I know that a vital part of marketing is keeping yourself on the radar of past clients. I have a regular marketing newsletter, but given that I started it up only recently, there are plenty of former clients who are not subscribed. So I'm wondering what others have done to keep in touch with clients they've previously worked with.

I was thinking of doing an e-mail and/or postcard promotion including a special offer geared specifically for former clients. And of course, an incentive to sign up for my newsletter.

Anyone else have any tried-and-true techniques that have worked in resurrecting previous customers?

Can you send them a printed version of your newsletter?

And besides that, a printed version would probably work better then an email version anyway.

I suggest getting a copy of Dan Kennedy's "No. B.S. Direct Marketing for Non-Direct Marketing Businesses." It won't tell you exactly what to do, but it'll give you a ton of ideas.

One of the guest writers in the book suggests "touching" your customers at least, oh, 10 or 12 times per year. That means post-cards, newsletters, thank you letters, whatever.

Good point Chris,

Dan's a fan of irrelevant premiums and touches. Something that just came to me as I'm writing this (no testing was performed) is...

what appears to be a ripped out enlarged square of a day from a calendar.

Send it to your clients with a note written in it that says,

Want a day all to yourself? I save clients on average 24 hours of painstaking work getting more customers in the door. If you want to build your customer base again give me a call at ###-###-####. What will you do with your extra day?

Cheers

Susan,

I forward relevant reporter leads to them, mail them articles that I think would interest them, call them once in a while to find out how their projects are going and send them new offers that might be relevant to them.

If there's a small number of former clients you're talking about, you should think of a customized strategy for each of them.

When they realize you are thinking about them and apparently not only to get more business, they feel good.

Marcia Yudkin

Marcia is spot on.

Send them completely customized information by email or snail mail.

Attach personal notes.

I'd also add that I'm constantly thinking of my clients (and I NEVER think of then as "past" clients.)

And I am always thinking of ideas that can help make them more money, improve their conversions, marketing strategy etc etc.

In fact a large percentage of the copy I've written over the years has been the result of coming up with a great idea for a client and getting hired to implement it.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Thanks, Phil, Chris, Kawika, Marcia and Andrew for your excellent insights and tips. It's just a handful of clients that I have in mind, so personalizing my contacts won't be a problem. I have some work to do!

The easy answer is, multiple times with multiple media. I know, too simple. Here's some of the stuff we do at our main business, we sell to independent and small chain retailers.

1. Weekly marketing tip of the week. We think we know marketing pretty well, so we write about it.

2. Daily Inspirational quote of the day. Only about 500 subscribers, who have all purchased from us. I've never run the numbers, but I bet those 500 are almost all 'A' accounts.

3. Quarterly newsletter to all our accounts (I know, should be monthly, but we've got a BIG list)

4. Monthly mailings to our top 20% clients. Free gifts, a separate newsletter, post card etc. Something we send in December of each year is a small personal schedule calendar for the upcoming year.

Those are the biggies. So, simply everyone get's something at least 52 times a year. And our big accounts get 52 emails (minimum, very small opt-out rate), 12 mailings, plus phone calls from our call center about re-orders, upcoming shows etc.

Hope that helps.

I send out a hand written thank you card to past customers. In the thank you card I included a $5 Starbucks card. I wrote something like have a latte on me. Then signed the card with my name, phone number & website... maybe, I don't remember exactly.

I'd like to think that it was partially responsible for several repeat projects in the last few months.

Keith