When was the last time you sent a marketing letter to your “house list” — your current and past prospects and customers — with the intent of generating new business and additional revenue?
If you’re like most professionals, the answer is “not recently.”
And even if you have worked your “house list” recently, chances are that your recipients weren’t properly compelled to take action. I’m not saying that money was not made, but that up to 20 times more money could have been made for the same marketing cost, if you were aware of how to write an effective marketing piece to compel your recipients to take action and respond.
Your House List is a “Gold Mine” Waiting to be Mined
Once a customer has patronized your business and has been satisfied, that customer is then poised to repatronize your business over and over again.
Think about it…
From among the general population, a finite number of people become prospects for your products & services. The more you contact and nurture your prospects, the more prospects you’ll convert to customers…and the more you keep in contact with your customers, the more they’ll come back to purchase from you again and again.
Stated more profoundly, if you contact your customers more regularly and effectively, you can increase the frequency with which they buy from you…you can increase the amount they spend with you…and you can increase their life as your customer—meaning you’ll increase your profits many times over.
Get “House List” in Order
I hope you’re building a segmented “house list”—one for prospects who show an interest in your product or service, and another for customers who have bought from you.
Get each prospect’s name, address, email address and phone number so you can continue to keep in contact with them—by phone, mail or email — to convert them into customers.
Get each customer’s name, address and phone number so you can keep in contact with them—to get them to buy from you again and again.
Whatever you do… GET YOUR PROSPECTS’ AND CUSTOMERS’ NAMES, ADDRESSES, PHONE NUMBERS and EMAIL ADDRESSES!
But don’t stop there… Record every product or service your prospect or customer shows an interest in or purchases from you. You’ll then be able to target your marketing messages to those who are your target market.
Spend More Time Working Your Customers Than Working Your Prospects
It’s surprising how few companies do just that.
Most companies spend a lot of money on advertising to get new customers in the door. And once they get new customers in, they do very little, if anything, to keep them coming back.
Rather, they continue spending their time and money on more advertising to get more new customers.
Do you know that it costs six times more money to get a new customer than it does to keep an old customer coming back?
It’s true… It only costs a stamp or a free email or phone call to keep your customers coming back. But it costs thousands of dollars in advertising to get new customers to come in for the first time.
And it’s easier to keep a customer coming back because once a customer does business with you (and you’ve done your job right), they already trust you, have confidence in your product or service, and they’ll come back again and again—all you have to do is ask.
So, the bottom line is…
Continue advertising to get new customers to come in, but spend a much greater amount of time and effort keeping your old customers coming back for more — you’ll see the difference in your bottom line!
And get help writing effective and compelling marketing pieces so that you are leveraging the revenues that will result from your efforts!