Inbound Marketing Methodology: Step 4, Delight

The time has arrived for the fourth — and final — step in the Inbound Marketing Methodology (click here to see the original article). We’ve already learned how to attract visitors to your website, convert them into leads, and close the sale. Now the work is all done and you can sit back and relax, right? Wrong!

Now it’s time for possibly the most important step of all. This is where you’ll delight the customers that have already proven themselves to be interested in your products or services. This is your chance to turn your first-time customer into one who will hopefully not only frequent your website for themselves, but will promote your site for others. So, without further adieu, let’s take a look at a few elements that are needed at this stage of the methodology:

Don’t Fumble the Ball

If you want your new customer to return to your website, it is imperative that you deliver excellent customer service once an order for products or services has been placed. Customers can be very fickle. No matter how much they enjoy your website or what you have to offer, if they believe that you don’t care enough for their business to provide them with the same level of service even after the sale, then you can forget about them coming back. And they may even cancel their existing order.

Deliver on Promises or Suffer the Consequences

Trusting a company online for the first time can be a risky prospect. When a customer is confident enough to provide their personal and financial information to you over the Internet, the last thing you want is to neglect the promises that were made. This will put a bad taste in their mouth. So if you make a promise, stick to it. If you have any problems with delivery, inform the customer right away and attempt to make amends.

Social Media For the Win

Not only is social media a great tool to use in order to find customers and draw them to your website, it can be used by your own customers to do your job for you by promoting your business. If a person is happy with the service you delivered, they’re more likely to discuss it with their friends on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. A single post can then be shared and reach further into the virtual ether than you can imagine. The same is true with a bad experience, so make sure you always put your best foot forward.

Knowledge is Power

Now that you’re more aware of what your customer desires, you can use this knowledge to construct personalized e-mails that are more likely to illicit a response in the future. If your business is financial, you can send out something to talk about putting your money into an investment around tax time. If your company sells online products, holidays are a great time to advertise using what you know about your customers. You get the idea.

K-I-T to W-I-N

If you want to win with your customers and ensure that they return to your website, it’s essential that you keep in touch with them. Don’t let them forget about you. We don’t mean to send e-mails every hour. Simply devise an e-mail strategy that will allow you to stay in their minds. Even if a specific e-mail doesn’t result in an immediate response, you’ll always be in the back of their minds.

With this fourth and final step in the Inbound Marketing Methodology, you now have all the tools needed to not only find new customers, but to keep them around for the long haul. So what are you waiting for? Go get ’em!