2025 WINNING SALES STRATEGIES

 Hello Tolulope,

Trust the new year started for you on a great note.

In my final email to you last year, I showed you how your existing customers are your greatest asset, why you should take your customer service seriously, and I gave you a few pointers on how to take care of your customers and make them happy…

I said that you have to put things in place to ensure that your customers are happy and to ensure that they:

✅ Come back to buy from you,

✅ Talk about you to their networks, and

✅ Refer people to you.

And I promised to expand on some of the points I gave you to help make your existing customers and clients happy.

So how do you do this? How do you really take care of your customers?

How do you make them happy? How do you make them rave about you and refer you to other people?

I intentionally made a list of three different items so I can address them one after the other.

How do you ensure that customers come back to buy from you again?

First and foremost, you want to ensure that your product or service is great and delivers on your promise.

Otherwise, even if you use the most powerful juju in the world, they won’t come back.

Once that is taken care of, especially if you actually have testimonials of how great your product or service is, then we can start talking about making them come back.

Here are some ideas:

1. Try to increase average order value (AOV) instantly.

Yes, we are talking about them “coming back.” But I’m saying don’t wait for them to “come back” before you make more money from them.

Try to let them spend more money with you immediately they become customers.

Think about it: this person just gave you their money; means there must be some level of like and trust. Why don’t you give them even more value so that they can give you even more money?

Makes sense, yea? Remember the Dan Kennedy quote I shared with you before: “a buyer is a buyer is a buyer.”

Simply give them the opportunity to buy and buy and buy.

How?

Use upsells (offering them something more expensive after their initial purchase), downsells (something cheaper than what they bought) and cross-sells (a different product from the category they just bought) to encourage them to buy more.

If someone buys bracelets from you, immediately offer them a necklace or some jewelry set – upsell.

Or offer them lower-priced jewelry, like earrings, especially if they don't buy the necklace from you – downsell.

Or just offer them a handbag, which is out of the jewelry category but still fashion – cross-sell.

2. Send post-purchase follow-up emails.

The strategy I shared with you above is majorly done by taking them to the next sales page after the purchase of one product.

But you can also embed the upsells, downsells, or cross-sells in an email sequence aimed at making them buy again.

You can also just give them discounts for future purchases.

It’s popular with ecommerce brands where you buy something and an automatic email thanks you and then offers you a discount for your next purchase.

3. Do occasional promos.

Once in a while you can do promos with discounts exclusive to your customers/clients. Make sure you let them know it’s exclusive to them so that they feel special.

4. Loyalty programs.

Airlines and hotels do this a lot, but it can be used for any business.

You simply give your customers or clients points for each purchase they make. These points accumulate over time and they can spend them to buy a product or apply them as a discount to a product of their choice.

Supermarkets do the one where you subscribe (they get your contact details so that they can market to you whenever they like) and you get a tiny discount on anything you buy.

The discount looks very little until you buy a lot of things…then you’d appreciate it.

There are many more ways, but for the sake of time and space, let’s move to the next.

How do you make them talk about you to their networks (friends, family, colleagues, social media connections, etc)?

1. Encourage reviews.

Have a mechanism for asking for public online reviews after they’ve used your product or service.

There are apps you can embed into your online store to make getting reviews seamless. Or simply send them an email to go write their reviews on platforms like Google Business, Trustpilot, your Facebook page, etc. You can even incentivize them (give them something for writing a review).

2. Encourage them to post about your product or service online.

You can do a monthly giveaway contest on social media where you randomly pick someone out of everyone who talked about your product and reward them.

Even without a contest, simply ask them to share their shopping experience online immediately after buying.

Then follow up later to ask them to share their experience using your product or service. A small percentage of your customers will do as you’ve requested.

3. Let your package or delivery be shareworthy.

Naturally, if your package looks great or your service blows your clients’ minds, many customers would want to share it online.

We all like looking cool. And that includes showing off our cool finds. Be the cool find!

Next…

How do you make them refer people to you?

1. Referral program.

You can do a referral program where they get points or even immediate rewards (e.g. commissions, discounts, etc) for referring you to people, using their unique referral code.

2. Affiliate Program

You can give your customers or clients the opportunity to become affiliates for your brand. That is, they get a percentage of the price as commission for every purchase anyone makes through their unique link.

3. Simply ask them to.

However you communicate with your customers or clients, let them know you’ll be happy to get referrals from them and promise to give good experience to the people they refer. Some will oblige you.

4. Be amazing!

Deliver on your promises – make sure your product or service does what it promises. In fact, blow their minds and overdeliver.

And then if someone around them needs your product or service in the future, they’ll naturally remember you…and most likely refer you.

Now that we’ve dealt with these three categories, how do you make your customers happy generally?

Three things:

1. Make sure they get the value they paid for, if not more. (I can’t overemphasize this point.)

2. Make sure their problems are solved promptly when they make complaints.

3. Keep in touch with them with messages that give value, not just sales. This can be automated these days.

If you can keep your customers happy, and also put some of these things in place, you’ll make more money than your competitors.

Cheers to making more money this year,

Akin Alabi

PS: In Chapter 2 of my book How to Sell to Nigerians, I talked about the five types of customer lists your business must have.