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…4 reasons to look at contacting your customers on a monthly basis. This article addresses those who don’t have a monthly contact process with your customer base. Call this contact process a newsletter or whatever you want. You need monthly contact with your customers. Your current and future success depends on the ability to keep in contact with your customers. I will give you four reasons why you should start now a monthly contact program with your customers. You might object. “It’s a great idea but… I don’t have time to make this work; I ‘m too busy running my business; I would rather buy ads and pray they work; My customers are different. They wouldn’t read it; I ‘m comfortable chasing after new customers”. Monthly contact with your customers is not just another “thing” you should do in your business. Monthly contacts with your customers should be the corner-stone of the way you do business. If your customers don’t hear from you, you are gone from their mind. Eventually you are out of business. See if any of these reasons inspires you to start contacting your customers every month. It’s Cheaper to Work with Existing Customers You already know the statistic—it’s 10 times cheaper to work with your existing customer base than chase after new customers. Let’s break that down. Let’s say you spend $10,000 on advertising costs for items like network meetings, yellow pages, ads, brochures, etc. If in a given year you get 100 new customers, then it means that every new customer cost you $100 in advertising costs. Each new prospect takes 3-4 contacts before they become a customer. If your time is worth $50 per hour that means that each new customer is costing you another $200 in your time. What about the time you waste sorting out prospects from tire kickers? How much time is wasted on tire kickers that produce no results? If you offer first time customers discounts or special coupons, how much money are you giving away to make them your customer? You can do your own numbers. The bottom line for many businesses is they are lucky to make any profit on a customer’s first purchase. If your customers don’t hear from you, you will not be on their mind! Existing Customers Are an Easier Sell You know from personal experience that a potential prospect is much harder to sell than one of your current customers. The fact is simple. Once a prospect has become a customer, they cross over an invisible line that says, “I trust you.” “I like you.” “I believe in your company.” Statistics show that a person who has bought from you once is thirty percent more likely to buy from you again. If your work day was filled with “easy sales,” how would that affect your time and your energy? When you’ve had a day of easy sales, hasn’t everything seemed better? If your customers don’t hear from you, you are not on their mind when they go to make a purchase. Customer Referrals—Advertising You Cannot Buy! Have you ever received a referral like this from a friend? “Yes, I got a refrigerator from Smith’s Appliance store about five years ago. It worked fine. I’m not sure if they are still in business.” How likely would you be to use that referral to search out a solution to your refrigerator problem? Once customers have experienced your product and your service, they are now great candidates for providing customer referrals. They have first hand experience with your product or service. They will now recommend you to their friends. This is free advertising, and it’s the most powerful advertising you can use. But if your customers have not heard from you, you are no longer on their mind! Your Competitors are Contacting Your Customers Just because your clients were your customers once, there is no guarantee they will be forever. In fact, customer loyalty in the past several years has dropped, even for well known companies. Your customers are learning every day about new buying options. These may be online options, mail order options, or special niche stores. More and more customers are exercising their buying options. If you are not contacting your customer base, your competitors are. Listen to the radio, the TV, watch the ads in the paper, or check online. Every day, the average person is getting 3,000 messages to buy things. How long do you think it will take before your customer begins to take advantage of offers being made by your competitors? Your customers may not be hearing from you. You can be sure they are hearing from your competitors. Conclusion. Starting a monthly contact process with your customers is not just another business strategy. It’s a different way of operating your business. It will save you dollars; it will increase your profits; it will make your work easier. It will create a much stronger business for your future. I hope this article has inspired you to start your own monthly customer contact program. If you want more practical details about how to create your own monthly contact program and make it effective with your customers, e-mail me Al@successfulmarketingtools.com with the subject line “Monthly Contact Report.” I will send you a free report that shows you practical details about this marketing strategy. Copyright Al Hanzal, 2005. All Rights Reserved Hanzal Enterprises, Inc. 4191 Granite Court Eagan, Minnesota 55123 651-485-3340
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Advice Home Business Technology Online Advertising Motivational Internet Marketing SEO Help Online Games Science Articles Happiness More Articles:1. Contact Management: Gain Control of Your Marketing Efforts and Assure a Steady Flow of Clients By Julie Chance When it comes to marketing, do you ever feel like you are at the mercy of the tides – following up on a referral here, chasing a lead there and more often than not ending up battered and bruised by the rocks along the shoreline? There is a simple solution. It is a solution that will put you in control of your marketing efforts and help assure a steady flow of prospective clients: develop and use a contact management database.Now what could b… 2. Mission Position By Anita Paul Ahh, the mission statement. For some companies it simply describes their purpose for existing. For others it permeates the overall culture of the company. Some see its value, while others neglect to give it even a passing thought.Whatever your position on having a corporate mission statement, you should know that your image is tied to your mission. And companies that don't have a clearly defined image usually don't have a mission statement. All… 3. Cave Paintings, Baseball and Connecting By Keith Thirgood There’s no such thing as a captive audience--any of us can tune out at will. It may surprise you, then, to know that keeping people’s attention in this high-tech age takes the same know-how we had in neolithic days.The evidence of cave paintings points to our ancestors’ grasp of the power of image and symbol. Their striking use of imagery was likely matched by equally powerful storytelling.To explain the nature of their business, many consu… 4. How To Be That Guy By Scott Ginsberg I am That Guy.And I didn’t even mean for it to happen. It just did.It all started five years ago when I had a crazy idea to start wearing a nametag to make people friendlier. The only catch was, I planned to wear it all day. Everyday. For the rest of my life.I know.But it worked. It worked really well. And aside from the obvious jokes about my memory problems, the occasional (by which I mean constant) stares from strangers, and the initia… |