Turning buyers into customers

[B-Double-U]

There are tons of places out there to *buy* buyers.

What I mean by that is you can post your products or services on tons of different venues, platforms and with affiliate relationships or prebuilt stores like Amazon or eBay. You give up a percentage of the sale or pay them a bounty to get this buyer. Sometimes, even after the transaction has completed, the buyer has no clue that you were the provider of the service or product.

In a lot of cases, Amazon for one, you are explicitly denied the right to market to this mutual customer. This is why I refer to them as a buyer. I don't consider them a customer until they buy direct or solicit my service directly.

I am curious to know how others are converting these buyers into actual customers and retaining their loyalty. It seems that without actual effort we see somewhere between 5-10% of them naturally convert, but I am really interested in some ideas of how we can proactively make them aware that we are the provider and get them to convert a second and third time.

What is the best mousetrap in these situations