Creating Value for Your Online Customers

By Andrew Jones

Customers are the lifeblood of any business (whether it's online or offline). So it makes sense to look after your hard-earned customers and give them excellent value for the cash that they hand over to you. It's not about you. It's about the customer and their wants and needs. Giving value will increase the conversion rate of leads to sales, number of transactions and average $ sale. This results in greater profits for you for less work.

You should provide products and services that you can be absolutely proud of and that you would have no hesitation in selling to family or friends. This leads to happy customers. Happy customers will buy more from you, more often. Happy customers will recommend you to other people. On the other hand, unhappy customers won't buy from you any more and they will tell everyone of their bad experience with you... not so good for your business.

A business transaction is a simple exchange... cash is exchanged for your product or service. The customer needs what you have (the product or service) MORE than the money that they give you. It stands to reason then that the product must be of EQUAL or GREATER VALUE than the dollars that are given to you. Greater value is always better because this adds the WOW factor to their purchase. The product should be loaded with benefits... not just "so-called" benefits in the sales copy but real benefits that the customer will really appreciate from you.

With every customer, you should endeavour to "go the extra mile" for them. A lot of people will be questioning whether it's really worth going to "all of this trouble". But just consider that going the extra mile for your customers will turn most of them into profitable "lifetime customers". This is actually a lot "less trouble" than continually looking for new customers. So consider some really easy methods like "thanking" your customers, staying regularly in touch with them, giving them free tips and help (rather than just selling to them all time), and giving away free items of value (such as good e-books) for being such a great customer.

What if you get complaints from a customer? Even in this situation, you can turn this around and convert them into a loyal customer... if you handle it properly. If you get a difficult customer or someone with a complaint, stay calm, breathe (I'm not kidding), don't take it personally or attach emotion to the situation. Do your best to listen to what the customer has to say. If you treat them with respect and show that you are trying to help them, this should go a long way to resolving the problem... and keeping them as a customer. Obviously, some people are never happy no matter what you do, so you may have to just "move on" in this particular instance.

It's always easier and cheaper to sell to existing customers than to find new ones... that's common knowledge. Bottom line is: if you don't give your customers good value, they will simply return the product which isn't good for your profits or reputation.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

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Why Hire a Web Designer

By Alexa Peters

A lot of online business owners start with very little extra money. You have to do everything yourself -- the preparation of a product, the development of a marketing strategy, the actual building of a website to cater to your product's marketing needs. As your business expands over time, you will find that your simple "homemade" site might not be enough to cover everything, and you will have to take a day or two (which you don't have) away to simply dedicate that to the website expansion.

Sounds familiar? Chances are, you're someone who started everything with very little money too, so you're pretty skeptical when it comes to giving away your money in exchange for something that you could have done yourself. However, there is a lot more to hiring a website designer than just finishing up a job that you don't want to do.

When you hire a web designer to do a job for you, you are doing more than just handing over the "dirty job" to someone else. In fact, by paying a little money, you can let the designer worry about the little annoyances that always evade the main picture and only come haunting when you're halfway through the job. That way, you will be more focused and have more time to spend on your actual business strategy.

On the other hand, the web designers you hire are professionals so they are very good at what they do. By outsourcing your web design jobs to them, you won't have to worry when problems surface because you can always get them to fix it for you. Again, they will be able to pin point the problem and fix it faster than you probably would be able to.

Also, the work you pay for will turn out more professional than what you can achieve because the reality is that the designers have been doing it longer than you have. After all, they do it for a living so they have to be good!

So, remember to not just work your business, but grow your business too!

Normally, if you want to have professional designers custom build your site, you must be prepared to dish out at least a few thousand dollars for a very basic website. That does not have to if you know where to find the best deals, the best designs for the lowest price. Here's a rough guide:

Have you ever seen those advertisements in newspaper classified ad sections that offer a 5-page website at $500? These companies are established companies with physical locations, therefore they have to increase the amount they charge to pay off some overheads: office rent, designer's wages, advertising costs and so on. More than likely, you will get a cookie cutter site that is like every other site, except for the name of your site.

Therefore, it would be wise to find freelance designers who work from home. These people are often working from home so they do not have a high operation cost like that of a company. And they will be able to design images with quality similar to those of designers from big companies, so it's a "no-brainer" choice.

It just takes a little bit of effort but you can find the good in hiring a web designer. And if you find a good one, it will be well worth the effort.

Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com

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