Your Best Marketing Tool: The Value of Clients

As business owners we spend a lot of money marketing ourselves to gain more clients and business.  Marketing is such an important aspect of business and without it, you are essentially running yourself into the ground.  Websites, search engine optimization, marketing collateral, and social media management are all great things to focus your efforts on when marketing your business.  However this is one marketing tool that we all tend to forget, and it’s the best marketing tool yet: our current clients.

You’ve worked so hard already to gain your current clients, and it should be your main priority to foster these relationships.  How will growth ever happen if the focus is on getting the next client and getting by for the month?  It’s all about long-term client relationships that will grow and eventually spread like wildfire.

There are some important steps to building relationships with your current clients and keeping them on board to generate more revenue for your business.  It also may seem like common sense, but we so often overlook the obvious when we are too busy with business and making it run.

Step 1:  Prioritize Your Work
Are you spreading yourself too thin?  Does it feel like you are taking on a lot of smaller jobs, when you could be getting much more by focusing your efforts on a potentially larger client?  Write down who your ideal customer is, what ideal jobs you would like to be doing and the revenue you would like to be earning from this.  Then start prioritizing the jobs as they come in.

Step 2:  Stay in Touch
Don’t do the job and then lose contact.  We all love it when we can put a face to a name and we were taken special care of when spending money on something.  If you finish a job for someone, touch base and see how everything has been going since.  Were they happy?  Encourage honest feedback.  It never hurts to know the good and the bad of what you did.

Step 3:  Keep Them Informed
Maybe don’t try to sell your clients on something, but keep them in the loop of tips and tricks for something that at the same time relates to your business.  The idea is to educate your current clients and open doors to them realizing a new need that you can fulfill.  Let’s face it you may do a lot of things at your business, but clients may fail to realize that you could do that for them.

Step 4:  Make Contact Without Intention
Remember something special about your client and make them feel special.  Maybe you are in the lawn care business and you know they love flowers and gardening.  You could surprise them with a new set of gardening gloves.  This shows them that you will go the extra mile and you’re not always trying to sell them something.

Step 5:  Ask for Referrals
Do not be afraid to ask for referrals.  If you’ve been doing business with someone, they are more than likely to know someone who could perhaps use the same sort of service that they are getting.  You’ve already earned their trust and they’ll be more than happy to thrill their friend or family member with excellent service or products that they have been receiving themselves.

These may sound like common sense, however they are very important steps to building a relationship and increasing your revenue with the most valuable asset you have- your current client database!

If yo need help with ideas on how to build a stronger relationship with your current clients, or maybe you need us to help you facilitate an informative written letter or e-newsletter to your current clients each month, reach out to Business House, LLC for your first FREE consultation.  With our talented team of marketing professionals, we’ll be sure to be your one stop shop where you can do it all and do it right!