
Secret #1
Start collecting information from your customers. This would be their name, address, phone number, email address, cell phone number and their birthday. You need to offer them something special in order to receive their information. For example, if you own a restaurant, you could offer them a free dessert on their birthday. When their birthday month arrives, you send them a physical card or an email to remind them of the gift. If you do this you will be amazed at how many names you will have just after one month!
Secret #2
Now we are going to talk about your customers and clients that you do have information about and what to do with it. Perhaps you already have the information on an excel spread sheet. If you do, give yourself a pat on the back! If not, you need to put your customer information on one. If you are not sure how to do this, hire someone who can do it for you. When you use this type of system, you can go back and sort the information so you know who has birthdays this month or where your customers live. You can make it very specific so you know the exact area of town where the majority of your clients are from. So, hire someone to put in this information or you can do it yourself or have an employee do it for you.
Secret #3
Suppose you have information on your customers but not all of their information. This is a good excuse to call them and let them know that you are updating your records. This will also remind them of your business without the sales pitch. They will realize that you care about them. Add this additional information to your excel spreadsheets. They might ask you why you need their email address or cell number. Just tell them you are starting a newsletter about what is going on in your business and want to keep them informed. So, get on the phone and gather information. This again could be done by an employee or an intern.
Secret #4
Once you have your customer list complete, it is time to put a plan into place. What we have done is put our customer list in ABC order which can be done on the excel spreadsheet. Then you must make a list of the follow up methods that you will use with your customers. The follow up methods are: Email, Texting, Phone Calls, Direct Mail and Social Media. Now buy a calendar for the year where you have room to write several things for each day. You might also want to visit http://www.productiveflourishing.com/ for free calendars. These are what I use to put this plan together.
Here is an example of how you will do this. Print off the free calendars. I use the Monthly Action Planner and The Blog Post Calendar. All of these methods can and should be automated.
Week #1
Email your list. This again depends on your business. A restaurant might want to email once a week to let their customers know about events and specials. Some just want to send a newsletter once a month with information. Each business is different so you have to look at your business and decide how often you want to send emails.
Using Ping, send a message to Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter, your blog etc. You might want to send these messages each day. Make sure it is useful information that people want to know about, not just a sales pitch. Pick an article that you think they might enjoy or perhaps a cute video. These things remind them about you and your business.
Week #2
Text your list. This again depends on your business. A restaurant might want to text once a week to let their customers know about events and specials. Some just want to send a text about a special offer. Each business is different so you have to look at your business and decide how often you want to send texts.
Using Ping, send a message to Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter, your blog etc. You might want to send these messages each day. Make sure it is useful information that people want to know about, not just a sales pitch. Pick an article that you think they might enjoy or perhaps a cute video. These things remind them about you and your business.
Week #3
Call your list. Again, this depends on the size of your list. If you have 5000 on your list, calling them once a month might be overwhelming unless you use an automated system. If you want to make personal calls to your clients, then you might want to break up your ABC list and just call A-B in January, C-D in February, etc.
Using Ping, send a message to Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter, your blog etc. You might want to send these messages each day. Make sure it is useful information that people want to know about, not just a sales pitch. Pick an article that you think they might enjoy or perhaps a cute video. These things remind them about you and your business.
Week #4
Send your list a note, card or other direct mail piece. If you don’t want to send something once a month to your list, you can divide your ABC list by 12 and Just send to group A-B in January, C-D in February, E-F in March, G-H in April, etc. This is up to you on how you do the direct mail since that is the most expensive. Another method is bag deliveries. This is where you or a service delivers door to door a bag with information about your business. You might want to target the areas closest to you.
Using Ping, send a message to Facebook, LinkedIn, Tweeter, your blog etc. You might want to send these messages each day. Make sure it is useful information that people want to know about, not just a sales pitch. Pick an article that you think they might enjoy or perhaps a cute video. These things remind them about you and your business.
Be sure to do each step in order. If you find that you never finish step #1, you might want to consider scheduling a free consultation with us so we can help you get started. Best of luck and let us know how this goes.
Sincerely,
Jim and Pam Lutey
www.followupmarketingexperts.com
pam@followupmarketingexperts.com
(970) 587-2869