Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Before I talk about some of the ways you can stay in touch with your clients and prospects, let’s just talk about why it’s important to stay in touch with your list.

If you  keep in touch you’ll

• show that you care by making sure they’re happy with your product/service
• show they’re under your protection (by giving useful info)
• get valuable feedback
• keep your information up-to-date
• remind them of a need for your product or service
• develop a relationship where they know, like and trust you and so will buy more
• be top of mind when they want to make their next purchase.
• get more referral business – especially if the content of your messages is worth passing on
• have a list you can promote to regularly – cheaper than other forms of advertising, smoothes out the ‘feast and famine’ periods
• develop a loyal following and so build a business you can sell eventually, if you want to

Some of your reasons for contacting your list need to be purely taking care of your list ones and some need to be promotional ones. You can combine the two. For instance, give a tip and then tell them how they can learn more by getting in touch with you.

Whatever message you send to your list, it needs to be valuable to the members. They are too busy and overloaded with information to put up with poor content – you’ll get loads of unsubscribes and poor responses if you send ill-thought out direct and e-mail.  

As with all promotion, please make sure your title (or subject line in email) acts like a headline, grabs attention and makes your reader want to read on.

Here are some suggestions for message content when contacting you list. How many have you tried and with what results?

• Thank you for your business
• Useful tips and information
• What’s new in your business (You need to show why it should interest them)
• ‘I’m re-establishing contact with important clients’ – helps your list feel special
• Great news! (perhaps a special offer)
• How are you getting on with ….product you bought from us?
• How has…..(work we did) made a positive difference to…… – This may trigger a testimonial
• ‘We missed you…’
• Update your list – ‘Can I check the information I have is correct?’
• Please help us to serve you better by completing our survey (questions about product, service, delivery preferences, feedback, suggestions for improvements etc. They’ll probably need an ethical bribe too, e.g. prize draw entry. Charities do this – they enclose a pen so you’re more likely to want to give them something back)
• Special services e.g. Xmas opening times
• Success stories
• Sorry for not keeping in contact
• Buying guides
• Introduce a new member of staff – and what they can do for your list
• Introduce another supplier who has the same target market as you but doesn’t compete with you (they’ll do the same for you)

How often should you contact your client and prospect list?

As often as you have something valuable to say.

Experience shows that the more a business stays in contact with its clients and prospects, the more profit it makes.

I wish you every success in your business.

Warm wishes

Madeleine

If you’re a business owner or in charge of the marketing in your business and you’d like to know more about profitable low-cost marketing , please send an email to Madeleine Morgan madeleine@growu.co.uk  or phone 01223 426392 or go to the website http://www.growu.co.uk to book a free Markeging  for Small Businesses Strategy Session worth £197.

• We’ll spend an hour looking at the way you’re marketing your business,
• what kind of results you’d like to get,
• what is stopping you from reaching your targets and
• what resources are available to get you there.

I can guarantee I’ll find new ways for you to mine the the hidden profits in your business that will be well worth the time you invest in this session.

What is list building?

What I’m talking about here is building a database of people who it would be useful for you to stay in contact with because they may become customers or send you referrals.

Why is it important to build a list?

If you build up a good relationship with your list your business will grow much faster, with less effort and more cheaply than with any other marketing strategy.

Your clients will be more loyal. You’ve probably had experience of buying something from a company that has kept in touch with you, even if the product or service is more expensive, just because of the quality of the relationship they have with you. If you make that relationship special, no-one can copy it – that gives you an edge over your competition.

Building a list of clients and prospects who know, like and trust you will help you recession-proof your business and even out the flow of business to you (helping your avoid feast and famine cycles). If you’ve created the right relationship with your list, you will be top of their mind when they are in the market for what you have to offer. You won’t have to worry about being the right place at the right time when you need to sell to them. Nor will you need to invest in expensive product and service launches.

If you want to sell your business eventually, your list will add value to your business in the eyes of purchasers.

So, how do you build your business growth list?

To make this work for you, you need to:

•  make list building a priority by including it in your marketing plan, marketing systems and marketing tactics. Make it a key performance indicator in your business – in other words set a target for the number of people you will add to your list each day, month, year and how often you want to stay in contact.
• view your clients and prospects as important, under your care and protection, worthy of  quality time and attention.  Your relationship with them is like being a farmer, not a hunter.

So, now I’m going to share with you the basics – things you can put into action immediately.

There are 5 essentials to growing a profitable list of prospects and clients. They are:

1. Getting a list managing system (on-line and off-line)

2. Creating a free offer to entice your target market to sign up

3. Creating a system to capture the contact details (on-line or off-line)

4. Driving people to sign up to your list

5. Ways to stay in contact with your list of prospects and clients and keep them loyal

So, let’s get started:

