Build a List

Most companies already have a good start to a list. It may or may not be in a usable format and they may not know they have it. Start with all current customers both those under contract and the break/fix clients. Then add all the names on your prospect list who have never purchased anything from you but who you've had contact with. Include your vendors and potential joint venture partners as well. We'll explain why in a minute. Look through the pile of business cards you've collected but never followed up on. Look through your old proposals that never panned out. Finally, you can add to your list by getting names from list brokers for free or by purchasing. For now, focus on the names you already have.

Lists will go out of date very quickly. Even your customer database probably has a lot of outdated information. Check every field for accuracy by looking up each name on the Internet. Check Google, LinkedIn and Facebook. Verify the spelling, phone number, email address if you have it and website information if applicable. If you have a lot of names, you can farm this out to another company or get an intern to do the work. Do this carefully so you don't waste your time and money chasing after non-existent people or looking foolish with incorrect information.

Remember, when we said to include customers, vendors, potential joint venture partners and potential customer leads? In this step, each name on your list should be put into a category so they will receive the appropriate information from you. For customers, include which products or services they buy from you so you can upsell appropriately. If they already have your IP Phone system, you don't want to try to sell that to them again. If they are break/fix clients, you will want to sell them on a managed service contract and so on. If you have an email address, but the name is not a current customer and they have never done anything to opt-in, then you can't email them legally. Include a field with an opt-in flag to know if you can email them and not violate the Can-Spam Act. Include the job title/function, type of business and anything that might be relevant to your future marketing activities. For example, health care customers might be concerned about changes to HIPAA laws and you could target them for a campaign. The better you do this step, the better your marketing will be.

Build a Relationship with the List

Once your list is clean and segmented, you can start to build a relationship with the people on your list. There are a variety of ways to do this and direct mail and email campaigns are a good place to begin. In order to do this successfully, you'll want to use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) product. There are free CRM products for very small companies and inexpensive CRMs for larger companies. You'll want to pick the right one for your expected growth because it will be a pain to switch. You will also want to have some sort of "offer" and "call to action" for each mail campaign. With a CRM you can automate a lot of this work. Depending on how aggressively you want to market, you can send out a mail campaign a few times a month, weekly or even more often. Of course, you're not mailing to the entire list for each campaign.

You might start by mailing to all your current customers with a managed service contract to offer them a business review where you run a check on their system and then go over any deficiencies with the decision maker. You might mail to all your break/fix clients and suggest reasons why upgrading to a contract will make them more secure. Mail to prospects on why they should consider doing business with you and offer them a free security report. Each segment of your list will get a different campaign. When you don't have permission to email, you will use direct mail. Once they opt in by responding or downloading a free report, you can use email instead of direct mail.

Follow Up with the List

After each mailing campaign has gone out, you will want to follow up with one or more phone calls to verify they received the mailing, offer to answer any questions and hopefully schedule a phone or in-person meeting to discuss their needs. A good CRM will make it easy to follow up and provide a good way to log the contact for future reference. Most new customers will not buy after one mailing or one phone call. It's very important to log the activities to measure the value of each campaign.

Remember, some of these campaigns include your existing customers. Pay close attention to your customers. Meet with them regularly to check how you're doing from their perspective. See what needs and opportunities exist for you to sell additional products and services. It's much easier to sell to a happy existing customer than it is to prospect and find a new customer. Take good care of them and take the time to let them know you're taking good care of them.

Improve and Repeat

You will constantly be adding new names to you list. You will pick up names at every tradeshow and conference you attend. You will get inquires. You will get people to attend webinars or visit your website. Verify all the details and add them to your list. As you mail to your existing list, you'll get new information. Update the information on your list. Mail will get returned, emails will bounce, phone numbers will be bad. Update the information in your list.

Schedule your next mail campaigns intelligently. If someone showed interest, put them in the next logical campaign. If someone showed no interest, schedule for basic campaign in a few months. Add people to a newsletter or blog list when possible to keep sending them interesting and relevant content regularly.

Summary

As you can see, there is nothing revolutionary here. This is basic stuff. That's where Remediane comes in. With 25 years of IT experience and 15 years of small business consulting, we can help you get started in building a basic marketing function in your business. You decide how many new customers you need each year to maintain or grow your business. We show you how many prospects you need to contact. We can walk you through the process of gathering, cleaning and segmenting your list and then we can help you get simple direct mail and email campaigns going out. We can help you set up good procedures for responding to inquiries, setting appointments and most importantly capturing every potential lead. We can show you as the owner how to maintain high level contact with your best customers to keep them loyal.

We will show you, as the owner, or one of your employees how to manage the marketing effort, capture and watch the activity numbers. The best part is that you own the finished product. You don't have to rely indefinitely on us to perform your marketing function. You decide how much new business you want and you can dial in the marketing effort to achieve the results you want.