Marketing Manner

It’s easy when your business is busy making money with current clients to put marketing on the backburner. You have tons of money rolling in at the moment, who needs marketing? You do. By the time your current wave of clients dies down, it’ll be too late to start marketing to drum up new business. Your slow time will remain slow if that’s when you choose to market your business.

Marketing must be a constant. It’s not something you can just do when you feel like it. Don’t be lazy! Market all year round for a constant cash and client flow. If you are too busy to do it, then hire someone to do it for you. Whether that’s a full-time marketing pro or a marketing agency, marketing needs to be done through the year.

Wouldn’t it be nice to always have a steady stream of clients rather than a cyclical dry period every few months where you’re begging, hoping and praying for a client to walk through your door? All you have to do is use “drip marketing.” Drip marketing refers to planned and sequenced marketing messages that are sent out at intervals over a period of time. Like a slowly dripping faucet, you need to drip your message to prospects regularly. Here are some ways you can use drip marketing in your campaign to keep the clients lined up.

1. Give clients info they need in an attractive package. This does not mean getting a beautiful woman or a buff man to read important info to your clients at their place of business!

An attractive package means something that is generally free and packed with need-to-know info. You can offer your clients an eBook, a special report or some kind of video that shows them info they would be interested in. It’s best if the info is somehow related to your industry or product, but giving current event updates and advice (like on how to save gas money) works as well. Give your clients info in an easily digestible form that won’t take up too much of their time. You can change the medium you use every time you drip info to them, like using a video one time and a short eBook the next.

2. Send out a monthly newsletter. This can be a hard copy newsletter that people get through the mail or an electronic copy sent through email. The point is to give people valuable info at timed intervals so that you “stay in touch” with customers. Let them know you haven’t tanked. You’re still around to do business with them. You’ll also up your expert status by providing valuable info, which will make your relationship with customers so much better. One nice feature you could use is spotlighting one of your customers in each newsletter so people look forward to getting in that spotlight section.

3. Keep a blog. Blogging is more popular than sliced bread (now that’s popular!). Blogs are a great way for you to keep an informal connection with customers while keeping them updated on the latest happenings with your business or in your industry. Blogs give customers a way to communicate back to you so you can establish a dialog – another great relationship-builder. (And what is a relationship without communication, anyway?) Make sure you blog at least twice a week to keep readers coming back for more.

Writing a monthly newsletter for your customers is a good way to build customer loyalty.  It allows you to communicate with your customers regularly, convey important information on a regular basis, and to consistently collect referrals. 

But there are even more ways that a newsletter can help your business.  Let me go over a few of them for you.

Building Expectation

If you design the right kind of newsletter – and send it out consistently – your customers will actually begin to expect it.  In fact, some of them might even begin to look forward to your newsletters.  That is exactly what you are going for.  Try to keep your newsletters interesting enough to keep the readers’ attention.  Include enough advice and throw in enough special offers to make your customers look forward to your work.

Collecting Referrals

In every issue of your newsletter, you should ask your readers for referrals.  You probably will not get a lot of responses early on.  But if you are consistent in producing a quality newsletter, and you continue to send it out every month, eventually some referrals will come rolling in. 

Introduce Specials

You can also use newsletter printing as a way to introduce sales and specials.  Of course, you should always try to include some of these things in every newsletter.  That makes your newsletters much more attractive to readers and makes them much more likely to read them.  But as your newsletter grows in popularity and effectiveness, you can begin to introduce even more specials within it.  You will probably see a great deal of business from your newsletter readers alone.

Become an Expert

When you consistently include informative content in your newsletters, your readers will begin to look at you as an expert in your industry.  If you can do that, and establish yourself as a business leader, your target customers will become more and more likely to take advantage of your business. 

Get Valuable Feedback

If you ask for feedback from your newsletter readers, you will get it.  And that feedback can be tremendously valuable.  You will probably find out what aspects of your newsletter work and what ones do not work.  Beyond that, you could also find out how attractive your sales and special offers are, and what kind of perception the general public has of your company.  That is information that you just cannot get from too many other sources.