You’ve heard it before but I’ll say it again. It takes a whole lot more energy to find a new customer than to nurture a customer you’ve already converted.

Think back to you favorite customers. Those customers you hope to find more of. Your ideal customer.

Now let’s talk about how you can maximize your profits from those customers by reaching out to them and helping to solve their problems.

The goal here is to build loyal customers, a raving fan base. These are the folks you want to dedicate the majority of your resources because they’re the folks who you have the potential to make happiest. And that means they’re the folks who have the potential to make you happiest.

Follow these 3 simple steps to building loyal customers who come back for more and more and more…

Step 1: Start with 100% Satisfaction

This should go without saying, but you can’t expect anyone to want to come back for more of what you have to offer unless what you deliver is absolutely top notch. A major focus of any business needs to be excellent delivery.

To accomplish this, articulate exactly what your customer should expect, and then work your hardest to over deliver. If you don’t define what it is you agree to deliver first, how will they know when you’ve blown your goals out of the water?

Step 2: Give, Give, Give

What better way to build brand loyalty than letting your customer know that because you have loved working with them so much, you want to work with them again?

Offer them a discount! Tell them you love them and want to save them some money on their next purchase! Seems overdone but that’s because it works. Everyone wants to feel special. Why shouldn’t you let your best customers know you love them?

Speaking of feeling special, there is only one way to make your favorite customer feel more special than giving them a discount and that is giving them a free gift. Remember that the goal is to build a raving fan base. That will not only result in repeat purchases, but it will also result in your loyal customers raving about you to their friends and family.

So give them something that brings them value. Note: it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

I like to give away free eBooks and articles that give my favorite clients helpful and practical tips they can use in their business (like this blog post). Bonus points if your free giveaway helps showcase why your expertise is head and shoulders above the rest…

Step 3: Write a Love Letter

Not the roses are red kind. I’m talking about an email. Many folks think email marketing is dead but it turns out the return on investment of email marketing is over 40-fold. That means that for every dollar you spend on your email marketing campaign, over $40 could come back to you.

Share with your favorite customers the latest about your company and industry. Give them a random tip or tidbit from time to time. They’re your favorites. Treat them as such. Email is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to keep your favorite customers engaged. It’s a natural and casual bridge keeping you connected.

The moral of this story is that to make your customers love you, you have to show them how much you love them. Give them everything you’ve got and they’ll turn right back around and give it back to you tenfold!

They might even bring along a friend when they return…

If you’ve decided to make the leap and take advantage of the enormous opportunity that exists within the world of online marketing, you’re smart. You can get qualified eyeballs on your products and services that you would never have reached through traditional forms of marketing.

But they won’t come for nothing.

An effective online marketing strategy doesn’t mean slapping up a Twitter profile and calling it a day. Why should your prospects who know nothing about you think your “being on Twitter” is proof enough that you’re worth their time and money?

To get them to buy from you, you have to get them to trust you. And to get them to trust you, you have to give, give, give. Before you run away, let me show you just how easy it can be to develop and execute a powerful online marketing strategy.

Here is the Goose Dog 5-Step Online Marketing Plan. It’s a small amount of front-loaded energy that will result in wildly powerful results. Please read through to the end and consider adding this plan to your business’ existing marketing efforts.

Step 1: Establish Your Authority

Effective marketing means establishing yourself as an authority in your industry. You already are one. You just need a platform to show it off. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is through a blog.

Don’t run away screaming because it’s really very simple.

Blogging doesn’t have to mean you’re tied to your computer day and night building an online community. It doesn’t mean you need to be an award-winning author who can make people cry with your words. And it doesn’t mean you need to be a nerd who’s obsessed with computers like me. It simply means spending a few minutes a week telling the world what you’ve been up to.

Give some helpful tips from time to time. Mention exciting new developments in your industry and your company. Share interesting anecdotes about your work. Just show that you are active and busy. Show that you love what you do and why.

Posting on a blog is as easy as writing an email but the beauty of it is that your blog posts are archived and saved so that those prospects who might come to you five years from now will see that you’ve been an expert for years.

Think of blogging as investing in your web property.

You add value every week by simply jotting down a couple paragraphs about what you’ve been up to and sharing with your prospects some helpful information that persuades them to choose you over your competitors.

Step 2: Build a Web Presence

Marketing is all about reach. If you want to venture out into the online world, you need to cast a wide net so you reach as many people as you can.

Some people might come straight to your blog by typing a search into Google that’s related to your industry and content. Don’t even get me started on how great blogging is for the search engine optimization of your website!

But other people might be spending their time online hanging out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Reddit, Pinterest, or Instagram.

Find out which of these platforms your ideal customer uses and create your own profile that matches the branding you use on your website and other marketing materials. This shows a new prospect that you speak their language and will increase the number of prospects who can find you and what you have to offer.

