Follow Up Customer For Sales

Follow Customer

Keeping in regular touch with the customer is another subtle way of being on top of the mind of customers.  This may be done by

• A newsletter that provides the latest industry information.  The frequency of the newsletter should be adjusted carefully.  A very frequent newsletter becomes a nuisance and an infrequent newsletter may not have the desired effect.
• A Web site update that gives information on new services, goods, schemes, etc., that a regular customer may be interested in.
• Keeping the customer informed about any product updates, expiry of warranty, offer of maintenance services, discounts on purchases, etc.

Promoting a web site, building trust and loyalty are actually quite simple if the underlying theme of understanding the customers, fulfilling his needs and seeing things from his perspective is met.

 Building Trust

Website Promotion are ways and means to take a surfer to the company site.  It is time to see the factors that contribute to the main purchase by the surfer.

Impression of Website

The situation on the net is very similar.  The first time the surfer comes to a site, he draws an impression of the site, which is best described as its character.  This may include Characteristics like Honest, Sincere, Fair, Transparent, Communicative, Responsive, Capable, Responsible, Business-like and so on.  This impression is compared with a prior image of the website.  As you navigate through the web site you firm up your impression and if you trust the web site to deliver what it promises.

The factors that contribute to building trust have been extensively researched.  They are

• Branding,
• Navigation,
• Fulfilment,
• Presentation,
• Logos of Security,
• Up-to-date Technology.

Building Loyalty

Personalisation and Customisation of services can make a lot of difference to customer loyalty.  Once a customer registers at a web site, he is likely to come back to it.  If the customer is provided access to a personal area on the web site through a login and password, he is likely to revisit the website.  A Suffer is more likely to the loyal to an electronic newspaper that lets him customize the newspaper than another standardized newspaper.

Product Sales & Customer Repeat in Business

How to Get Customers and Retain them

Now that you have established a Web Presence, it is time to tell everyone about it.  Further, let us see the ways and means to realise business through the traffic generated to the website.  Retaining customers for repeat business is the foundation for sustained Growth.

Online and Traditional

Promotion of the website through online mechanisms and traditional mechanisms is necessary for creating awareness.  Awareness is the cornerstone for building traffic to the web site.

E-Commerce Transaction

While promotional schemes can lead a suffer to the web site, they do not ensure that he takes the plunge to go ahead with an E-Commerce transaction.  He may want some reasons to trust the web site before clearing the threshold of the main transaction on the site.

Repeat Business

If everyone goes well with the first transaction, he may trust the site and be inclined to do more e-commerce transactions.  But there are competitors who too are good.  The loyalty of the customers needs to be built to ensure that the customer returns for repeat business.  Return visits mean more sales and a satisfied customer.

Let us look at the three aspects of building traffic to a web site and converting it into business.

• Promotion,
• Building trust,
• Building loyalty,

to get the right kind of people to visit the web site in the right quantity.  It is noteworthy that the profile of visitors is as important as their quantity.  You may not want more visitors than you can handle and you definitely do not want visitors whose profile does not match your customer profile.

Promotional Techniques

• Online Promotion on the Web site,
• Listing on Search Engines,
• Banners,
• Link Exchange Programme,
• Affiliate Programme,
• Referral Programme,
• Directory Listing,
• Traditional Methods of Promotion,
• Promotional Strategies.

Mutual Fund Sales Options

Available Options in Mutual Fund

Dividend Option

The fund normally earns income from the profit which it makes by investing in securities.  It also earns dividends on those securities.  The investors are normally given the option of making some of the earnings through dividends by Mutual Fund companies.

Growth Option

As said earlier, a fund earns income from the profit it makes by investing in securities and also in the form of dividends.  In growth option, the investors leave the earned profits in the mutual fund and allow it to get invested for earning more returns.  A diversified portfolio of stocks normally has capital appreciation as its primary goal.  They invest in companies that reinvest their earnings into expansion, acquisitions, and research and development.  Investors generally get higher potential growth in these types of funds but there is usually higher risk associated with them too.

Equity Fund

It is a mutual fund that invests in a broad based and well-diversified group of stocks.  The invested funds will either be in cash or stock.  Mostly an equity fund invests its assets in stocks of companies and earns returns in the form of capital gains (the difference between buying and selling stocks) as well as dividends earned from these investments.  This type of fund is riskier than balanced funds and debt funds.

Debt Fund / Income fund

It is also called bond fund as this fund normally invests in mainly government securities and corporate bonds which bear interest.  It may invest in short-term or long-term bonds and other securitized Products, money market instruments or floating rate debt.  It earns returns from interest income on its investments and profits on trading securities.  This fund is the least risky of all the funds.  In other words, the main investing objectives of a debt fund will usually be preservation of capital and generation of income.

Hybrid Funds

This fund type invests in equity shares of companies as well as debt securities.  It earns income in the form of dividends and interest as well as buying and selling securities.  This is riskier than debt fund and less risky than equity funds.

Some of distinctive characteristics of mutual funds include the following :

• Investors purchase mutual fund shares from the fund itself (or through a broker) instead of purchasing them from other investors in a secondary market (in Stock Exchange).
• The mutual funds shares are purchased at per share net asset value(NAV) of the fund.  Apart from that price an investor may have to pay any fees that the fund imposes at the time of purchase in the form of specified entry loads.
• Mutual fund shares are “redeemable,” which means one can sell one’s shares back to the fund or to a broker for the fund.
• Mostly Mutual funds are constantly creating and selling new shares to attract and accommodate new investors.

Pros and Cons

Advantages

Every investment has advantages an disadvantages.  But what is important to remember is that as the choices and preferences of each investors vary, the advantage of a particular feature for him will depend on his unique circumstances.  Generally, mutual funds provide quite an attractive investment choice for investors because they generally offer the following features viz.  Professional Management, Diversification which mean spreading your investments across a wide range of companies and industry sectors.  Affordability in the sense that one can enter in mutual funds even with relatively less invest able amounts.  Liquidity by way ready availability or redemption of you shares at the extant NAV at any point of time.

Disadvantages

But mutual funds also have features that some investors might view as disadvantages, such as costs, as investors pay sales charges, annual fees, and other ancillary charges irrespective of the fund’s performance, even if it gives negative returns, lack of control, as investors can neither determine the composition of a fund’s portfolio nor can they directly influence the buying behavior of the fund manager, price uncertainty as unlike with an individual stocks, with a mutual fund, the purchase price or redemption price of the shares will depend on the fund’s NAV.