1. Your Management System – The first thing you’re going to need is some method of managing your list.  If you want an online list, and your main way of contacting people is to send emails and an email newsletter, then you need something like 1ShoppingCart, Infusionsoft, Mail Chimp or AWeber. These list managers have a variety of features which enable you to  manage all of the sign ups, automated email responses and unsubscriptions for your list. If you’re going to be mainly following up with people offline, there are database managers like ACT and Goldmine. Even Outlook or a basic Excel spreadsheet will do to get you started if you are managing a tight budget.
2. Creating a free offer or ‘ethical bribe’ – one of the easiest ways to build your list is to offer something your target market will find valuable and will willingly exchange their contact details to get it. Think of it like this. If your prospects were birds you would have a choice – you can run around and hope to catch them or you can put out some birdseed and attract the birds to you. Which would you prefer? Which will save you time, money and energy? So your free offer is your birdseed. You need to think about the best birdseed for your product or service and target market. This could be a free report. For examples go to www.buildingselfconfidence.co.uk and www.growu.co.uk. Alternatively, you could offer a free video, CD or MP3 recording, free podcast, seminar, teleseminar or webinar with some valuable content, an ecourse, a free ‘health’ check or strategy consultation. This is better than sending them a brochure or other promotional material because you are starting the relationship with giving something rather than asking them for something. There’s an art and science to the way you present this free product or service that will make it an incredibly powerful sales tool without seeming to sell. For instance, give your free offer a compelling title. For now, don’t worry to much about perfecting it, just offer something. Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. The offer needs to match your product/service and main marketing messages so if you offer an instant solution don’t make your free offer a 28 page report! Your offer should be cheap and easy to create and have a high perceived value. Once you’ve created it you will reap the rewards of the time and enegy it took over and over again. By all means sell something in it but give value first.
3. Your Lead/Prospect Capture System – now that you have something to offer you need to work out a system for capturing your prospects’ details. Online methods include: a sign up box on all the pages of your main website (including your home page); a special mini website or  landing, opt-in or squeeze page solely for the purpose of getting people in your target market to sign up for your free offer. The content for that special  site could be a video clip, audio recording or readable copy that sells your offer. The advantage of a mini site is that signing up is the only thing the visitor to the site can do and so they are less likely to get distracted or confused and just go away. You need to decide what details to ask for. The less you ask for the more likely they are to give you them to you. So,  you could just ask for name and email address if your offer is downloadable and if you intend to remain in contact mainly by email. Once they’ve been on your list for a while you might ask for more details. If it’s something you need to post to them, of course you’ll ask for their address details too. Reassure them that you won’t sell their details or bother them with spam. Off-line capture can be done through a  a returnable coupon, stamped addressed envelope, taking their phone calls, etc.
4. Driving Traffic/Propects to Your Sign Up – you need a way to direct quality targetted traffic to your capture system, whether you’re doing this on-line or off-line. Only do this once you’ve got the other 3 parts of your system in place. Avoid spending a lot of money on this until you know that you will be able to persuade a large proportion of your traffic to sign up. It’s a huge subject but here are a few suggestions. Online - buy a list and run an email campaign. Make sure your main website is optimised for the main key words your target market would use for online searches. Automate your web pages so that you can offer a bonus to everyone who signs up if they recommend another person. Another online way to generate traffic, especially to a mini-site, is pay per click advertising. You can set up a Google Pay Per Click Account for free. Just make sure that you know how to maximise your investment with this before you take the plunge. Other online ways are to get traffic through your Blog, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media profiles. Write articles for online article directories like www.ezinearticles.com and add relevant comments on Blogs and Forums that attract your target market and include your contact details/website address etc. Off-line methods include: tell the people you network with about your offer; put your offer on your business card and other marketing materieals; submit articles/PR pieces to  magazines and newspapers that your target market reads (As a last resort, advertise in them – and negotiate really good rates first); buy a list and create a direct mail campaign; find other business owners in complementary industries who have the same clients as you who would be willing to contact their list on your behalf in exchange for you contacting your list on their behalf or some other reward.
5. Staying in contact – how to  build the relationship once your prospects have joined your list and keep them wanting to stay on your list. Stay in regular contact. I know many of my clients feel uneasy about doing this because they don’t like their inbox filling up with spam. But if your contact is useful and relevant, your list will welcome it. A good rule of thumb is to make 3 out 4 of your contacts mainly about just giving your list members some valuable and interesting information and the 4th one can be a sales letter about your product/service offer. Another way to make sure your messages are welcome is to divide up your list so that you can send targetted messages. For instance, one of my clients runs a picture framing business so he can divide up his list into artists/photographers and general members of the public. He can then target his offers and information to their particular needs. Imagine you have just one list member – how would you build a relationship with that person? Wouldn’t you listen to what they want, give support, talk about what interests them, build trust, show loyalty, be honest, be authentic, have fun, make them feel good, add value and be unique. That’s the way to keep people on your list. What would cause them to go away? Wouldn’t it be: lack of contact; being let down; coldness; being boring, being irrelvant, exploiting them and giving offence? Specifically, how could you keep your list interested?  They say being in business is about finding out what prospects want and giving it to them. So, how about sending them a survey to find out what they want? (You may need to give them another ethical bribe to actually fill it out). Endorse other products and valuable offers to them. Interview experts who can help them and send them the recording. Share some of your personal/business personality and events. Tell them when you’ve created a new blog post and send them the link to it. Keep giving them useful tips. A travel agent I know warns his clients when union strikes are likely to disrupt their travel plans – he normally knows before we hear it on the media and he can help them make alternative arrangements while there’s still time. Offer free prize draws to your list if it’s appropriate. The list is endless. Choose what suits your business.

So put these 5 list building basics into place and your business will grow quicker than you thought possible.

If you want expert help to put these and more advanced strategies into action please contact me, Madeleine Morgan, at madeleine@growu.co.uk or phone 01223 426392 for more information.

To your business and personal success

Warm wishes

Madeleine

The Coaching Room, 44 Chesterfield Road, Cambridge, CB4 1LN