Easy Business Success #23

Your most valuable marketing asset

“Every great business is built
on friendship.” JC Penney

Many years ago I received a letter from an unhappy client named Stephen.

His letter started off by saying ‘Don’t you like me?’

It went on to explain that Stephen had spent a lot of money on an expensive product and that he was delighted with his purchase.

But he hadn’t heard from me for over a year and was wondering if I didn’t like him anymore. He told me I was making a big mistake by not staying in touch.

(As a happy client like him could easily give me a lot of repeat and referral business.)

I was embarrassed to read Stephen’s letter because I realised I had ignored the most valuable marketing asset we all have in any business.

And that asset is the group of people who know, like and trust your business and are happy to have you contact them on a regular basis.

After reading Stephen’s letter I changed my marketing approach.

I decided that my new marketing goal was not just to make sales.

Instead it was to build a ‘community’ of people, who knew, liked and trusted me and were willing to have me contact them on a regular basis.

So I made up a list of three groups of people.

Past and present clients (like Stephen.)
Potential clients that I had sent some information to.
And centres of influence who knew me in some way. (A centre of influence is someone who can potentially refer you to large numbers of people they know.)

Every month I started sending each person on these lists something that I thought would ‘add value’ to them. (I picked different things for each person.)

One month I sent out a free $1 Instant Kiwi ticket. Along with a short note saying I was giving them a fun opportunity to win up to $10,000 in 30 seconds. I also mentioned that I appreciated their past business (or interest) in what I was selling.

Another month every paid client got an unexpected double movie pass along with a short note thanking them for their business.

I started writing a motivational newsletter with helpful articles on goal setting, time management and positive attitude. I sent this to everyone on my list.

I began to look for helpful business improvement articles and sent these to clients who owned a business.

Keep in mind that the product I was selling at the time had nothing to do with the added value material that I was sending out to these people.

I sent it out because my goal was to build a community of people who knew, liked and trusted me and were happy to have me contact them regularly.

Within six months positive things started happening.

I began getting some nice referrals from the people I was adding value to.

Within twelve months Stephen had contacted me again. This time he told me was delighted with what I was doing for him as it made him feel valued and important.

A short time later he made a repeat purchase and referred me to a family member who also spent a substantial amount of money.

Within 2 years around 80% of my business was coming from my loyal ‘community’ of people who I was regularly in touch with and adding value to.

A loyal community of people who know, like and trust you takes time to develop.

It could also become the most valuable marketing asset you have.

Here are three steps to developing your own community of loyal followers:

Step One:

Offer an ‘irresistible magnet’ to make it easy for interested people to join your community for the first time.

My favourite magnet is an information product that contains helpful ideas related to the products or services that you offer in your business.

This information product could be something like an e-book, webinar, CD, DVD, special report, online video, ezine etc.

In most cases the information magnet you offer will be given away at no charge.

However you still want to make sure that your information magnet is so useful that a potential client would happily have paid good money for it.

Here are three examples of Info Magnets to get you thinking...

Ebook:

My favourite info magnet for my own business is a 396 page E-Book I created called

‘The Unfair Business Advantage Report.’

This contains tested sales and marketing strategies from 32 business experts in 5 countries. It has been very popular because of the excellent information it contains.

Here’s what one reader had to say about this E-Book...

“You can’t read this amazing report without finding at least a dozen million dollar ideas!” Robert G. Allen. New York Times Best Selling Author

You can get your copy of this helpful resource at no charge by going to

www.TheUnfairBusinessAdvantage.com

E-Course:

I’ve recently signed up for a helpful online E-course (which is free) on how to create a best selling business book and turn it into multiple sources of income.

(Even before the book is published.)

This helpful E-course has a dozen lessons and I get a helpful new one each day in my inbox. I have been very impressed with the helpful tips that I have received so far and am now keen to find out how the author of this E-course can help me create my own best selling nonfiction business book.

Step Two:

Stay in touch with the people who have ordered your info magnet.

Make contact at least once a month and add value each time you do this.

You can do this both digitally and also with hard copy material sent out by good old fashioned ‘snail mail’.

(Snail mail added value material works amazingly well today because it is so rare.)

Step Three:

Stay in touch with your existing and past customers and also key centres of influence.

And when you stay in touch, make sure you add value each time as well.

This can be as simple as sending a client a link to a helpful article you read recently that was on a topic that you know is of interest.

Just email a short message that says something like this

****************************************************************************

Subject line: Helpful article:

Hi John/Jane

I read an interesting article today on XYZ. I thought it might be of interest.

You can read the article at this link www.linktointerestingarticleonxyz

Best wishes

Your name
****************************************************************

This takes you a few seconds to do and is a great way to stay in touch and add value.

Action Step:

What can you do this month to start building a loyal group of people who know, like and trust your business?

How can you ‘add value’ so they are willing to let you contact them on a regular basis?

To subscribe to Easy Business Success just go to www.EasyBusinessSuccess.com

(This is completely free and won’t cost you a single penny).

You can contact Graham on graham@twomac.co.nz

You can read back issues of Easy Business Success at http://www.easybusinesssuccess.com/back-issues.asp