Consider subscribing to my blog's RSS feed. It's sticky
It’s a pretty accepted fact that finding ways to do more business or get more referrals from your existing customers is a smart way to build a business. But as the din of noisy demands captures your attention it’s easy to forget all about those existing customers until they pick-up the phone and reorder.
I advocate creating a calendar of contacts and finding a way to make certain that your customers, referral sources and hottest prospects never go more than about 30 days without some form of contact. These contacts don’t, in fact shouldn’t, always have to be overt sales attempts. I adopted a practice long ago of picking up the phone on Friday afternoons and reaching out to people I felt I hadn’t talk with in a while just to see how they were. It never failed, however, to turn up some opportunities.
I received a handwritten note today from a supplier I have worked with for some time and it contained a very nice marketing nugget. (I’ve posted about handwritten notes before - do them and you will automatically stand out because nobody writes them anymore.) The note I received today was a note of introduction from a new employee at this organization. The note was simply her way of telling me she had joined the organization and little about her background - she isn’t my account rep and she wasn’t selling anything.
What a brilliant little tactic. I received a contact, I was impressed by the handwritten note, and she was allowed to go through and familiarize herself with this organization’s entire customer database - this works on a bunch of levels.
Comments
This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at Apr 25, 08 | 8:03 am and is filed under Lead Generation, Marketing Materials, Referral Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
John, you are a mind reader. I am working on a system like this with a client. I have worked before with campaigns that were carefully pre-planned to auto-contact people. But, I like the idea of taking it past the auto-follow up, drip systems to the personal note. Sometimes we risk, with the drips, quietly saying “Here’s your darned old email, now I don’t have to think about you for another week.” That may be reality, but I would like to avoid the tacit statement. A personal note doesn’t have to be a novel and can do the trick. Even a personal post card!
Great ideas - good post.
Took your advice and wrote several notes today! I expect the same kind of feedback - it is true that no one does that anymore.
The personal touch means soooo much. Learned from an old gentleman, who had a rolodex he faithfully went thru every month, awa birthdays.
I agree with you completely. This is a great way to stand out from the crowd. I have used this some in the past and in certain situations sent a note with a book I thought the recipient would enjoy. You have reminded me I need to do this more often. Thanks John!
Hey John,
Jitendra from SezWho here…Just wanted to drop by and say hi…Please let me know how your experience been with SezWho and please upgrade to a newer version that has new and improved layout and a number of other features.
Thanks, Jitendra
Your post just confirms what many businesses, big and small, fail to realise - and that is that marketing is every employees business and that it doesn’t take a zillion dollars and a 500 page plan to market your business successfully. Instead it takes a bit of time and thought and the will to find out how you can satisfy a cuctomer’s needs.
Jon, you hit the nail right on the head. The era of trying to “woo” customers with shiny advertisements is over and we are ushering in the era of giving customers information that they can use in everyday life, and other things that show that they are more than just a number in our overall profit margin.
Here at WOWzzy.com we are in the final testing stages of launching a new system that will give every business owner a platform to easily present such forms of “advertisement” to consumers around the world based on location. Our goal is to provide business owners with an extremely affordable platform to display their business in a atmosphere that is much easier to be found in than the rain forest that is contemporary methods of searching for business.
Since we are here for you, we want to ask you the business owner what kind of things that you want to see in a business system? What are the things that are present in e-commerce that frusterate you? Your input is greatly appreciated, and I thank you for your time.
Great post John,
I agree completely!! Aim to satisfy not only your customers business needs, but make them feel appreciated, wanted… The personal touch of your handwritten note is the perfect way to give customers that feeling… Much better than a mass-produced generic note with a blank spot for someones name….
Once again, good post.. keep ‘em coming.
Depending on the size of your organization, it is also unique to get higher management levels involved in this personalization process as well. Often organizations get fixated on having the local representative being the sole face-to-face representation of the company. It takes you steps forward if sales managers, VP’s, or even the President were to occasionally take a moment to personally contact key customers. This gives your customer a higher sense of being valued.
Nothing is better than picking up the phone and the hand-written note.
The key is ALWAYS do this with your top 20% Ideal Clients.
Do it with the rest of your clients as time permits.
Walt
Hi John
As usual, valuable insight into how to better our businesses. I am going to in future make no meetings on Friday afternoon and phone the those clients that I have not spoken to in a while. You are so right you phone someone and they often say I have been thinking of calling you.
I feel the same way. I use an automation system that sends emails, faxes, direct mail peices and autmatically facilitates phone calls based on the parameters that I have set before hand. Works great.
I agree that nothing is more important in business than relationship marketing. It is so often overlooked as a means to stay connected with customers. I would encourage readers in this blog to visit the website link I have above, for Send Out Cards. That allows you to stay connected and send the personal notes without much effort. You can also send a gift card or gift basket to a good client as a thank you. Saying thank you in business is also VERY rare these days.
Great thought John. As a matter of fact, I have every handwritten note I’ve received via work tacked to my wall, and I think about those people every day. That’s the point of marketing - staying #1 in their minds when they think of your industry!!!