Problem is, pursuing new relationships
comes with a cost. I’m not talking about the direct cost of getting a new lead (eg, marketing costs, travel, and other
expenses). I’m talking about the less-obvious cost of time taken away from existing relationships.
It takes considerable
time and money to make someone a customer of your business. But once they’ve become a customer – once they’ve
demonstrated their trust and faith by actually giving you money – it takes relatively little effort to keep them an
advocate for your services.
And that’s where most of us fall down.
In my Tech Tour presentation I talk about the importance
of staying in touch with your existing customers. They are your #1 source of future business (via referrals), but they will
tend to forget you, and their business will go somewhere else, if you fail to reach out to them regularly.
You might call this “protecting
your herd”. Here are three simple but powerful ways to do that.
Call today, more business tomorrow
Once upon
a time a phone call was the only way to reach out to someone in real time. Today we e-mail and text and tweet and Facebook.
We communicate with our thumbs and forefingers. The phone call has become a last art!
Picking up the phone and calling
customers is the fastest way to generate additional business activity. For sure, some customers are going to need a service
call (fixing a problem and getting into people’s homes are two great ways to build business. A service call lets you
do both). Some might actually have new work for you, but have been too busy to let you know. Some might have a friend shopping
for what you sell. But ALL of them will be glad to hear from you and grateful that you remembered them.
Key point here: your call cannot be a sales call. It must be a sincere “reaching
out” to make sure everything is working OK, and to remind them how valuable a customer they are. For suggestions on
how to script a valuable call, request my free strategy paper, the “3-step Guide to Reintroduce Yourself”,
by submitting the form on the Bottom-Line Marketing page of this website.
Mail a “Thank You”
Another lost art. Think about it… How many written
thank you’s do you receive from the businesses you patronize? My guess is two or three a year.
You should mail a thank
you when you complete a project, of course. But why wait until the project is done? How about a thank you for signing a contract?
A thank you for referring a new lead? An annual thank you on the anniversary of their system purchase/completion?
I use
a service called Send Out Cards to mail thank you’s, via US postal mail, from my PC. I also use it for birthday cards
and holiday cards. It is an outstanding marketing tool, and makes it easier for you to send 2 or 3 cards, every year, to every
customer on your list. You can learn more on the Never Let Them Forget page of this website .
E-mail monthly tips and/or a newsletter
Your customers have an
interest in the products you sell and the services you provide. They appreciate receiving information that brings more value
to the purchases they have already made. But they don’t want to be constantly “sold to”.
A regular e-mail communication
that focuses on “tell” instead of “sell” can help you maintain your customers’ recall of who
you are, what you provide, and why they should remember you to their friends. There are three elements to putting this in
place in your company.
1) Customer
database. This is your company’s most valuable asset.
The more complete, the better. I’ve recorded a “Customer Relations” webinar (link below) that features an
excellent discussion of what your database should look like, and where you should keep it.
2) E-mail delivery system. For several years, I used Outlook to merge my e-mail list with my newsletters. This works well for smaller lists.
(There is a great “how to” demo of this in the “Customer Relations” webinar, which you can order on
CD for only $14.97 on the Bottom-Line Marketing page of this website). I now use Constant Contact, which allows me to automate parts of the process, while tracking key statistics
for each mailing.
3)
Content. This is perhaps the most challenging issue for many companies, and I am finally providing a long-promised
solution: monthly “anchor content” around which to build your e-mail communications. I’ll be presenting
the details during the Firszt Friday webinar at 11a Central on August 6.
Click here to register (no charge to attend).
Protect & nurture your herd. It is the #1 marketing activity to help you Grow & Prosper!
