When it comes to attracting and keeping long term clients, it is essential that time, effort and focus is regularly put into your current client base. There are many thousands of ways to do this and what fits one organisation and client type might not suit another.

Keeping this on your business management agenda and regularly assessing what you are doing to keep in contact with your customers is a cornerstone of great client management. Not only does it keep the lines of communication open with your clients but it gives you the chance to promote what your business is doing well (and possibly up sell some of your other products/services).

When you have a well maintained relationship with your clients, you will find out quickly if they become dissatisfied, giving you the ability to fix the issue before they jump ship. You can also ensure that your brand and reputation isn’t damaged by them talking negatively about you to your existing clients or others who may consider working with you in the future.

How often you make contact with your clients is relative to your business. Some companies might plan their activities a year or more in advance, others put some effort into the next action on a daily, fortnightly or monthly basis. Others might be based around seasonal or other events. i.e. a heater service technician may do the majority of their marketing in the lead up to winter.

Large business’s would usually have marketing personnel who manage the marketing activities however small businesses can achieve a really effective result by applying some basic principles that may even be achieved with little or no financial cost.

Five tips for marketing to your client base:

1. Try to develop a mix of ways you make contact with your clients to keep things interesting and to ensure they don’t miss your communication

2. Each time you make contact, shift your focus onto different aspects of your product/service or different products to ensure that you are working your full sphere of business offerings

3. Ensure that you plan a personal call or direct contact with each client (at agreed intervals) to ensure that they remember how important they are to you and your business. It is not essential that the director of the business does this, but someone should be allocated this task and it should be scheduled to make sure it occurs. Some businesses might simply call to ensure contact details are the same and while on the phone ask how things are going.

4. When you are experiencing really busy periods or your business is growing quickly, don’t stop keeping in contact with your current or past clients.

5. Your existing client base can be a great source of additional income if they are marketed to in an effective way. Your objective may be to increase their purchase frequency or volume, or to encourage referrals etc. The cost of targeting this group will be far more cost effective than general marketing and with an established relationship, they may be much easier to convert than new potential clients.

We hope these tips give you some ideas of ways you can better engage with your existing client base to increase sales for your business. If you would like to talk about other ways your business can increase sales, need help to create the right content or would like help better connecting with your target market, get in touch with us today.