How To Use Email Marketing To Increase Lifetime Customer Value

      Email marketing is the IDEAL tool to increase lifetime customer value. If you want to make more money from your existing business or if you want to build a brand new business on a real solid footing, this is the article to read and understand.

      The last article talked about how to use email marketing to build a solid business. Increasing lifetime customer value is what happens when you have a solid business.

      Most businesspeople are so focused on generating and servicing new customers that they lose sight of the most profitable part of their business...their existing customers!

      Lifetime customer value is the amount of money a customer will spend with you over the lifetime of that person's need for your product or services. If every time you got a new customer you knew they were going to buy 10 times more from you over their lifetime, would that change your marketing strategy?

      Just think about how much money, time and effort you spend on getting new customers. A “looker” becomes a customer because you did a lot of things right. First you paid some money for an ad... maybe you paid a lot of money. Then you designed a successful ad that brought in some "lookers". Most of the "lookers" didn't buy so you had to spend a lot of unproductive time before you found someone willing to buy. Finally, you got someone that felt you had the product she wanted. Then you kept working to get her to like you, trust you and finally buy from you. That's a big deal, considering the fact that most people who responded to your ad didn't buy from you.

      Now that you have done all the work to "win over" a person so they become your client, how difficult do you think it would be to have them buy more from you when they need your product or services again? Much of the credibility building work has already been done so all you have to do is get a message out that you have what they want and your existing customers will line up to buy from you. (It actually happens this way when you use email correctly!)

      That's what lifetime customer value is all about.

      How much more money will a first-time customer spend with you as time goes on? Do they buy from you once, and then forget about you? Do they buy from someone else the next time they need your product or services? If they had a good experience with your business the first time, then why would they not come back and at least give you a chance to earn their business again?

      Now, that's a good question!

      The real reason most businesses have a low lifetime customer value is because by the time the customer is ready to buy again, they have forgotten all about you.

      All the work you did to get the customer to get to know you, like you and trust you that resulted in the first sale has all been forgotten.

      Who's fault is that?

      If it is in your interest to have that customer buy from you again, why would you not invest in making sure that person remembers you next month, next year or five or ten years from the first sale (as it typically happens with real estate transactions)? Why would you not cultivate the lifetime customer value of clients you worked so hard to get in the first place?

      If you are dealing with consumer goods where people buy your type of product or service on a regular basis, do a calculation on how much it would cost to send a letter once a month and the amount of profit you would make if half or a quarter of your customers bought from you again. More likely than not, you’ll make a handsome profit.

      On the other hand, if you are dealing with a large-ticket item where profits are substantial, it should be a no-brainer for you to send a letter once a month to have that person buy from you again five years from now.

      Think about it.

      How much money have you lost in terms of profit from people who probably would have bought from you over and over again, if you had only had the foresight to keep in touch?

      Now, instead of a letter, what would it cost you to send an email once a month? Not much, right? If you had something worth saying, you could even send an email once a week and the cost would be still be negligible.

      But the profit would be substantial…wouldn’t it?

      If you don’t know, I think it would be worth your while to test it.

      Unfortunately, when you test it, the chances are that you won’t get a good response. Why? Because you have to do things the right way if you want to see results.

      There are many ways to get it wrong, but in this course I’ll show you a system that has worked for many businesses. With a little bit of creativity you’ll be able to figure out how to apply the system to your business.

      Once you know how to think about follow-up systems and you have a blueprint you can copy you’ll have the magic key to growing your bottom-line profits.

      The next article talks about how to work the back-end to really make your bottom line look good.

      Click here to get the full course on how to use email marketing to increase lifetime customer value.