Marketing In Ireland? Your customer list is your business

When working with business owners and reviewing their marketing plan one of the key things I look for is whether or not the have a database of past clients and customers. All too often this basic element is missing.

In this day and age of easily accessible and low cost technology it is really surprising to see that 80% of businesses are not keeping customer records in a proper system. Indeed even if they are using computers in other areas of their business for example bookkeeping very few Irish business owners are maximising the use of technology to improve their marketing.

I find this absolutely amazing. The same business owner will stand there and tell me about how much he is spending on advertising and that it is getting more and more expensive to find a steady supply of new customers while all the time he is letting a hugely valuable resource, which he has already paid big money for, slip through his fingers.

It is approximately 6 to 12 times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than it is to sell to a new one. Think about it, an existing customer already knows where you are located, they know what services/products you provide. They have trusted you already to do business with them so it is much easier for them to do business with you again. Why waste large amounts of money on trying to find new customers if you are not, at the same time, working to look after the ones you already have.

You wouldn’t expect to see a musician spending time and effort creating a new album and selling just one copy, then leaving it on the shelf and then going away and making another album. It makes much more sense to keep selling the same album as many times as you can as the cost of creating it has been borne once already.

Now that you are aware of the importance of building your customer list you need to think about how you can implement such a system in your business. Each time you do a transaction with a customer you should be recording their details, ideally in electronic format. To keep costs low in the beginning you could even use a spreadsheet to do this.

What would happen if 3 days after they purchased from you they were to receive a card thanking them for doing business with you? Do you think that would make you begin to stand out from the competition? Perhaps then 4 weeks after the purchase you could give them a call just to see if everything is working properly for them. This kind of non threatening way of keeping in contact keeps you at the front of your customers’ minds and will make them more likely to refer others to your business.

Every month then you could send each past customer a newsletter perhaps or special offers that tie in with seasonal festivals such as St Patrick’s Day.

Very soon you will have all the business you can handle and guess what you can now afford to cut back on advertising and finding new clients and really look after the ones you already have.

Article Source: http://www.articles.ask-me-about.com

About the author: Matthew Eve is a writer and owner of a marketing consultancy in Ireland.See more articles at his irish marketing blog
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