Relationships 2 Customers

Posts Tagged ‘Greeting Card’

Are you searching for a unique way to show your clients that they are truly valued? Why not consider a simple Client Birthday Card Marketing Strategy. It’s a easy and fun way to build loyalty amongst your customers. Plus, it’s a nice little customer retention tactic.

It’s a known fact that Direct mail is extremely effective in reaching 100% of your target audience. The trick is… getting your piece read, not tossed! How many people are going to throw out a Birthday Card without looking at it? It’s not considered “junk mail” because recipients receive it only once per year!

So, how do you get started?

Start by creating a client database that tracks your customer’s birthdays. Relax, this doesn’t have to be as complicated as it sounds! If you have a customer relationship management program such as MS Outlook, ACT, etc. there is definitely a field for birthday. No fancy software in place? No problem. This can also be a simple Excel Spreadsheet which houses the customer’s name, address and birthday.

Don’t know your client’s birthday? Now’s the time to ask! Send out a simple e-mail requesting this information and share with your clients that you’d like to recognize them on their special day. Tell them you only need the Month and Day. Have fun with this part — birthdays are joyful subject! Or, what a great reason for a personal phone call to touch base with your customer and ask them first hand.

When sending the Birthday Card, DON’T plaster your logo all over the place! They know who you are… so make it a personalized message, include  photo’s of you and/or your staff. You may want to include a small gift, NOT a coupon for them to come back to you to buy more or your stuff. A REAL gift! This will go a long way to building loyalty and brand advocates.

Get those stamps ready, it’s time to get this program off the ground! Depending upon your company culture and number of clients, you might prefer to hand sign and address each card on a monthly or weekly basis. Or, you might consider a more automated approach including a print on demand solution that you can pre-program to mail out the cards including gifts a certain number of days before your client’s birthday.

Interested in learning more about creating a Client Birthday Card Marketing Strategy for your business? Contact Us.

So easy yet so overlooked, yet more effective and less expensive than all other strategies!

It is known that the most important ingredient in a successful direct mail campaign is repetition. If your audience sees your message enough times, they will begin to remember you and associate you with the business you’re in. But there’s another reason repetition is important: most direct mail pieces end up in the garbage before they’re even looked at! So if you send your marketing message enough times, you will eventually get noticed by everybody.

Getting noticed is the hardest part. A strategy to actually get noticed is the most valuable thing you can harness in a direct mail campaign and we’ll outline one of the best kept secrets; a secret you can use immediately in your own business. Keep in mind that just getting noticed is the primary objective behind direct mail.

You’ve undoubtedly noticed a wide variety of approaches, just by looking in your mail slot. Companies print information on the outside of the envelopes, trying to entice you to open it up and read the contents. Messages are printed in bright colors, trying to get your attention amidst a sea of competitive pieces. Some even use artificial stamps to make it look like the envelope was individually addressed by a real human being.

As it turns out, there is one size of envelope that gets opened far more than any other, and it’s the greeting card . Greeting cards are a different shape from the traditional #10 letter envelope and everybody loves getting cards in the mail. So, sending a greeting card that includes your marketing message is one of the best ways of getting your mailer opened.

Do the math with me. If you send something out to 1000 people but only 5% of the envelopes get opened, your actual audience is only 50 people. But if you send out 100 cards and 75% of them get opened, you’re actually reaching 25 more people with one tenth the cost. Although specific statistics are difficult to get, greeting cards get opened far more than regular envelopes.

There is one category that gets opened even more than greeting cards and we’ll discuss it in our next post…

Like most Professionals, Small Business owners or Entrepreneurs you went to school to learn about your trade or profession. Did you ever have a course in how to market your services? Did you learn how to get Clients? The answer is probably NO.

The simple truth is: you might be the Greatest Home Remodeler, Interior Designer, Painter, Flooring Provider, Window Treatment Provider, Landscaper, Plumber, Realtor, Mortgage Broker, Chiropractor, Lawyer, etc., but if you don’t market yourself and find Clients, you will not be able to stay in business.

To most, when asked, do you market your services or products, they get this mental block which says I am a professional, I do not have to sell my product like so many other businesses.  Let’s face it, the service you perform for clients are a product and if the public does not know who you are, what you do and why they would want to do business with you… You will not be in business very long.

So, what is a sure way that you can get more clients cost effectively that WORKS ALL THE TIME? Read the rest of this entry »