Published monthly, on the 15th of each month
Published and edited by Angela Booth

In this issue:

Editorial: Follow up with your clients and prospects

Article: Turning a Prospect into a Client

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Editorial: Following up with your clients and prospects

This month we're revisiting a topic that's vitally important. We're all busy, and we all let marketing activities slide. A vital part of your marketing process is following up after an initial contact.

How often should you contact clients and prospects? Our article outlines the process for turning a prospect into a client, but following up with current clients is just as important. Don't let the relationship slide as soon as you've completed the work and sent in your invoice.

No, your clients won't think you're a pest. You'll find that they're grateful that you took the time to get in touch.

Have a great month.

All best wishes from

Angela

P.S. More Marketing articles on the revamped Web site at http://www.digital-e.biz/articles.html#marketing

Copyright © 2002 by Angela Booth. All rights reserved.

How long does it take to get a client? First, the client has to become aware not only that we exist, but also that we can solve his copywriting problems. That growth of awareness is a slow process. It takes time

I did some shopping earlier this week and bought myself an early Christmas present, the book Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss. I'm a Myss fan. I have all her books, and an audio tape of one of her workshops as well.

However, when I first read a review of one of her books, I wasn't impressed. Nor did I buy one her of books when a bookstore assistant assured me: "You'll like Caroline Myss."

It took at least a couple of years from the time I first heard Caroline Myss's name, to the time I became a fan. By the time a naturopath recommended Myss, I already owned everything Myss had published.

Becoming familiar enough with a person or a business to spend money with them takes time.

Let's say you've just sent out a batch of 200 letters, introducing yourself to businesses in your state.

You wait, happily anticipating at least a few phone calls.

Nothing.

Ho hum. A week later, you begin your round of follow-up calls. You stated in the P.S. to your letters that you'd be following up in a week.

You make 30 calls. You can't reach 20 of your prospects. Five ask you to send information, and five aren’t interested.

You send the information to the five who requested it. You wait a month. Nothing. The silence is deafening.

What's wrong with this picture?

Your first mistake was in not following up on ALL 200 letters you sent out. Then you didn’t attempt to contact the people you couldn’t reach. And then you didn't follow up with the people to whom you sent information.

If someone tells me they sent out 200 letters, I know they should have managed to collect from two to five new clients from the exercise. No excuses. Marketing is a numbers game, and worst case scenario, if you send out 200 letters, and follow up diligently, you will get at least two new clients.

Where most businesses let themselves down is in the following up process. They either don’t follow up at all, or they follow up in a hit or miss fashion. They fail to even attempt to build a relationship with prospective clients. It's amazing that some of these businesses survive at all.

I'm as guilty of this as everyone else. I get busy too, and let follow-up activities slip. However, if I send out a new mailing, I make a real effort to follow the process through, because I know if I don’t, I've just wasted the time and the postage it took to make that mailing.

How to follow up

Here's how to follow up:

1. Have a marketing goal for each month. For example, my marketing goal this month is to get five new clients, and follow up with clients I haven’t heard from for a year. It's important to have this kind of over-arching marketing goal each month, because it helps you to gain perspective. Each mailing, each phone call and each e-mail message isn’t as important as the overall picture, the amount of persistent marketing you do each day, week, and month.

2. The process begins. You send out your mailing of 200 letters.

3. A week later, follow up with phone calls. Making all the calls, including getting back to the people who didn’t answer the phone because they were in a meeting, on vacation, or whatever will take you another week.

4. Send out material to those who requested it.

5. A week later, follow up with the people you sent material to.

6. A month after the initial mailing, send another mailing to everyone from the original 200 who expressed any interest at all, no matter how slight that interest was.

7. A month after that, send out another mailing, or make phone calls to ALL the prospects who were interested from the first mailing. This means that you've contacted the responsives from the 200 you sent the original mailing to at least THREE times.

8. Six months after the first mailing (it's now three months since they heard from you) follow up with another mailing.

9. Three months later, follow up again.

How many clients will you get from that original mailing of 200? My guess, over 12 months, you'll get at least TEN. Twenty would be excellent. (Remember that from two to five is the very least you'll get.)

Now, let's imagine that over the next two years, each of those ten clients spends $500 with you. Conservatively. That's $5000 from one mailing to 200 prospects.

It's also $5000 you won’t earn unless you work on building relationships by following up with your prospects. So when you send a mailing, remember that you need to follow-up. That's where the money is.