A marketing tip to build a better business

This feature is our submission to Day 5, of the 12 Days of Christmas campaign organised by Intuit. They asked for a “Marketing Tip” to be included in a free guide for Small Business to help support business development in 2010. We decided to put something together and email it in that would give every small business a little guidance.

If you are new to Digital Stationery, be warned.  We sell things.!!!

1. Acquire new business

All good businesses advertise, take part in some form of networking, do a little publicity and generally receive referrals from existing customers.  This is all quite normal practice.  What many businesses fail to do is really capitalise on the acquisition of a customer, i.e. continue to sell the add-ons, additional benefits and extras that usually come post sale.

2. Capitalise on past customers

To really capitalise on your past customers, you have to do more than the original sale. Most products and services require additional support and if your business proposition doesn’t include some form of continual ongoing support you probably need to re-think where you’re going.  This really is the next step in building a business.

3. Have a communications plan

A communications plan is essential.  For a small business it really is a good idea to have a specific plan that details what happens once the relationship with the customer ends.  A simple communication method is email – we are not referring to sending individual messages to people, but the transmission of the same message to your whole customer database in one big swoop.  If you have delivered to 10 new customers every week, over 52 weeks, you now have 520 customers.  How about thinking carefully about marketing a new service that compliments the original sale?

4. Low cost marketing to existing customers

One of the preferred ways to continue to build an ongoing relationship with your customer base is to periodically send a communication that offers the customer either an update or useful information that relates to the original purchase.  Email really is a perfect tool for this.  It is direct and because the communication relates to the original purchase it is quite legal to send the material without the requirement for special permission.  Email is also a relatively low cost communications tool.  The best campaigns are based on a single regular communication that is broadly useful to all your customers.  The return is easy to measure…your phone will ring shortly after the communication.

5. How do you get started?

First you need to maintain good records and secondly you need to maintain a computerised list of your customers contact details.  Preferably including the customers name and when the original order was placed.  This information can be quickly paired with a marketing communication.  Whether you use email or you use the postal service to send a letter, the planning process is the same.  Email is obviously our proposed method because we deliver email marketing and we enjoy being able to track and measure the performance of a campaign through our management information system.

If the above information is a good narrative of where you are up to, we probably need to talk.  We build and design email campaigns, we have a UK facilities and offer a full range of email marketing services.

Written and prepared for Intuit as part of the 12 Days of Christmas campaign,

Let us know what you think, feel free to comment.