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Staying Top of Mind with Customers
Posted by Becky Carroll on November 26, 2007
Chris Brown over at Branding and Marketing is challenging us to come up with some tips for staying top of mind with customers. My blog post this past Friday on creating a customer communication plan is an integral part of staying top of mind. Chris gave three very specific suggestions for keeping in touch with customers to help them remember you, as well as these ideas for how to communicate:
- It shouldn’t take a lot of time to execute
- It shouldn’t feel too much like an ad or in your face
- It should help your customers or potential customers think of your services
Here are my three tips.
- Quarterly “How are things going?” contact. This is a good reason to let a continuing customer know you are thinking about them, and it will also prompt thinking about you. Additionally, if there are any concerns, you will most likely hear about them. Use phone, email, or in-person communications depending on the customer preference.
- Send a newsletter with interesting, relevant information. You can do this via a newsletter, if that is a way your customers want to hear from you. We had a realtor who sent this type of newsletter monthly (in the mail), and I always stopped to read about the seasonal ideas, interesting stats, and of course, their latest customer testimonials!
- Send pertinent industry information. This method is easy. Just send along a link to a blog post or industry story you read that you think will be interesting for them. You can do this while you are reviewing newsletters, blogs, or top news stories online. If it is a blog post, and your customer doesn’t normally read blogs, you might also want to share why you read that particular blog.
What are your top three tips for staying top of mind? Add them to the comments here or on Chris’s post, and let’s see what we can put into action for 2008!
(Photo: bsilvia)
Customers Rock! 
Ryan Karpeles said
Newsletters and industry info are great tools for this. Just make sure to always, always, always get permission. Opt-ins are a must for this type of content distribution. You don’t want people getting upset and cleaning you out of their inbox thinking you’re just another spammer 😉
Brandon said
I am a big favorite of newsletters, hoever, they must be content rich. From local realtor newsletters that show up in our mail to e-zines that flood my inbox, they must have something of value for me.
My word of advice (as a consumer) is to strengthen the value by adding content. More than anything, the newsletters brand you and your company. Content, content, content.
bsilvia said
LOL! That’s my image!
Best,
Silvia
Becky Carroll said
Ryan, great to see you! 🙂 Your comments about opt-in are critical to building strong customer relationships. One can ruin a budding relationship with one poor email message that isn’t at all relevant. A company should know its customers well enough to understand how they want information (newsletter, snail mail) and how often, as well as what they are interested in (if anything). Opt-in is an important part of that conversation!
Brandon, you are right, content is very important. Relevant content is the most important! It can’t be about me; it has to be about something that will help you. Customers Rock! companies know which information to send to their customers, and which information not to send. Thanks as always for the great insight, Brandon!
Silvia, you are the first photographer from stockxpert.com to come to my blog – welcome! I use stockxpert.com almost exclusively for my blog graphics. I like your blog, too; I am new to Photoshop, and it looks like you have some great tips there. Thanks for the wonderful photo, too! 🙂
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