We never hear much about how to stay in touch with prospects and customers. It’s much more exciting for marketers to talk about generating hundreds of new leads and signing up new customers.
What about the customers you already have though?
And what about the people who asked for more information or showed some kind of interest but weren’t quite ready to whip out their credit card?
These people mostly fall through the cracks which is a real shame because they are the hottest leads, prospects or potential customers that you have.
So what are you doing to stay in touch with those wonderful people who didn’t quite make it on to your customer list?
And what are you doing to keep your current customers engaged with you so that they buy from you again and again, for years to come?
If you’re not collecting the contact details of the people who visit your website or blog, you’re not leveraging your online space or real estate. Give your visitors the chance to raise their hand and get something from you much in the same way that a potential customer walking into a shop doesn’t want to be jumped on but does want to able to get help if they need it.
Here are some ideas for you to begin staying in touch with your prospects and customers easily:
- Choose a good email marketing service (it must be a professional one or you’ll risk being accused of spamming and won’t be able to grow and manage your list effectively.) This is the one I use: Aweber
- Add a simple sign up form to your website with some compelling copy – ‘grab your copy of my free report, ‘How to lose 60Ibs in 60 days.’ It could be a checklist, video, audio, free e-book; anything that gives enough value for this visitor who is either researching your topic or has by chance stumbled on your website to say ‘aha this looks like a good free offer. Let me check it out.’
Bam! It’s as easy as that. You have yourself a new subscriber in your database.
- Create your first 2 follow up emails. The first one needs to deliver the free giveaway or offer to their inbox or if it’s a physical goodie, to let them know that it’s on its way etc.
The 2nd email should say something like ‘Did you get the xxx?’ Remind them what they requested and why it will help them.
This does a couple of things for you. It establishes a relationship between you the giver and them the receiver. It demonstrates that you deliver on your promises and they begin to trust you and see you as the go-to expert for your service or product.
It also and very importantly gives you the opportunity to follow up with them over and over again through email, snail mail and/or phone depending what type of business and marketing budget you have.
- Stay in touch to turn your one time buyers into long term customers. It’s much easier to sell new products and services to your existing (satisfied) customers so set up an email campaign to keep them updated of what you have going on and new things that may interest them. Your buyers list is gold so treat this list as your VIP list. You can give them first look, first option and special offers before you share your ‘stuff’ with the others on your list.
- After the first couple of emails to your subscriber list that signed up for your free offer but didn’t yet buy from you, you have a couple of ways to stay in touch via email.
1) Send a newsletter or ezine each week or two weeks (this is what I favour.) It must be jam packed with goodies and valuable news for your subscribers. It’s not a pitch fest or they will drop off like flies. It might include an article, an interview, a video, audio, tips about your expert topic, a case study or a review of something relevant.
This is much easier to do than it sounds because if you’re building a ‘niche expert’ type business you will be immersing yourself in your topic and gather more knowledge than you can ever share in hundreds of e-zines. Keep a list of interesting and relevant things that occur during your work and then you just refer to that when it comes the time to publish your ezine.
2) If you don’t feel up to a full on weekly e-zine just yet then your second option is to send out emails or broadcasts as they’re called when written in real time, to let your subscribers know what’s going on and how you can help them. To be effective you need to be in touch often but not too often. Give value but don’t annoy!
Whichever option you choose you will make much more money and attract raving fans by delivering value, being consistent and nurturing your customer and subscriber list. It makes sense that if you’re in touch with people they will trust you more, think of you as the go-to expert and buy from you when the time is right.
So stop leaving money on the table, wasting dollars on advertising campaigns and time on generating website visitors only to have them pop over to your website , poke around, find nothing of value to hook them in right now and off they go.
It’s sad and the quick way to go broke. If you don’t have a good way to capture leads and a simple system for following up with your prospects on auto-pilot you are not benefiting fully from your website. You’ll be forever starting again after someone buys instead of developing a VIP customer list which over time becomes like your print on demand cash machine. Take care of your subscribers and customers and they will take care of you.
To get started with email marketing go here and get your $1 trial: Aweber
If you prefer to have the work done for you and get a marketing system that has everything all in one (capture pages, sales pages, free offer, database, ready follow up campaigns, marketing training) with no technical no how needed check out this revolutionary LOW COST marketing SYSTEM that enables you
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WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR ON YOUR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the following with it: Rachel Henke, The Niche Expert Coach, shares the insider secrets of becoming an expert in your niche to attract perfect clients, customers & publicity online. Get your free insider secrets report at: http://www.RachelHenke.com
Tags: drip email system, email follow up, email marketing training, go to expert, stay in touch with customers, stay in touch with subscribers, turn subscribers into customers






Leave A Reply (2 comments So Far)
Ben
345 days ago
Rachel, Thank you, great article. I always get valuable information from your blog. Keep up the good work and thanks again for searing your wisdom.
Keylogger
303 days ago
Nicepost. Thanks for this valueable info. Email marketing is not that easy, as there is no direct contact between the client & customer. But, if proper strategy is followed & this marketing is done in proper way with regular touch with customers & taking their feedback, then it is easy to make money through Email marketing.Staying in touch with customers is essential.