Freelancers often move from one assignment to another. From one client to another. From one project to another. Sometimes even from one job to another! But prospecting and acquiring a new client requires much more gambling effort than retaining a client you’ve already managed to attract.
Your loyal customers are not only the most profitable ones. They’re also your best ambassadors. Having them helps you boost your reputation in the market you are in. It makes your freelance career more stable and rewarding.
In this guide, we remind you of the many benefits of selling recurring services. We give you the keys to making this process successful on Legiit.
Benefits of Selling Recurring Offers
No matter what industry you’re in, there’s one thing that all freelancers on Legiit have in common: the desire and need for recurring customers. Far too many entrepreneurs neglect their existing customers. Yet, customer retention is a winning marketing strategy. Discover now the real value of a recurring client compared to a one-time customer.
A Recurring Client Becomes an Ambassador of Your Services
A recurring client allows you to capture a new clientele. These include big fishes and customers that you might not have been able to reach otherwise. This is because satisfied customers recommend you to their friends and family, on social media, or even the Legiit Official Facebook Group. This word-of-mouth is a vector of reliable referrals. Some of the new clients might even sign up for your recurring services as well. It’s a virtuous circle that always pays off if your services are of high quality and add great value.
A Recurring Client Participates in the Improvement of Your Offer
A regular customer who sees your ongoing commitment to his satisfaction can help improve your services over time. Ask them what you are good at and what you should change or put more effort into. Involving your loyal customers in enhancing your offering will strengthen their attachment to your recurring services even more.
A Recurring Client Requires Less Marketing Effort From You
A recurrent client is a customer who knows your services and work ethic pretty well. Because of his greater autonomy, he needs less guidance than a new customer. As a matter of fact, the majority of customers who complain or ask for refunds are new or recent customers. They are not used to your services yet.
A Recurring Client Ends Up Spending More on You Than an Occasional Customer
The average basket of a regular customer is higher than a one-time buyer, as he spends from 10% to 20% more on your services. Besides, a loyal customer increases your turnover by his frequency of purchase. This will not only increase your monthly income but also stabilize it.
A Recurring Client for You Means Less Business for Your Competitors
Due to the competition, all freelancers are confronted with the risk of losing their customers. In order to reduce this problem, it is preferable to build a long-lasting relationship with the client rather than to make a one-time, fleeting transaction. Yes, it’s natural to lose customers, but the challenge here is to limit this loss.
How to Build Customer Loyalty on Legiit?
In view of the benefits that they represents, offering recurring services is essential for your freelancer career. But how can you keep your customers when the competition is rising?
There are simple actions that can help you gain visibility both among current and potential buyers. These actions also allow you to improve customer satisfaction. They revolve around 2 main factors:
- Nurturing the relationship of trust that’s already been established between you and your customer
- Arousing the interest of the customer so that he continues to call upon your recurring services
Check out all our tips to ensure your buyers’ loyalty on Legiit.
Make Your Recurring Service Attractive
Include some attractive features to match your offer. Use them as an incentive to hook your buyers and make them want to continue ordering from you on a regular basis. For example, if you offer services related to content writing, you can offer your loyal customers extra content every month. You could also take care of the publication of the contest, as well as its optimization.
Be innovative and don’t hesitate to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Imagine what would strengthen their commitment to your recurring service. To make your task easier, take into account:
- The offers put out by your main competitors
- The evolution of the market
- The reviews you received on Legiit
Write a Strong Sales Copy
Implement a storytelling strategy in your copy. Give your recurrent service a compelling voice. To do this, you could for example tell the story of the creation of your service.
This will make your customers familiar with your profile and will make them trust you faster. Make them understand the value that they can get from you. Something no other service provider can offer.
In your storytelling, don’t hesitate to insist on the values you wish to transmit through your service. Emphasize your qualities, your philosophy, your standards, your reputation, etc.
Turn Your Difference into an Advantage
Your personality is often enough to make you stand out. Just be yourself. Don’t try to fit into a role you don’t feel comfortable in. Do things with spontaneity, while remaining very professional and attentive to your clients’ needs. This will make it easier for them to relate to you, which will create a stronger professional relationship. If you are like everyone else, you will become a replaceable service provider.