Don’t worry, it only takes a few minutes and it’s completely free.

Step 3: Double, Triple, Quadruple Your Effort

This step is the magic trick. Talk to your web designer about setting up your blog so that link posting to your various social media profiles is automated. Don’t have a web designer?

Hello!

Contact us because this is our favorite thing to do. It’s easy enough but the results are astounding.

Here’s what happens. You write a blog post in five minutes. You hit the Publish button. Your blog post appears on your website. Then a link to your new blog post automatically appears on your Twitter page, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile, and whatever other social media profiles you’re using. That means in five minutes, you’ve taken care of your social media marketing altogether.

Now, sometimes when I present this plan to a client, he or she will say to me, “But don’t you have to be active on Twitter or Facebook for it to work?” My answer is both yes and no.

Yes, when you receive an email from Twitter or Facebook telling you that someone sent you a direct message, of course you need to respond. After all, a direct message could mean a real live prospect and so they deserve all the attention you can give.

But aside from that, I’ve found that simply posting meaningful links to your blog posts speaks to your social media audience in a powerful way.

Imagine this.

Your prospect is shopping for the cupcakes you sell. There are two cupcake shops equidistant to them: yours and the other one. The other one has a website comprable to yours. Your prospect doesn’t know which shop to choose. They notice that you have a Twitter page and they happen to be a Twitter freak. They visit your Twitter page and see your logo, your face, and an image of your shop. They see you just posted a link announcing an exciting new cupcake flavor you’re introducing! Framed on the Twitter page, suddenly your brand, your shop, your cupcakes feel like home to them. They see you as a real person rather than just a store.

Boom.

You’ve got yourself a new customer.

Step 4: Show Off Your Professionalism

Now remember that your blog is your shortcut to establishing your authority and showing that you’re active in your field. To maintain your professional image, you need to be consistent in your blogging effort. Whatever you need to do to keep yourself posting to your blog, do it.

Here’s what I do.

I wake up early three days a week for what I call my Business Development Hour. For thirty minutes, I read a book or article that teaches me about a specific aspect of my business I feel needs development such as marketing… or else a technical aspect of my business such as mobile web development. After reading for thirty minutes, I decide if what I just learned could be synthesized in such a way that could benefit my potential clients. If so, I blog. If not, I move on to something else.

Sometimes what I read in just thirty minutes can be turned into two or three blog posts. Now, I only release two posts on my blog a week. So where do all those blog posts go?

I schedule them so that they automatically post on a rainy day.

This plan kills so many birds with one stone.

1) I am constantly educating myself and bettering Goose Dog Designs so I can deliver the best websites and service to my clients.

2) My current and future clients are benefiting from the helpful information I’m taking the time to read and then write about.

3) Anyone who stumbles upon what I write on my blog or my social media profiles will see that I love what I do so much that I care enough to tell them about it.

All of this establishes authority and in turn builds trust.

Step 5: Give and You Will Get

This last step has nothing to do with social media or online marketing. It’s about life. If you’re generous, what you give will come back around to you. So put yourself out there and don’t worry about the investment of time or energy. Resolve to try out this plan just for one month.

You will see that something you hadn’t imagined will happen to you.

The truth is, regardless of how much new business it brings you, you have nothing to lose. You are guaranteed to learn something new about your industry, your company, your business, or your customers that you never knew before.

So get to it! Step One is just a blog away!

Do you ever notice that some things you post on Facebook get no attention at all while others seem to get blasted all over town? You might think it’s all about the content itself. If people don’t respond to it, that must mean they didn’t like it. Well what if I told you they never even saw it? That it never even showed up on their news feed!

Much like Google, Facebook has its own secret algorithm for prioritizing what gets publicity and what doesn’t. PostRocket made two amazing infographics to help us understand some of Facebook’s mysterious ways:

The home page of your website will likely be the most visited page by far. You link to it more than any other page, it’s listed on your business cards, and Google probably puts it way up at the top when people search for you online. So it is of utmost importance that it is excellent in terms of both form and function.

Here are five key elements of a powerful homepage:

#1 It’s Upfront

Your website needs to tell visitors exactly and explicitly who you are, what you do, and what they can do while they’re here on your website. Don’t make anyone guess about anything. Any confusion, any doubts, any slight hiccup or misalignment of what they thought they’d find and what see before them and they’ll be gone faster than you can say “bounce rate”.

#2 It Resonates

Who is your target audience and what do they care about? What do they think about when they first get up in the morning? What are the final thoughts running through their minds as they fall asleep? Whoever they are, you need to speak to them. You need to speak their language and you need to speak to what they care about. Use less of your website to talk about yourself and your beliefs and more of it connecting with them on a deeper level. Tell them how what you and only you have to offer will help them and only them.

