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Keep in Touch with Your Customers as You Would Your Friends
02/09/2009 - By Patty Sachs Keep in Touch with Your Customers as You Would Your Friends
“Your old customers are your best new customers.”
Have you ever had a chance encounter with a customer or friend and have them say, “Gee, I wish I had thought to call you for my daughter’s wedding” (or similar event?) That is one of the downsides of not “keeping in touch.”
Drumming up new business for your retail or service business should be a solid part of your regularly scheduled activities. Advertising and promotion are the most frequently used methods of bringing in new business—promoting special sales and new products on a regular basis. While it will take time, it needs to be scheduled like an appointment and kept.
Your budget for creating new customers may well be spent in these effective and more successful allocations of funds since it is proven that keeping in touch with your established customers will bring back a much larger return.
Keeping in touch with your satisfied customers/clients can be accomplished in several ways, at different times and with varying investment of time and expense. The key is to being organized and setting up a schedule of events and procedures. Almost all of the methods suggested will involve help from others. This is the best way to guarantee that the projects go on as scheduled and are thoroughly implemented.
If you do not have an employee that is free to help with this “in touch” and “in your face” process or the budget to hire another, the use of a part-time intern can prove rewarding in many ways beneficial to both you and the intern.
How to collect names and addresses and other information in your business location or at event and trade shows:
· Business card prize drawings, contests and e-mail address newsletter registration.
· If you don’t have a computerized (on web-site) method of collecting addresses, have potential customers fill out a short questionnaire for you.
· Build an address list from all inquiries and purchases.
· Retailers can give customers an incentive to give their contact information. Offer to send mail or e-mail announcements about sales, discount coupons, special offers.
· Collect dates for a birthday and anniversary club. A wonderful way to keep in touch ahead of time to remind them that you have products or services that they may need for any up-coming celebrations. A special greeting on the date will stand out from all other mail. How many of those greetings do you get from businesses? Maybe your insurance agent.
· Make a contact card for each customer and put their special dates on an e-mail or tickler rotary reminder system to make it easy to remember them.
· Ask about any organizations they might belong to. All of this will come in handy with keeping in touch. Those organizations plan events and need your services.
Sending greeting cards:
· Keep in touch with greetings for birthdays and anniversaries. As mentioned above, you may offer a consultation re: celebrations surrounding their special dates.
· Send a card on the first anniversary, of clients whom you have served for their wedding.
· Retailers: Send a birthday card, inviting recipient in to your store for a gift. Cooperate with another retailer for a package of gifts. (Bakery, movie theatre, restaurant, photo shop, family fun center, sports events, clothing shops, video rentals, book store, etc.) This can be a pretty envelope with a few coupons in it.
An e-mail newsletter:
· List your web site on all of your materials,
· If it is new, make an announcement through hard copy and e-flyers.
· Set up a mailing list server such as Constant Contact.
· Offer on-line only specials. (Offers known only to on-line readers.)
· Send an e-mail-newsletter to announce sales to coincide with your postcards. You can have readers print out the letter and bring it for discount.
· Put a reminder service on your web site to send a message to alert readers to special holiday or event dates.
A message board on a your web site:
· Your readers can post questions, you either answer or other board members do.
· You can affiliate with experts in various areas of party/event/wedding planning such as caterers, balloon decorators, rental companies, invitation sellers, planners, venues, talent, etc. These experts will take questions in exchange for getting promotion on your site.
Create special events in your store or office by invitation to your clients: (great PR opportunities, too)
· Classes on table setting, napkin folding, rubber stamping, scrapbooking, floral arranging, centerpiece design or food service. (Affiliate with experts, here.)
· Seminars on event planning, budgeting or other pertinent subjects.
· Product demos or book signings
· Brainstorming center: Invite customers/clients to browse through books, files, magazines, catalogs for party ideas.
· Open houses to introduce new products or services
Following up after a party:
· Send a “Thank You Note” to each customer to whom you have given a service. (Balloon Decorating, Catering, Venue, Rentals, Costumes.) Remind them that you do other types of events, than you planned for them. If it was a wedding, tell them that you do corporate, or vice versa. Ask for a referral letter; ask for leads, a birthday list for reminders. Ask if they would send a mailing to their invitation list…you provide mailing, stamped and they address.
· Send an anniversary or birthday congratulations from here on in. (on first anniversary include photo from their event. Keep these filed according to date.
Sharing press clippings, etc.
· If you get some press, make copies and send out by e-mail or fax to your customers with a short note.
· Make a bulletin board in your store or office holding these clippings.
· If you see a customer or an acquaintance’s name in the paper, clip the article and send it to them with congratulations.
· If you see an article or announcement that would interest a client, about a special passion, send it to him with a note saying “I thought of you.”
· Always include a few business cards with these contacts.
All these ways to keep in touch will bring in new business from old business—the best way to increase your business.
Patty Sachs is a party expert, speaker and author of 10 party guides. www.partyplansplus.com and partysachs@prodigy.net 763-432-3395
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