I get it – you’re busy. You start your day early and end it late. The days don’t necessarily go the way you plan them. Yet, it’s important to keep new sales coming in and establish yourself as an expert in your community. Here are three simple tools you can use to keep the referrals and new clients coming in while maximizing your time.
The Case Study
A Case study is a great way to show how you can meet customer needs and adapt your solutions to the client’s desires. Typically, a case study will resonate with similar customers and give them a peer review of how you work and meet specific needs. It gives you an opportunity to tell an in-depth story about a complex solution you provided, and ultimately turns your product/service into a story. It’s also an opportunity to discover who your brand evangelists are – and we all know how important referrals are to bring in new business. Lastly, it becomes a sales resource for your company.
Once your case study is complete, you can use it multiple times. You can post it on your website, so prospects better understand the breadth of your capabilities, or shared on social media and promoted to similar people to bring in leads. It can be published in your local news outlets to bring you more awareness of your business. It can also be used as content for a customer newsletter.
Customer Newsletter
A customer newsletter is another must-have tool to keep leads coming in. You likely already have a list you can use – your current clients and prospects email addresses. I recommend you send a newsletter once a month to create consistency and stay top-of-mind with your customers and prospects. Keep it to one topic and one call to action (call/email for more information). If just starting out, try Mail Chimp. It’s easy to use and free up to 2,000 contacts. You should see about a 20-30% open rate with your list and even receive some responses.
Newsletter topic ideas can be a recap of new technology you’ve recently seen at local or national shows, tips and tricks to keep your system running well or a variety of other topics. Talk about your company and the people you work with. Tell them about a recent award your firm has won. Sit down with your team and brainstorm ideas to create an editorial calendar. You only need 12 topics to cover the next year and with those topics defined, it makes starting the project each month that much easier.
Get The Word Out
The last tool you should be using is local public relations. Get to know what local newspapers, cable/broadcast news and magazines your clients are reading or watching. Find out who writes/manages community or tech stories. Send them your case studies and other news about your company. Ask them to use your story. Once you get a placement, be sure to add any links your website – those are solid SEO backlinks that will make you easier to find in online search results. These placements give you credibility with your customers and prospects and will help you close business.
If you think this is too much to take on right now, start with one activity. I recommend the customer newsletter. And, please give us your feedback on how it works for you!