#3 It’s Compelling

Communicate immediately why you’re the best at what you do by putting forth your unique value proposition. Get their attention with bold claims about why you’re amazing and why they should pay attention to you. Then back them up with stats and testimonials. Don’t be afraid to brag about what you have to offer. You wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t love it and care about it. Tell your website visitors why they should too.

#4 It’s Usable

Your website needs to be easy to navigate and easy to use. Visitors need to know immediately how to get around (use links, buttons, and your navigation menu to achieve this), and they need to be directed down a smooth, frictionless path. Any friction on a website and once again, people will leave. And your website better look great on a smartphone and tablet because it won’t be long now before the majority of your visitors will come to you on one.

#5 It Inspires Action

Finally, your website needs to ask your visitors to do something and guide them towards taking the action to do it. That could be anything from giving you their email address, to sending you a message on a contact form, to picking up the phone and calling you, to actually buying something. Whatever it is you want them to do, you need to make it extremely easy for them to do it.

You are amazing. You know it. Your mom knows it. Your dog most definitely knows it. You tell your prospects you’re amazing all the time. On your website, on the phone, in the way you craft your products and deliver your service. You tell them explicitly  “We’re amazing. Come on in and try us out.”

Why don’t they believe you?

How do you get people to find you completely and utterly irresistible? Let’s take a look at three key qualities you can include in your offers to make people line up at the door.

#1 Scarcity

This is as simple as supply and demand is. If supply goes down, demand goes up. We can’t help but place a higher value on something when we know there’s not a lot of it out there. We feel a strong urge to get our hands on something that we fear might not be available in the near future.

A great way to create a sense of scarcity is to put a limited time on your offer. Another way is to put a limited quantity on it – to say there are only three or so left of whatever it is you’re offering. That puts an added pressure on a prospect because they have no way of knowing when this offer will expire. It could expire in the next thirty seconds if just three other people pull the trigger!

Groupon does a great job of combining both techniques to create a limited time, limited quantity offer that people find extremely difficult to resist.

#2 Popularity

For better or worse, we are all sheep. Yes, we break the mold here or there from time to time but at the end of the day, with all the factors pushing your prospects away from spending another dollar or giving their email address out to another company, you better help relieve at least that one doubt they have.

We have an innate inclination to copy each other in an attempt to stick with a group. When the people in our social circle do something, we feel safe trying it too. So make your offer desirable to your prospects by showing them through numbers and testimonials that others like them have tried it and love it too.

#3 Relevance

The most irresistible offer is one you often can’t plan for. It’s the one that strikes while the iron’s hot. Keep your eyes and ears constantly tuned to the fleeting but powerful swings and trends your industry serves. When you notice a strong shift in attention of your target market, find that focus and figure out how to harness it.

Create an offer that taps into the latest hot trend, and swarms of people will see yours as the hot offer.

It’s indisputable that LinkedIn is a powerful way to surround yourself with likeminded people who would be great potential customers and clients for you.

Assuming you already know just how valuable LinkedIn is and how much business connecting with professionals can bring you, let’s jump right in to some tricks and techniques you can do to make LinkedIn work that much harder for you.

#1 Claim Your Vanity URL

Here’s what my LinkedIn URL looks like: www.linkedin.com/in/goosedogdesigns/

Here’s what LinkedIn gave me by default: www.linkedin.com/pub/valerie-edmon/12/486b/7265a

Change yours ASAP. It looks much more professional and it’s way easier for people to find you and share your profile. Just click on “Edit Profile” then in the box titled “Your public profile URL” click “Customize your public profile URL”.

#2 Customize Your Website Links

By default, if you add a website to your LinkedIn profile, there will be a link that simply reads “Company Website”. That’s boring and no one will click on it. You actually are allowed to customize that link and you’re allowed three of them! I’ve chosen to link to the Goose Dog Designs website, our blog, and our contact page. But I chose my wording carefully to create some appeal. Check it out:

My custom links give people viewing my profile a little more reason to click through. To create your custom links, edit your profile, click “Edit Contact Info” then click the little edit pencil where it says “Websites”. For each of the three, choose “Other” from the drop down menu. Now you have 30 characters to write your own link for each of the three spots!

#3 Boost Your Endorsements

You might have noticed that LinkedIn asks you to endorse your connections for the various skills and expertise they have. “Does Jane Doe know about Acquisition Integration?” Well while you can’t force people to endorse you, you can control the skills and expertise you’re listed for thus influencing how you’re specifically endorsed.

Once again, edit your profile, scroll to “Skills & Expertise” and click the little edit pencil. Here you can add or remove from the list and rearrange the order in which your new skills appear.

These three simple steps will help set your LinkedIn profile apart. Now go to it!

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