Find Em' Keep Em'

Some of you may remember in the late 1990’s New Zealand Post launched a program called Find em’ Keep em’. This was a program they set up to encourage businesses to use a direct marketing campaign which they were promoting for businesses to utilise as a way of staying in touch with  both prospects and customers. Their marketing approach was all about using direct mail (funnily enough) and managing your data base in a way that you constantly stayed in touch with your data base.
Of course I am in very much in favour of this as a form of marketing however the difference between now and the late 1990’s is that we have more effective ways of keeping in touch with clients/potential clients through e-marketing etc. Direct mail today needs to be very defined and targeted.

The message of Find em’ Keep em’ though is still just as relevant today as it was then. Perhaps even more so. I am continually reminding businesses to go back over their data base and calling customers who have not used them for over say the past year or more. In today’s market you need to be consistently keeping in touch with your customers and prospects other wise the next time they notice another supplier they will look at the possibility of finding better service elsewhere (notice I didn’t say price).

There is enormous potential to generate more business from people who have previously used your service. You will have all heard the saying “it’s easier to maintain a customer than to find a new one”. So when you find a new customer make sure you do everything you can to keep them!

How regularly do you call back to your customers/prospects? Let me tell you about a promotions business I have previously used. To be honest I didn’t like the rep. She use call (in person) three times a year, and phone in between to see if I needed anymore uniforms (being a retail business we had a constant turnover of staff).

On the visits when she would call I would always get a promotional product as a gift (3 times a year). This I believe made it harder for me to look around for another supplier in the near future. By the time I was ready to consider finding another supplier I would get another call in person (and another gift).

I recently followed up with a lead I gave to one of our team. It was great to know they had approached the key contact I put them onto. Although the job had been organised prior to enquiring, their current supplier nearly lost the job because they took so long to complete the order.

My contact said he will keep us in mind for any future work. However the next time could be 3, 4, 6 months from now. I can tell you he will forget about us or even get our name wrong unless our local sales person keeps in touch 3 -4 times a year.

Show them you value their ongoing business and don’t give them a reason to change suppliers. Keep in touch regularly!