We’ve talked about the many benefits of selling memberships to customers, but once the sale is complete you can’t really sell to these members until they expire!  You also don’t want to just take their membership dues, you want your customers to visit, and talk about your business to their friends and family.  The best way to grow your business is to be at the top of people’s minds when they are having casual conversations.

Rewards

One way to stay relevant is to encourage your members to come in regularly.  A rewards program is a great way to entice them.  You could tie it into how frequently they visit in a given month.  A couple key points to remember when creating a rewards program is you want the first milestone to be easy to attain like say after 10 visits.  But after the first milestone you want to make the additional ones just a little bit harder to attain.  So the next level maybe like 50 or 100 visits.  The reason you want to space out the milestones is because you don’t want all of your members redeeming rewards at once!  Think about how airline miles work, not everyone earns a free roundtrip ticket after the first flight, and there is also a redemption period!

If you’re going to track visits then think about using the Take Attendance features in BizeeBee.

As you take attendance you’ll then be able to see who is visiting the most often.

You can start by creating your own rewards program or try out a service like Perkville.  And not all rewards have to be about freebies or even based on visits read how Columbia Health Club created a rewards program to save themselves time, and delight customers!

Referrals

So let’s say you’ve got some members who are coming in all the time, I’m sure these members have some friends… How about getting them to bring a buddy.  A lot of businesses carve out special days or times when people can bring in a buddy.  Doing this lets you anticipate the number of customers you need to service.  The buddy system is a great way to spread the word about your business.  Just be sure that you capture the information of each buddy that comes in.  You’re giving them a free service so you’ll need to be able to sell to them later.

If they are reluctant to give you any info, then you could create a simple incentive when they walk in such as ‘Like us on Facebook’.  Plain, simple, and actionable.  Have a computer setup for them to login and like right when they get to your business.  If they have a mobile device then they could do it themselves.

Reminders

I know we say this again and again, but it’s really important!  People have many things going on during the course of their days and weeks.  If you’ve been tracking visits and you see that someone hasn’t come in a while why not send them a friendly reminder to come to your business.  Often times members see this as the little poke they needed to come back and visit you, and if you’re selling self-improvement services like yoga or personal training they will thank you for the poke!

You don’t have to do all these at once, but if you implement two of the techniques consistently you will see that people come back to your business!

BizeeBee’s CEO Poornima Vijayashanker was recently interviewed by American Express Open Forum.  In the interview she shares her techniques for marketing on a startup budget.  Read this article to learn more techniques from young CEOs like Poornima on running a company, networking, handling employees, using technology, and how why they shouldn’t be seen as inexperienced but innovative!

Running a marketing promotion is a great way to get some new customers, and showcase your business to the community.  But have you given some thought as to how you’re going to keep those customers coming back?

Getting customers to come back once the promotion has ended is often times the hardest task.

There are 3 ways you can do this:

1. Track All Customers Who Claim Their Promotion

Every time a customer comes in they’ll hand you their promotion.  You’ll most likely get a flood the first couple weeks that you run the promotion, and it will eventually taper off.

If you’ve got an expiration date on a promotion then it would be a  good idea to track the date a customer redeems their promotion, this way you can gauge when they are about to use it up.  As they get closer to their expiration date you’ll want to follow up with them!

2. Follow Up With Customers Before the Promotion Has Ended

The best time to get a customer back in the door is just a few days before their promotion has ended.  It serves as a nice reminder for them to visit you again.  I cannot emphasize this point enough.  Too many business owners think that they are bothering their customers if they send them a reminder.  Truthfully people like to know that you enjoyed receiving their business.  So at the very least you can have the reminder be as simple as a “Thank You for Visiting We Hope to See You Again Soon!”.

3. Give Them an Incentive to Come Back 

Once you have them back in the door a few days before they are about to use up their promotion, you can take this as an opportunity to sell them a new package or service, maybe even give them a special for it.  Don’t overly discount, but play around with the tactic to see if they’d be willing to stick around.

Before You Do Another Promotion

You’ll want to know whether the last promotion you did yielded good results.  This can be tricky.  The best way to do this is to keep track of:

• The number of promotions you sold
• How many customers claimed them
• How many customers made an additional purchase after the promotion

The additional purchases are actually your new sales!  So keep that in mind the next time you run a promotion.

Now if you thought that this all seems like a lot of work in addition to running your business, well then maybe its time you gave BizeeBee a call at 650.489.6233.  We make the process of tracking promotions a cinch. Check out our free 2 week trial to make the most out of your recent promotion!

We aren’t counting on luck, and there is no secret card up our sleeve. We are betting on YOU! That’s right. Our business is supporting your business.

“You’re betting on me…  I like the thought of someone betting on me.” ~ Rebecca Cheeks-Soule of Seva Soule Yoga

Over the years we have acquired quite the stack of resources to help businesses like yours be successful.

1) Fantastic Partnerships: Benefit from our close friendships of service providers and professionals. Michelle from Minima designs can help you navigate the waters of building a website, and a strong brand. While Racheal Cook can help you build your business with one-on-one coaching and business education tailored to your needs. Take advantage of our extensive Rolodex of professionals, from accountants, to lawyers by asking us for a referral.

2) Learn from Experience: Virtually sit down with business owners, coaches, designers and even our own team each week, by reading the Hive. A resource packed site full of interviews from business owners, tips to grow and manage your business and ways to attract new students.

3) Join the Conversation: Think of us as your VIP pass that gets you access to the experts. We collaborate with brilliant minds to bring you exclusive educational and engaging events.

Our business is supporting your business. Our bets are on you to grow, be successful and improve the lives of others!

If you’re running a business out of your home or some other interesting space, then you’re probably curious to learn more strategies to keep yourself disciplined, and making progress.  Read Poornima’s recent interview with Elaine Pofeldt from $200K Freelancer as she shares her techniques for running and operating BizeeBee from her home. Read the full article