Make it Easy to Buy
How do your customers prefer to buy? Too many businesses try to force customers into doing things the way that is most convenient for the business, not the customer. Increase your sales by making your business customer friendly.
BRIGHT IDEAS!
Copyright by Cathy Stucker, The Idea Lady(tm)
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In this issue:
From the Idea Lady
Make it Easy to Buy
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*From the Idea Lady*
Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey about Bright Ideas. If you are curious about the results, here is a quick summary:
About half of you are happy with plain text, a quarter don’t care, and a quarter want HTML. What was noteworthy to me was that the folks who want HTML were quite vocal about it in several places in the survey. This was one of the things I sort of expected. If anything, I guess I was a little surprised that half of you prefer plain text.
A majority do not want more than weekly e-mails, and a few of you commented that you would like to see the newsletter go to every other week or even monthly. (I know, I get tons of e-mail, too.) Two-thirds don’t care if it comes on a specific day. If it does, 40% of you like Tuesday. Monday came in second with 24%.
More than 90% of you want marketing tips. That’s good, as that is the primary focus of this newsletter and always has been. Free resources were a close second. The least popular choices were contests and reader profiles, with special offers and a Q&A in the middle.
Reading the responses to the open-ended questions has been interesting. Lots of people said that what they like best about Bright Ideas is that it is short with specific information that can be easily implemented. You also like the variety of ideas and the conversational tone. That is exactly what I aim for when writing the newsletter, so I was happy to see so many people make those comments.
As for what you would change, lots of people said they wouldn’t change a thing. The most frequent change suggested was the addition of graphics. No major trends outside of that.
Lots of you had topic ideas. I will keep them in mind as I prepare each issue and address as many as I can.
One person asked that I describe my experience with the survey: how it helped me, if the questions got the information I needed or if I would have structured them differently in retrospect, my thoughts on SurveyMonkey.com, etc. Surveys can be a useful tool to find out what your customers are thinking and how you can better serve them. That seems like a good topic for next week.
Cathy
P.S. Since many of you want a Q&A feature, send me your Qs so I can provide As. E-mail your questions to me, and I will begin answering them in future issues.
Cathy
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*Make it Easy to Buy*
How do your customers prefer to buy? Too many businesses try to force customers into doing things the way that is most convenient for the business, not the customer.
Do your customers know exactly what they want, or do they need some help choosing the right products and services? When customers know what they want, they usually like to take as little time as possible to make the purchase. Those who do not know (perhaps first-time buyers) appreciate having someone to answer their questions and guide their choices.
Do your customers like to come to a store to buy, order over the Internet, or review choices in a catalog or online then order over the phone? The average age of your customers may be a factor here, as well as the types of products you sell.
Help them comparison shop. Do you have the lowest prices, the best selection, the fastest delivery, or some other advantage? Point it out. If you show why you are the best choice, some customers will buy now instead of doing more “window shopping.”
How do they like to pay? Offer options: cash, check, credit cards, PayPal, charge to account, etc. Although I have a merchant account and accept credit cards online, I added PayPal as an option at my Web site. I was surprised how many people chose to pay through PayPal. It may be that they have some funds in their PayPal accounts and want to spend them, or they do not like giving out their credit card numbers to online merchants, or some other reason. It doesn’t matter. What matters is I allow them to pay the way they want to.
Don’t make customers jump through hoops to buy from you. Making them click on several screens before they reach your shopping cart, or making them stand in one line to pay and another to get their merchandise, can cause them to go elsewhere.
Make it easy for customers to buy from you and they will not only buy today--they will keep coming back.
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