Tweet

An 8-Step Strategic Marketing Approach For New Business From Former Clients

Written by: Glenn Ebersole

Article Overview: How much of your marketing effort is dedicated to marketing and obtaining new clients or customers? Are you devoting your entire marketing effort to find new clients? Or are you using some strategic thinking and developing a strategy to get back in touch with former clients to gain new business from them? It has always intrigued me in my business coaching and business consulting practices that so many businesses give very little effort to or totally ignore past clients and customers that are no longer active. Former clients and customers can be the best source of new business for you. With this in mind, Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers the following 8 strategic steps to gain new business from your former clients and customers by building an effective contact program.

An 8-Step Strategic Marketing Approach For New Business From Former Clients

How much of your marketing effort is dedicated to marketing and obtaining new clients or customers? Are you devoting your entire marketing effort to find new clients? Or are you using some strategic thinking and developing a strategy to get back in touch with former clients to gain new business from them? It has always intrigued me in my business coaching and business consulting practices that so many businesses give very little effort to or totally ignore past clients and customers that are no longer active.

Not keeping inn touch with former clients and customers is very short-term thinking and definitely is not strategic thinking. Actually, former clients and customers can be the best source of new business for you. Remember, it costs anywhere from 2 to 40 times as much to acquire a new client or customer than to keep an existing client or customer. With this in mind, Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach offers the following 8 strategic steps to gain new business from your former clients and customers by building an effective contact program.

Strategic Step #1: Develop a list of all your former clients and customers, as well as centers of influence and other referral sources. This may mean sorting through old business cards, address lists in word processing files or old address books, etc, You should also put on that list the names and contact information of friends, colleagues, suppliers, professional associates, etc. The most important thing is to compile the list and then you can look at the list later to determine if any contacts should be deleted.

Strategic Step #2: Determine the message you want to deliver to the contacts on your list. You do not need a specific reason to contact them. It is legitimate to contact them to see how they are doing and to “just touch base” with them. When developing your message, you must incorporate what action you want the recipient of your message to take after receiving it.

Strategic Step #3: Determine the methods of contact to deliver your message. This will probably include: telephone calls, an email, or a letter. The key here is to be as personal as possible when you make the contacts. You will probably break your list into categories of method of contact.

Strategic Step #4: Determine the number of contacts you want to make and within what specified time period. Prioritization of your contact list is a strategic thinking move. You only have so much time, so use it wisely and strategically.
This may also cause you to do a “time-released” contact due to the needed follow-up after the contacts.

Strategic Step #5: Determine your “follow-up” plan. This will be dependent upon what action you have asked your contact to take after receiving your message. You must commit to making sure you do the follow-up contacts in a timely manner.

Strategic Step #6: Develop and implement a tracking program so you can evaluate the effectiveness of your client/customer contact program.

Strategic Step #7: Commit to continuous improvement in your client/customer contact program. Review your efforts on a regular basis and adjust your program as needed.

Strategic Step #8: Seek outside advice and assistance from a business coach or marketing consultant to gain additional insights and to be sure you hold yourself accountable in this effort.

Your strategic thinking business coach encourages you to fully realize the benefits of business coaching to strategically market and grow a profitable business. If you would like to learn more about how a strategic thinking business coach can facilitate and guide you in that endeavor, please contact Glenn Ebersole today through his website at www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at jgecoach@aol.com

Related Articles
  A Strategic Look At Client Retention From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  “A Strategic Approach To Produce A Strong Professional Services Brand, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  “Ten Strategic Marketing Actions To Ensure Success In Your New Year, From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  “Strategic Marketing Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”
  How To Identify Your Marketing Barriers, Tips From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Different Hats - CEO Sales & Marketing & Leadership Development Company Strategic Vision 10 Alliances & Growth Strategies 10 Hiring & Managing People 8 Mentoring 8-9 Strategic Planning for Clients 10 Execution of Marketing Campaigns 9-10 (i have great people who do the nitty gritty) Financial Management 9 Bookkeeping 3 (outsourced as I really hate the fine details like GST0 Administrative Follow Up 6-7 (again have great staff) Writing & Publishing 9 (getting better all the time!) Speaking 10 (so I have been told) Self Promotion 9-10 Web development & Promotion 6-7 (learning more and have brought on players who are 10+) Babysitting Employees (1 - wont do it, that's why I work so hard to hire and motivate the people I have) Great topic Kevin!! Jude
Re: Who Did You Learn Most From and Why? - Hi Martin, You missed out on the most essential community that helps you grow - Your Clients. Well, I believe that my Initial Clients have been the ones who have given me the moments of 'aha' in my business. They have stood by me even when I was a starter and that has helped me shape and build my stand. They have helped me grow as an entrepreneur, learn to have loads of patience and make the most of what comes across. They have also helped me to strengthen me as a person. btw, personally speaking, my Grandfather always kept me on track and lent me emotional support when I was down in any matter - be it business or otherwise.
Business Innovation - Hi Simon If you can finish off the Business Plan and think about your strategic direction or how you are going to use your product to convince people it's a great idea, it will set the foundation for your programming project. You see, when you are looking for funding you will need a Business Plan and Strategic Plan that will convince companies to invest into your new idea. Has anyone achieved this idea before using another industry besides health and fitness that you know of? You should also design some mockups as a "preview" for your programming project. This will also help reduce your programming costs as everyone will know exactly what you want if you have detailed mockups already completed including any functionality you require. Starting mockups for websites and software applications on paper is the best way if you're not a guru in graphic editing software.
Re: Fill in the blank: The best decision I ever made with my bus - Focusing on my Internet Marketing Business
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How Many Buckets Do You Need for Retirement?

Leading with Discernment

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.