Fix Your Follow-Up Marketing

NO business is immune to it and I guarantee everybody reading these words is guilty of either inadequate, or worse, no follow-up marketing. Like a leaky bucket, poor follow-up marketing is draining your business of additional sales, profits and customer goodwill.

Over the years I’ve consulted with hundreds of business owners and every single one of them had follow-up marketing holes in their business and while I cannot condone them, I understand the reality of running a business.

The lack of proper follow-up marketing systems is an insidious problem and often ignored and overlooked, in lieu of “sexier” marketing initiatives. Most business owners typically focus on the efforts of driving new leads and prospects into their businesses to become customers and even though considerable time and money is spent, many of these business owners have embarrassingly inadequate follow-up marketing campaigns to convert these leads and prospects into customers.

Marketing-oriented business owners focus on acquisition and more, but often still fall short. These business owners try their best at staying in touch with customers, with various customer nurture marketing efforts like newsletters and broadcast emails, but if you peek under the hood of these businesses you will find the same follow-up marketing holes.

For the bricks and mortar business owner who relies on customers (or clients/students/patients) to walk through his or her business front door to buy products or services, properly designed follow-up marketing techniques and campaigns are critically important for these important reasons:

• They differentiate your business from your competition.
• They delight prospects and customers.
• When automated they happen without you having to think about them.
• They add more bottom-line profits to your business (by adding a few specific follow-up marketing campaigns you can convert more prospects into customers and create more sales from existing customers ALL WITHOUT ADDITIONAL ACQUISTION EXPENSES).

WHO YOU SHOULD BE FOLLOWING-UP WITH:

All bricks and mortar business owners have at least six specific audiences they should be following-up with on a regular basis. These specific audiences include:

• Leads – These are people interested in your products or services, but have yet to visit your place of business or call.
• Prospects -These are people who has visited/called, but have not purchased.
• Customers – These are people who have made a purchase.
• Referrals – These are people who your customers have referred to your business.
• Referral Partners – These are other complimentary business owners who can refer business to you.
• Employees and Team Members – Follow-up is not just for external audiences and all business owners should have internal follow-up systems in place for employees and team members.

USE THE PROPER FOLLOW-UP TOOLS:

Here is a partial checklist of specific information-centric tools to use in your follow-up marketing systems.

• Audio CDs
• Customer Newsletters
• Educational Short Books
• Email Marketing
• Facebook Fan Page
• Direct Mail
• Incredible Guarantee
• Irresistible & Time-Sensitive Offers
• Online Lead Capture
• Personalized Marketing
• Personal Phone Calls
• Prospect Assessments
• Special Reports
• Surveys
• Videos
• Voice Broadcasts
• W.I.I.F.M. Website

 BUILD THE PROPER FOLLOW-UP SYSTEMS:

By their very nature, systems are important for your business because they can product exceptional results the same way with the same impact time and time again. Effective follow-up systems provide the order, the predictability, and the results so important to a business owner’s success.  Here are the 12 specific follow-up marketing systems every bricks and mortar business owner should be using:

• Lead generation follow-up
• Prospect call/no visit follow-up
• Prospect visit follow-up
• New customer follow-up
• Long-time customer follow-up
• Event marketing follow-up
• “Lost” customer follow-up
• Upset customer follow-up
• Online & offline review solicitation follow-up
• Referred customer follow-up
• Referral partner follow-up
• Internal team member follow-up

AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE, AUTOMATE!

To guarantee your follow-up marketing happens in your business, you must use an automated marketing and sales platform, like Infotail® to make everything happens when it should.  Infotail is a “done for you” marketing and sales automation solution designed and managed by bricks and mortar business owners for bricks and mortar business owners. Infotail automates all the steps and possibilities, including even ones you might think cannot be automated like personalized direct mail and employee follow-up.

FIX YOUR FOLLOW-UP MARKETING WORKSHOP ANNOUNCED:

A recent consulting day with a client who is doing a lot of good things and by all outward appearances seems to have their marketing dialed in, reminded me no business is immune to lack of follow-up. During the consult, I had a light-bulb moment – what if I could host a single-day workshop that was focused on nothing by properly designed follow-up marketing strategies?

Could an intense and focused look at strategic follow-up marketing, including a study of 11 types of follow-up campaigns every bricks and mortar business owner should be using, help these owners generate more profits and give them peace-of-mind?

I THINK SO!

I am pleased to announce the Fix Your Follow-Up Workshop this June 1, 2015 (with an optional Marketing Automation Bonus Day on June 2) in Philadelphia, PA.

This powerful day of working on your business instead of in it will yield an immediate big payoff. Click here to get all the details, including early bird pricing and a very valuable fast-action gift.