Personalize Any Interaction with Your Customer
Your customer must feel that you are genuinely looking out for him, and see him as more than a one-time-only customer. A client who feels privileged is a client who will more easily trust you. To do this, you could for example:
- Greet your customer by name
- Remind him that he has already used your services
- Present him with recurring services that are likely to interest him according to his profile
This personalization in the exchange with your customers brings a positive, professional image around your Legiit profile. Your happy customers will be more likely to order a recurring service from you if they feel that you are responsive and listening.
Be Responsive to Your Customer’s Requests
The failure to meet your customer’s expectations is a situation that you might encounter sooner or later. In this case, your client will expect you to be reactive to his requests.
A lost customer is usually a customer who did not feel that his request was listened to. In fact, 52% of customers do not hesitate to turn to another recurrent service provider if the customer support is not up to their expectations. This might include:
- A lacking follow-up
- Approximate answers to their questions
- Very long reply times
No matter what service you offer, a loyal customer must be fully satisfied to call on you again and again. The customer experience must therefore be based on your reactivity. Suggest solutions to a given problem as soon as it arises.
Organize a File with Each Customer Profile
Your success as a freelancer depends largely on your ability to offer services that meet a recurring need on the part of a target clientele. And for that, it is essential to keep a sheet. This will give you the benefits of:
- A clear record of the number of your customers to help you estimate future sales
- Access to these customers’ profiles to help you adopt a personalized approach for each one of them
Get Some Feedback
Once you have customized your offers, we recommend that you evaluate their impact. This means doing satisfaction surveys at the end of the month or every few months. This will allow you to correct your mistakes quickly and without consequences for your client. He’ll be confident that the work is always well done.
In this way, you will avoid upsetting the client with a mistake or by your way of delivering the service. These things could make him leave you overnight with no prior notice. Regular feedback will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts to continuously improve your recurrent services.
Ideas of Recurring Services
The list of jobs that can be done as a freelancer keeps growing. But the most popular are still in the creative and technical industries. The following freelancers can easily come up with recurrent service offers:
- Software and web developer. This is a very broad field, in which you can offer to design and build websites, boost a website’s performance or appearance, work on mobile applications or participate in your client’s development projects.
- Webmaster and website administrator. You are wrong if you think that you can put up a website in one go and never take care of it again. Websites need to be regularly updated. They need to be adjusted to the changing expectations of online users and search engine algorithms. You also need to take care of their security. All these can be turned into a mostly offer.
- SEO expert. Your mission here is to make sure that your client’s website rises higher and higher every month on the SERPs. The wide variety of industries and the amount of work that a freelancer has to put into SEO efforts gives you the chance for a variety of packages that you can offer on Legiit.
- Copywriter. This is an assignment for someone who can handle a lot of writing. You can provide advertising texts, email scripts, regular social media posts, translations, transcriptions, and satisfy many other creative needs. You can also specialize in SEO copywriting, and write monthly blog posts, websites content, run an online forum, or produce press releases. There’s an infinite range of options here, as content is always needed in SEO.
- Analyst. This is something for those who love Excel, are great with numbers, and have great analytical skills. Analysts are often sought after in agencies. Those can become your best recurring client on Legiit with a large budget and regular needs.
- Video editor or animations creator. As the online world is expanding, most businesses need good visual support for their brand or product. Some use videos as their main marketing strategy and need video editors on a regular basis.
- Graphic designer. This one comes with a very generous bag of assignments in a variety of industries. You can do corporate identity design for companies. Design thumbnails and banner ads for someone actively posting on Youtube or other platforms. Or help marketing agencies produce logos, infographics, QR codes, and other designs for their clients. The options here are overflowing.
- Virtual assistant. A VA’s help is used by people who don’t have time to deal with some things or want to entrust you with constant tasks for their businesses. These tasks can be: Data entry and research, emailing, project management, admin support, social media management, WordPress management, Amazon KDP assistance, web design, SEO, Google ads, Facebook ads, customer service, or even recruitment.
You can offer all these things and more under the recurring services feature on Legiit Premium. The process is the same, minus the worrying part to get new customers every month. Browse our articles and expert tips to deliver a great customer experience and improve your service popularity on Legiit!
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