One of my marketing professors from grad school keeps track of me through this blog. Yesterday, he wrote to me with some suggestions he thought I should pass along to you.
- Keep Your Database Current. Add names that could be potential clients or referral sources delete those that you may know would never convert.
- Integrated Drip Marketing Works. Keep consistently "touching" your clients and prospects through a variety of media -- social media, email, direct mail and in-person.
To illustrate, my professor writes:
I had a good example of someone I've had on my file for our newsletter and missives for a couple years, a very high prospect for me. We had a meeting a couple years ago about managing some business together. Despite the fact that our meetings were all good ones, they bore no fruit.
Just last week I had a reason to contact her on another matter and also suggested we should revisit the previous one, as I thought good synergies would result. She called me back almost immediately, practically apologized for being so "absent" and virtually gushed about how nice it was to see me and read our newsletter. Then we set up another meeting to talk about ways to get down to doing business together.
Lessons from this experience (I told you he's a professor)
- Without other "touches", I could have been forgotten, lost in the shuffle of her daily work.
- Without other "touches", she never would have responded so quickly or with such enthusiasm.
- Without other "touches", she probably would have forgotten what I even looked like. She still felt close to me because my photo is always there.
- And I doubt she would have had the same reaction had all my messages been emailed.
So, some of the best tips from a grad school marketing professor:
- Keep your database current.
- Drip marketing works!
- Mix it up -- don't realy entirely on one medium. Email is great, but it's seldom enough. Add in targeted direct mail, mix in some social media, and remember to pick up the phone and CALL -- especially top prospects among your allied professionals.
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