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Small Business Marketing Series:

9 Ways to Make More from Your Most Valuable Marketing Asset: Your Clients

by Jennifer McCay

A colleague of mine recently approached me to find out how to increase her income from her small business. She's a talented designer with a portfolio full of samples from the industry she specializes in, and she has done a wide variety of work for an impressive number of European marketing firms since she went out on her own.

Although her initial concern was with finding new clients, after a short discussion I realized she was overlooking her most valuable marketing asset: her current client roster.

There's gold in your current client list

Let's face it -- these are folks that have already gotten past their initial fears of working with an unknown entity, have seen you in action, have learned to trust your work and know that you deliver excellent results.

Why would you simply forget about them when you have the opportunity to get in touch with these valued clients and potentially bring in a lot more business?

Here are 9 tips on how to get more business from your clients right away ...

1) Send your current customers special offers that you don't extend to "just anyone."

Your clients are special, so treat them like royalty! Why not offer a package deal for a percentage off or give them first dibs on a new service that you know will book up fast.

One ezine publisher I know sends a newsletter only to paying customers when new products launch. In it he includes a link to a discount page that features prices lower than his twice-yearly "blowouts" to his main ezine.

2) Postcards mailed monthly or quarterly help you stay in your clients' radar.

The best thing about postcards is that they are inexpensive to produce, inexpensive to mail and your clients don't have to open an envelope to read them. You can use them as coupons or simply to announce a new service you provide.

3) Start a customer loyalty program.

Customer loyalty is a big concept thrown around by large corporations, who develop complex systems to keep customers coming back for more of what they have to offer.

The good news is, when you have a smaller client base, it's a much simpler undertaking to show your customers how much you appreciate their business. You could create a membership program just for loyal clients that gives them a break on your rates if they buy in bulk (you may already have seen one of these in action at your chiropractor's office or the local Starbuck's competitor).

Another way many businesses handle this is to send clients a card and a gift a couple times a year -- say, for their birthdays and an end-of-the-year gift (unless, for example, you know for a fact that your clients celebrate Christmas, in which case you can use that holiday as your reason for giving if you so wish). I personally like non-seasonal gifts because they don't have as much to compete with, and besides, it's more fun to get gifts when you're least expecting them!

One mistake many small businesses make is to assume that gift items must be costly or will take away too much of your profit to be financially viable. I recommend that you plan ahead and find a way to include the small extra amount in your regular fees in order to be able to afford such a program gift.

When you realize that it can cost 5 times more to generate new clients than to do more work for your current client base, that small gift item begins to sound less and less pricey.

4) When you see an article that you feel a particular client could benefit from, clip it out and mail it to him or her with a brief note attached.

That's it. Even a sticky note will do in a pinch as the "stationery" for your note. Just let your clients know that you care.

5) Use your blog to mention new services you offer.

Don't have a blog yet? Not sure how to get started? Not sure what a blog even is? For starters, take a look at the Avenue East blog, which is written by yours truly (though I've not had the time to maintain it as much as I'd like for the past 3 weeks). It will give you an idea of how they work; notice the (mostly) short commentary related to the main topic of the Avenue East site, links to other blogs that I recommend and the buttons that let you subscribe to my newsfeed using your favorite news readers.

If you'd like to know more about the power of blogging, Debbie Weil's Business Blogging Starter Kit is an excellent resource. Debbie's one of the foremost blogging experts and really knows her stuff, and her kit explains the major benefits of blogging and how to get rolling smoothly.

6) Make it a point to follow up with clients about a month after your last project.

If you work with a small number of clients on a given basis, this might be as simple as adding a reminder in your calendar program to follow up a month after project completion with a brief e-mail or phone call to see if they need additional help.

If you're dealing with more than about 20 clients in the course of a year, however, this would get tedious. There are a couple ways to handle this.

a) Create an autoresponder. Autoresponders are automated services or computer programs that automatically send emails to your clients at prescheduled intervals. You have to be careful with them because you would never, ever want an autoresponder to appear to be a canned message, nor would you want to spam anyone.

However, done right, autoresponders can be invaluable follow-up tools. The main autoresponder vendors are: GetResponse, AWeber and KickStartCart. I have personally used all of the above and recommend AWeber if you're just starting out.

b) Rather than correspond with each client on an individual basis, you can also ...

7) Start an ezine to stay in touch on a regular basis.

An ezine is an excellent way to stay top-of-mind. If you're reading this sentence, it's working right now, now isn't it? Every issue I have received inquiries about Avenue East's services, and even though the newsletter is not limited to paying clients, it only requires writing 1 issue to speak to many, many people (some of whom are, yes, clients).

If you want to learn more about how to start your own email newsletter, I recommend my ezine course, which walks you through all the steps in the ezine planning process in an easy-to-follow way.

If you already have a list of your clients' emails and simply need a good vendor to handle the work, this is the one I recommend.

8) Not the ezine type? A print newsletter might also do the trick.

Although ezines are definitely less expensive for communicating with a large group of people, a short print newsletter updating your clients on what your company offers and providing valuable tips will keep clients coming back again and again.

9) Build follow-ups into the services you currently provide.

Let's say, for example, that you offer management consulting that focuses on employee productivity. As part of your service, you could include a "Month in Review" follow-up that has you reviewing the results your clients have achieved and determining next steps to take. Just by getting back in touch, you may find that the initial consultation was not enough, and your client wants more of your help!

If there's one key lesson to learn in all this, it's that if you aren't staying in touch with your previous clients enough, it's time to start right now. It can and will bring in more business.

:: Are you struggling to stay on track in your marketing efforts? Want to break through to the next level in your solo business? You may be an ideal candidate for my one-on-one Success Coaching program. Learn more and apply.

About the Author:
Are you a coach, consultant or other solo service professional who's struggling to grow your business? Jennifer McCay helps independent professionals turn their expertise into marketing success stories using the best of the best tactics that worked for her big business clients! To get your FREE subscription to her Avenues to Marketing Success Newsletter, head to http://AvenueEast.com

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