Turn past customers into your best source of new business

By Paul Green

There are two ways to boost sales in your business: either get more customers, or sell more to your existing customers.
Most businesses focus their time and resources on acquiring new customers. But that’s crazy! Persuading someone to buy from you the first time is really hard.
Existing customers are already in a relationship with you. And as long as you didn’t screw up, it’s easier for you to talk to them, and then sell them something else.
Where most businesses fall down is forgetting to keep in touch. Look through your files - how many one off jobs have you done for a customer who you’ve never spoken to again? It’s likely a number of those customers will have had extra work they COULD have put your way, had you stayed top of mind.
Here’s the secret to turning past customers into your best source of new business (and it’s simple): Build a system to stay in touch with every single customer as long as you can

Your system should be as easy to execute as possible, and you should automate as much of it as you can. The less you have to do yourself to keep your system ticking along, keeping you in touch with your customers, the better.
Here are some easy ways to do this:
Email newsletters
Email is the cheapest way of staying in touch with customers. Collect their email addresses and send them something once a week, fortnight or month.
Email marketing is also the easiest to automate, using an autoresponder such as Constant Contact or Infusionsoft. If you decide to send emails out yourself using your own email software, then ensure emails are sent in small batches. This will help you avoid them being marked as spam.
For the content of the email, avoid blatant selling, and instead focus on giving customers information that will add value. Case studies, news updates and free advice are perfect - and more likely to make your email a regular read. The sales will come in the long-term. You also need to ensure customers can easily unsubscribe.
Printed newsletters
These have made a real comeback in the last few years. They cost a bit more and require more effort to produce but that’s good for the few businesses that can be bothered with the effort. They also stand out in a way email newsletters cannot.
Printed newsletters can be a great way to reach high level executives who wouldn’t necessarily read an email. Again, don’t try to sell. Instead focus on good, valuable content that is well written and interesting to read. Using a professional designer and a good quality printer is essential - the best content won’t work if it’s not packaged correctly.
Website content
Consider starting a blog or putting free articles on your website. It’s smart to link to these articles from your email newsletters. If you operate in a particularly technology-aware industry, you could even do a regular podcast or film video messages and put them on YouTube.
Post things
Imagine how you would feel if you got something in the post from one of your suppliers, perhaps sending you a free gift for no reason, or maybe even a relevant clipping from a newspaper with a handwritten note. You’d feel really special, right? So do it for your customers.
When you send unexpected things for free there is huge business benefit. You build up your goodwill bank. It’s so unusual for people to send nice things in the post, that they are normally well received. In my business, we send a stack of personalised cupcakes to customers when they are celebrating anything special. The gifts always go down well.
Be consistent
Whatever you do, find a way to do it to a high quality, and consistently. So many businesses send out one quarterly newsletter – then never send another! That’s no way to build up a consistent stream of marketing.
You need to do something month in month out to get the benefit. Make it part of the culture of your business and build simple but formal systems to make sure it happens.
About the author
Paul Green is a PR expert, published author and former journalist. He set up Publicity Heaven to help business owners get free publicity in the mainstream media, then turn it into leads, sales and profits.
Bytestart has 500 free copies of Paul’s new book “PR Success Made Easy” to give away free. This is a real book, not an ebook. To get your free copy posted to you, go to www.publicityheaven.com/bytestart.