5 Ways to Stay Top of Mind with Your Clients

The livelihood of your business consists of both the clients who already entrust you and your team as well as those future customers in your sales pipeline. For a majority of the super successful business owners that I work with here at Laura’s Design Studio, finding a balance between nurturing current customers while simultaneously interacting with future customers is where the challenge lies. How do you accomplish this alongside the dozens of other responsibilities that demand your time and attention? The short answer is to stay top of mind with these folks.

What does that mean though, to stay top of mind and how would someone do this exactly? Great questions! The following 5 steps are our tried-and-true methodology which are sure to help boost business and move the needle on that bottom line dollar.

1. Stay in touch regularly with prospects and clients (i.e., phone calls, face-to-face meetings, emails, social media interaction)

• This step is usually the most challenging for business owners as it involves really “putting yourself out there”. Remember though, if people don’t know about you or don’t think of you when they’re shopping, then they can’t and won’t buy from you.
• Recommendations from experts suggest reaching out to at least 10 people each week. It should be noted that, these interactions aren’t typically chances to pitch your product or services but instead an opportunity to connect. Remember that people buy from people, so establishing yourself as an approachable, knowledgeable, industry-thought leader will pay off substantially in the long run.

2. Provide useful and beneficial information (not only transactional)

• You may have heard the age old saying, “always be selling”. Well, I’d challenge you to update and improve that saying to “always be providing value.” Customers, whether current or future, don’t want to be sold to but instead want to buy from you. This drastic shift in a consumer-focused versus seller driven mindset is so important to note.
• It’s so important because in every phone call, email, text, and interaction with someone it should be a chance to provide them value. The more value you consistently provide to people, the more likely they are to not only answer your calls, emails, etc. but to actually consider buying from you.
• Value can be as small as sending along this blog post to someone who has customers of their own, or a family member who has a large professional network and might enjoy sharing knowledge with their peers. It can also be as large as offering a complimentary 10-minute intro session to your service or product. It matters less on what “it” is and more on is it valuable to whoever you’re connecting with.

3. Be creative

• This is where we get to have some fun! Creativity is what gets you pumped up and gets your customers and potential clients interested and saying, “wow that’s clever!”
• Let’s take some time to brainstorm and think outside the box. What would make sense in your industry? For example- does your audience typically engage more when you email or call them on the phone? Do they love your witty door hangers or flyers and cite it as the thing that “hooked” them? Or what about a website and social media outreach campaign?
• For many of our clients, we help create these aforementioned marketing materials which ultimately help drive engagement and create an inbound strategy where folks are reaching out to you for help versus you “hunting” for new leads.
• Note also that, it is essential for your company’s brand to be consistent when releasing these marketing materials. This means that things like logo, color scheme, and font are all essential in customers recognizing your company and wanting to work with you. At Laura’s Design Studio, creating these on-brand materials is what we do best.

4. Stay in touch by mixing and matching formats and frequencies

• We already discussed a few of the different formats for marketing materials (see # 3 above) but what about frequency?
• You are likely asking yourself, how often should I reach out and what should I say when I do? Those are fantastic questions! And the simple answer is, it depends.
• The longer answer is typically following up in a scalable cadence is recommended. For example, by utilizing technology such as marketing automation, clients can receive an email immediately following submitting their information as a confirmation of receipt. Then you can create and set the timing for when the next email will go out.

5. Follow up to make sure your client is happy

• At the end of the day, we as business owners can put a lot of effort and time into reaching our customers and finding and converting new ones but are we checking back with them? Typically, businesses make certain promises to their customers, are you reaching back to them personally and asking, “Is my company satisfying our end of the agreement?”
• People appreciate transparency and the opportunity to fix something you might be doing unintentionally can help avoid churn and loss of customers.

Here at Laura’s Design Studio, we are so thrilled that you have taken the time to read this post and are investing in both yourself as a leader and in your business’ growth. We help businesses like yours every day with creating and developing innovative marketing materials that truly grab the attention of your target audience and entice them to inquire further. When you’re ready to elevate your business, click here to schedule a complimentary 20-minute needs assessment call with myself and the team here at Laura’s Design Studio.