Do you contact your customers after they have made a purchase?

If you don’t then you really should.

Today I will show you how to get customers to recommend your business to other customers simply by contacting them.

Shortly after each sale I give my customers a call to see how they are and if there is anything further that I can help them with.

For example, a while ago I called Penny, one of my customers to see how she was getting on with some of my products. She said that she was doing very well and was very happy. I asked Penny if there was any way that I could improve my services to her. She said that she was more than satisfied with my service. I also used this opportunity to ask her if she had anyone in mind that she felt would benefit from my products and services, she recommended two more customers to me.

So ask your customers to recommend you to a friend or colleague. You can use a business card for this or simply just ask them.

If you do use a card ensure that you tell your customer to add their name on the reverse. You can offer your customer a gift as a show of your appreciation, if you like. Gifts can include; business promotional items, flowers, chocolates, dinner for two, vouchers, what ever you feel appropriate. You must not ignore this method of stimulating more referrals as it is very effective and works many times over.

Ken Ajoku is the author of “45 Powerful Marketing Strategies”. To receive for FREE “The Secrets of Powerful Marketing”, a seven part course by email worth

book reviews, direct marketing, information products, internet marketing, marketing, self publishing

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I recently noticed that my friend’s two-year-old, Conor, is getting to be quite the big boy. For one thing, he has suddenly morphed from a pudgy baby into a mini version of her husband. For another, he’s becoming increasingly curious. The last time I saw him he must have asked me at least 20 times, “What’s that?”

To be more accurate, he says it like this: “Whussat?”

He toddles around the yard pointing things out, asking over and over: “Whussat? Whussat?”

When wee little Conor looks up at me with his wondering eyes and asks, “Whussat?” do I answer him? Why, of course I do.

“Whussat?”
“That’s a big truck.”

“Whussat?”
“That’s a flower…”

Turns out that my little buddy and I have more in common than I ever would have guessed. I, too, am toddling around… exploring the ever-evolving world of internet business. Each time I come upon an unfamiliar term, that same question pops into my head.

What’s THAT?

If you’ve been doing the internet marketing thing for a while, you might consider that, like me, your audience of readers has just as many questions as a curious two-year-old.

Affiliate Marketing: what’s that?
(It’s a way to make a commission on someone else’s product.)

SEO: what’s that?
(It stands for Search Engine Optimization.)

So when you feel like dazzling your audience with some advanced terminology… don’t forget the very basic and necessary questions that, if answered, will garner you a generous crop of loyal fans who can’t thank you enough for the much-needed information.

Don’t forget the Number One Question:

What’s That?

Easy enough, right? As you write your web article, throw out a term. Ask the question, and then explain what it is. The reader always appreciates it when you take a few moments to explain. This is what separates you from all of the other marketers out there. YOU have the answers.

Should you dedicate a whole crop of articles to answering the question, What’s That?

Why, of course you should!

By captivating an audience of “toddler” marketers, you can secure yourself as the be-all-end-all of experts. And once they hitch their wagons to your internet marketing star, you can carry them along on your neverending quest for more web knowledge. Now THAT’s how to build a following!

Suppose you’d like to teach new marketers about website hosting. Define everything within your article. “Domain name.” What’s that? “Web hosting package.” What’s that?

Too often we forget that not everyone knows what we know, and the fact that we know it is by far the strongest indicator of our credibility in the first place!

So: next time you see a newbie marketer toddling around, asking “What’s that!” over and over… be extra helpful and answer his questions. Then, think about all of his little marketer friends… and be proactive in answering ten more questions before they’re even asked. Write your answers in the form of a very basic and totally informative web article.

After you’ve primed your crop of new marketing students, will you then be able to kick back and relax?

Heck no! Instead, you can be sure that they’ll be ready with the next question:

“But why??”

“Offer the customer some free information.”

“But why??”

“Don’t forget to optimize your website.”

“But why??”

Ahh, don’t you just love internet marketing, boys and girls? I sure do.

Now go toddle over to your big-boy bed, read a few more pages of your storybook about Multiple Residual Income Streams, and then take a nice little nappy.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Liked this article? Have more of the same emailed to your inbox each month. Sign up for the Copywriting and Marketing Ezine from Dina at Wordfeeder.com and learn to write search engine friendly web copy and market your web based business for free.

article marketing, entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, internet marketing, Online Business

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Every business person and every buyer needs to know that traditional
marketing is dead. Its replacement: 21st Century Marketing.

Customers no longer respond as they did in the 20th Century. They
don’t salivate on demand, stimulated by your glitzy marketing, as
Ivan Pavlov’s dog salivated over 100 years ago at the sound of a bell.

Pavlov was a Russian who documented the “conditioned reflex.” Pavlov
trained his dog so that whenever he rang the bell, the dog would get
food. When the bell rang, the dog would salivate instantlyeven before
seeing or smelling food, a conditioned reflex.

Pavlov was a Nobel Laureate in 1904 in Physiology & Medicine.
His experiment with this dog’s conditioned reflex was part of his
research into the digestive system.

Since traditional marketing is dead, how to you market in the 21st
Century? Since cats can’t bark and customers don’t salivate
any more as a conditioned reflex to your marketing tactics, how do
your market and sell now?

Many answers are found in “Waiting For The Cat To Bark: Persuading
Customers When They Don’t Respond To Traditional Marketing,” a
book by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg with Lisa T. Davis.

No surprise: the Internet and generational differences have hastened
the death of traditional marketing.

Since my 24 year employment career was in corporate marketing,
advertising and public relations, I have mixed emotions about the
death of traditional marketing.

But I’m having too much fun professionally in the 21st Century to lament
the demise of traditional marketing. Here’s why.

There are 700 million regular Internet users worldwide. As China and India
continue to enter the modern age and create a huge middle class, the number
of Internet users globally will increase sharply.

China’s economy is growing at over 11% annually, far faster than that of
the United States. One commentator said that’s because people in China and
India work very, very hard because they want to experience the American
Dream more than most Americans do.

73% of Americans use the Internet regularly. That’s about 219 million folks,
based on a population of roughly 300 million. That’s the mainstream. Non-users,
of the Internet, 27% of the American population, are out of the mainstream.

The authors say “The Internet is the world’s global brain.” And, “the web is the
glue that binds all marketing information.” Why is that? It’s because you find
just about anything you want to know online speedily. Google searches average

21st Century marketing, generational differences, Internet

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