Letting Your Customers Buy – the Way They Want To

My alma mater is making it so easy for me to donate to their endowment – it’s almost impossible NOT to! Isn’t that how you want your customers to feel when it comes to buying from you?

One reason the university’s marketing is so successful (the 2006-2007 Annual Giving Drive brought in over $49 million) is that they employ multi-channel marketing. Some of the channels they’ve used to get in touch: e-mails, phone calls, and snail mail, all giving me easy options for sending in money. Plus, the university website has a safe credit-card option, if that’s the avenue I choose.

In past ETR articles, MaryEllen Tribby and Wendy Montes de Oca have stressed how important multi-channel marketing is to the success of a campaign. Says MaryEllen, “Give the customer as many ways as possible to buy from you. If you do, he’ll be able to buy when he wants, how he wants.”

Letting your customers buy the way they want to should be exactly what you aim for with your marketing. You want them to feel that they can buy from you in the way that makes them most comfortable – whether it’s online, via phone, or via the mail. That making a purchase is SO easy, it’s impossible not to buy.

To get your customers to feel this way, make sure you put your marketing message in front of them in as many ways as you possibly can. That means with organic search results. Paid search results. E-mail advertisements. Direct mail. Magazine ads. Newspaper classifieds. The list of possibilities is practically endless.

Three quick reminders: (1) All your advertisements should offer value to your customers. (2) All your sales copy should be truthful. (3) Send e-mail ads only to people who have specifically given you permission to do so.

[Ed. Note: Direct marketing is just one channel you should be exploring when it comes to promoting your business. Get insider secrets from two of the best direct marketers in the business with ETR’s comprehensive program. .]