. So I say here it's a little bit tiny, but I'll read it out love your jewelry, please follow us and social media and tell us about how you like your purchase. We love hearing your stories and how you were purchased made you smile best of all, send us a picture and then for links to all of our social media sites. On the flip side, I also have a small comment here that says we're happy if you're happy. If you're not satisfied with your order, please email us at in fort tiny hands online dot com having both versions one both spectrums of that is going to be really helpful for having the best experience you can give to your customers for people who are not happy with the order, the moment they open it, they're going to know that you opened that that conversation you asked to have that feedback, they're going to go and email you that. Something went wrong with this order this was not how what they were expected it to be and at least you're helping them and they're telling you about it the worst thing that can happen is they're going to get their package they're going to hate it and then they're not going to tell you about it when you could in reality you could help them pick something out that they would love so really give them the opportunity open that conversation with them and tell them that it's ok for them to tell you if they're unhappy with something and that you're there to help them fix it before I did this I got very few people coming on to social media telling me about how they loved their purchase and after I started doing this with my packing slips people came over to facebook they would type in on a post to my wall saying how much they love the jewelry and don't tell me a story about how they bought like this this guy bought this cookie ring for his girlfriends to engage their tio to propose to her so that was really sweet and a little stories like that you really want to encourage your customers to interact with you or they would take going to instagram and take a photo of themselves wearing your work or if you don't sell products that you can wear you know using your your work and then tagging you in the process and so little snippets like that with health things they're paying and how there's a little, a fun, some texture that says, thank you for your business. We appreciate you with the heart symbol. This is totally on brand for tiny hands. I'm not saying this is exactly how you're supposed to do it, but think about how your brand can add into little things like the's that you might think like who cares about a packing slip? No one looks at that it's an opportunity for you again to do something special for your customer after you make the sale full upto ask for shopping and product feedback, so if if if it's possible for you automate this process, I have friends who take the time because she does sell a more premium product. She takes the time to sit down and send the customer and email to see if everything was all right, and she does this for all. For customers. She does this manually, but it's definitely worth it an offer, an incentive to encourage people to respond. There are aps out there, so you're on shopify I mentioned receipt full is a great app that you can install into your shopify store and what's really nice about it, is that brands or receipt? So the customer gets a really cute little email and also asks for their feet back on their shopping experience and it's really simple is just happy face or a sad face, and if once they click either one, then they're brought to a page where they can then expand on that and talk about their experience. But then at the bottom of that there's also kind of an up sell where, where the app will tell them that we're giving you a ten percent shipping ten percent off discount code here to products that we think you might like anil specifically pick for you for the customer, two different products that they don't already have but that relate to what they bought. So, like there's, so many things that you can do for after the fact that the sale is made to get people to come back and buy again, you can also use a referral program like referral candy, so referral candy what I and by the way, you can get that referral candy dot com and what I like about referral candy. So this is a paid app it's pretty affordable. I believe it starts at fifteen dollars or twenty dollars a month, and then they do charge you for commissions on sales that they help you make, but what you can do with referral candy it's you can tell it to send e mails to customers were bought from in the past, and you can set a specific time period, so maybe two weeks after they make they make in order, so we'll send out an email inviting them to join a referral program for the people who join the incentive is that the the person who becomes the refer gets a specific commission say, and this is up to you, I found in the fashion category, eight percent is pretty good, but again, this goes back to your pricing and whether you can afford to have your customers talk about you and spread the word about you. I do, I think, eight percent that my referrals make refers, make and anyone that they refer to to me get a free shipping or fifteen percent coupon code, and it works really well what's really nice about referral candy to is it doesn't have to work with just your past customers. Anyone can sign up for a referral candy. So a great example was, I once worked with the youtube celebrity, and this, like all she does, is film herself playing video games, but she has a huge following. Yeah, I know people are into that, so I managed to work with her, I sent her some products, and she did a kind of a christmas wish list thing here some cool things that you can buy for christmas and she featured my product in there and because the of the way facebook works it's not like there's a great way for you to link out to people unless you put it in the description underneath the video she posted a referral link to my web site and she made a ton of money because her fans find their they trust her she's credible and they love they love her so they want to be like her so if she has my jewelry they want to be like her and they also want to have my jewelry so referral candy is a great ap or service for you to install let's talk about the perfect and boxing experience so we talked about initially how a customer makes a purchase on your website where they find you and facebook or instagram they go through the checkout process I now want you to visualize this process when someone