Keep-In-Touch Marketing

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Everyone always asks me, "What's the most overall effective marketing activity I can engage in?"

My answer is always the same: Keep-in-Touch Marketing.

And I also say that the lack of consistent keep-in-touch marketing is the number one reason you are not attracting as many new clients as you could.

Keep In Touch Marketing Defined

Here's a simple way to think of this: If someone is thinking about you and your business there is a bigger chance that they will do business with you. But if they are not thinking of you there is NO chance they will do business with you.

So the purpose of keep-in-touch marketing is to make sure your prospects, clients, and associates keep thinking about you, your services and what you can do for them.

Large businesses have a primary method for making sure you remember them: Advertising.

But advertising is mostly ineffective for InfoGurus. What works better is ongoing contact with those whom you already have some connection or relationship.

And the two best ways these days for keep-in touch marketing are eZines (email newsletters like More Clients) and various social media activities.

If you can only find the time for one, eZines are more powerful in my experience. But for some, social media from Twitter, to Facebook to blogging are also quite effective.

The question is not so much what to do but the best ways to implement these keep-in-touch marketing activities to get the the right kind of attention and response from prospects.

Keep-In-Touch Marketing Essentials

Here are some ideas that I and my clients have found the most effective. Measure your current activities against this list to get a better idea of what you need to do to make sure your prospects keep you top-of-mind.

1. Build your opt-in e-list. Whether it be an email list, friends or followers, if you don't have much of a list, your marketing won't have a lot of impact because your reach is limited. 

2. Provide value. Whenever you communicate to those on your list, make it relevant, useful, practical. Give prospects a sample of your ideas and prove that what you offer is worth paying attention to.

3. Be regular. An email sent out to your list every few months isn't going to have much impact. An occasional tweet or post to your facebook page is not enough. You must settle on a consistent schedule for staying in touch.

4. Master the technology. All of these internet-based keep-in-touch systems take time to learn and longer to master. You need to make it second-nature, not a major ordeal to send out a regular eZine or post to your blog.

5. It's all about communication. One of the biggest stops to keep-in-touch marketing is not knowing what to say. You must figure out how to develop relevant topics and interesting content to keep the attention of your audience.

6. Measure your results. What gets measured gets done. And what you can measure you can improve. For instance, do you know the percentage of new visitors to your site that opt-in to your list? If you don't know this, how can you possibly improve your sign-up process?

7. Create systems. Activities where you've developed systems get implemented. Activities that are set up randomly ultimately fall by the wayside. You need bullet-proof systems for eZines, Twitter, Facebook and blogging.

For more information on exactly how you can put all of the above into action, please check out the new audio program "Secrets of Keep-in-Touch Marketing" at:

http://actionplan.com/eip01.html

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Keep-in-touch marketing isn't a "nice to have marketing strategy." It's absolutely essential to keep your business in front of your prospects and to get more of them calling you to explore working with you. There is no other substitute for keep-in-touch marketing. The question is, how soon will you put this powerful marketing strategy to work?

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What's your biggest challenge with keep-in-touch marketing? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.

Comments

[Clarissa Sawyer]

A failure to appreciate is frequently a dynamic in large client organizations I consult to. Each layer of the organization dismisses or minimizes the perspectives of the other level. People who are UP in the organizational hierarchy view the needs and concerns of people DOWN as "whining" or "complaining." The UPs believe the DOWNs don't understand how demanding and complex it is to run an organization and make change happen. The DOWNs view the UPs as "uncaring" and "not getting" the complexity and challenge of life on the front lines (or the middle). Both UPs and DOWNs fail to appreciate and honor the validity of each other's perspective.

[Kimmo Linkama]

Just curious about Keeping in Touch: as much as Twitter is lauded as the ultimate engagement tool, I noticed that since 2009, you've only tweeted on two days in February and one day in July this year.

What put you off Twitter?

[Steve Beaman]

I found over the years that many times I would call on a customer just to say hello and would ask if their is something I could help them with. There would always be something they were thinking of doing but just had not called me. This even happened when I would stop by their offices for an unrelated issue. Always hear "Oh, by the way while your here could we talk about ...."