Cultivating your Customer Contacts
When it comes to marketing communication the most basic piece of advice I can give anyone is to establish a customer and prospect database - and use it to stay in touch! The proliferation of media and tools that you can use to establish and maintain contact has made this one task that is within the reach of even the smallest business - you can make it as simple or sophisticated as you have time, skills or inclination.
The key steps are:
- Capture some detail for everyone that has contact with your company (email is the absolute minimum) - as a customer or via marketing promotions, websites, networking etc. in a database. Why go to the effort of spreading the word and raising awareness about your business if you never know who is interested?
- Use this information to improve your understanding of your marketplace and to keep your contacts informed and up to date on what you are up to - it's not all about sales messages, share your knowledge and expertise to build your company's reputation.
- Make it easy for them to get back in touch with you and to pass on information to others.
- Commit to this strategy for the long term - don't stand still (up grade and improve) but stopping and starting erratically will not help you maintain a consistent presence in the market. So when you are deciding whether to use email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. build gradually and develop a routine you can handle!
Obviously in order to learn a lot from your database you need to be capturing more information about the customer, their business, their location and anything else that is specific to your market. If you do go to all this time and trouble (as you should) then please make sure you use the database to help your decision making and to target your messages effectively to the different groups, or segments, within your base. There are plenty of free or very reasonable database systems available on the internet now if you want to upgrade from just using your address book or a spreadsheet (but they are at least a start!).
Using automated systems have other advantages too. If you are planning to send an e-newsletter, emails or write a blog then it makes sense to link it to a specially designed email marketing system that makes it easy to capture details, send out your messages, and track how many people are reading them. The other advantage is that these systems provide an easy way for people to opt-out of your mailings - which you must provide if you don't want to fall foul of Data Protection Legislation. On that note, if you are creating an electronic database it is worth checking if you need Data Protection Registration - you can find a really good guide to this on the Business Link website.
In today's communications rich world not staying in contact is an unforgiveable sin - how far you take it is up to you! Sit down and plan it out - it could be the most cost-effective marketing action you take this year. And if you need any help then get in touch!