goes to their mailbox and grabs out your pack your your order and how you can bring that experience someone goes to their mailbox they're going to grab your package from there what are they going to see first right? Is it going to be a cute little box? Is it going to be boring? Great packing padded envelope your product and shipping packaging is as important as the product itself and it's so weird that that is true because as makers we probably think like I make a beautiful product that that should be enough but really the entire experience is the product so what are some things to include in your package I always like to include a couple of this extra business cards I always include too just in case people want to tell their friends about it give the car to their friends if they toss it that's fine at least I put my best foot forward to make that possible to make it easy for them I always include a hand written note so I make my assistant right all of these notes for all of these packing slips it really does work and I know a lot of people are doing hand written notes these days and there's it's it's a great way to show people that there's a human behind this and that someone someone human took care of this order as I showed you before a beautifully designed packing slip with specific calls to action do you love the jewelry if so go here and do this balmy in social media if you didn't like the jewelry here's what you can do instead and a packing slip is one of those things I do include because it is part of my process because I do work with an assistant I pray not packing slips so she knows what products to ship out. It's also something that most if your shop on amazon if your shop on any of these big box stores they always include a packing slip or an invoice at least I like to include a packing slip because it doesn't include the price on it and sometimes a lot of times actually my products are purchased this gifts but at least tells the person that this is what you should expect in the package and if this is not the right thing, though at least know to send me an email also, consider how you might be able to include an unexpected free gift so like anthony anthony in our interview earlier, he talks about how he includes promotional material in his in his orders it's just little buttons that are really cheap to make with his graphics on them or little if you want like include candy and this is like you don't have to be someone who sells food jewelry to include candy in an order it's going to be fun when someone opens it will be like, oh, I will treat for them and just gonna open it just another sweet thing another little nice thing to add to their day so also consider your packaging I have seen so many makers out there that package their products and plastic sleeves or in little ziploc bags and there's you can really definitely take that a step further so here are some examples of some of my packaging that I've gone through in the past. At one point, I did some custom box printing, and that was really great, and I found a really affordable source for that, but it was it was really hard to put together because they all shipped flat and I had to go through with the hot glue gun toe put it all together, and it took up a lot of space and it was just a lot of work. So then we moved on to just having pre manufactured boxes that we don't then put a necklace card inside, we covered up with a paper doily just to keep it a little bit of a mystery, so that in case it is a gift to someone, they're not they don't completely see through because it is a see through top, and as you can see, we like to use ribbons for everything, and I think that really adds that nice. This is a gift to you, even if you bought this for yourself. The reason I do this is because I, the whole brand is about wanting is about the goal of making people happy, so even if this is a gift to yourself I am gifting them to this it's as if I'm giving them the skiff they don't pay any extra for this, they don't have to check like include gift wrap on the checkout box. Every order comes like this, so you're packaging is as important as the product itself. How can you fancy a pure packaging there's some really great ways out there and some even do it yourself ways you don't have to go crazy waken definitely think about custom printed boxes. There are some options up out there where, even if it's just you choosing the color of the box and then having like a stamp on it that's an affordable way to have it a little bit different and branded with with your logo and with with your style and with your colors. Also, consider branding your shipping labels if you're using one of those paid aps I believe indicia does this ship station does this you can upload a black and white version of your logo and that can be included on the shipping label itself so the postman can see and so all the usps staff can see it, but it really adds a little extra something, because when was the last time you saw ah little logo or something different on the shipping label? Consider also, if you're using padded envelopes, I used great pet envelopes I found a great place where I can get all sorts of different colors hot, pink, gold, black, different color padded envelopes really help your package stand out when when your customer goes out to the mailbox and checks for their mail, because what are you getting in the mail? Really boring stuff like bills and promotional material and span and coupons, and they're excited to get your package, get them even more excited by instead of this really born great envelope. If it's hot pink, they'll be like what's what's in there. I have not ever received a hot pink patent on globe so anything that you can do to stand out from everyone else and to really brand that experience. I mean, even a packing envelope is something that's so it's, so simple. But it does add a little bit of that extract into it does add into that experience for your customer. If all of those custom packaging to sounds like it's going to be really expensive for that, this is just too much. You don't have the resources to do this. You can consider customs stickers, too have customs stickers printed, it can be really affordable few cents per sticker take that off and just put it on the packaging it can be really easy. Also, see if you can include gift wrapping for your products. I'm not saying that this is the way to go, but if you can gift wrap it, that's. The best thing definitely try to it will make your customers that much more happy.