Stay In Touch with Your Clients
Stay Alive. Stay in touch with your clients. Don’t let anyone drive a wedge between you and your customer.
Our customers are feeling pressure like never before. Many are scared and looking for any help they can get. They are looking to cut costs anyway they can. So now is the time to stay in touch with them. Your customers may have been loyal for many years but if someone comes in front of them and you have neglected your relationship they may forget your years of service and move on.
I know because this has happened to me recently. A long time client sent out a large job to another shop, right in the midst of us doing other, smaller jobs. Ouch! Many businesses are trying to buy business by being very aggressive in price cutting. It is difficult to protect completely against this but the best prevention is to stay in touch with clients.
One of the best ways to stay in touch is with a newsletter. There are many forms of newsletters, from the very simple to the very elaborate. A client of ours that sells a premium product stays in touch with their customers through a regular mailing of a simple one-color newsletter. The quality of their product speaks for itself and there is no need to put a lot of puff and circumstance in the newsletter.
Another fine way to keep in touch is with postcards. Postcards are quickly and easily read. There is no need to open an envelope. Their postage is less than a letter and there is no stuffing and licking involved. And it seems that postcard are tossed in drawers and kept around more than letters. I know I use them for bookmarkers.
In addition to using postcards on a regular basis to promote seasonal or special events postcards can be used to thank customers for business. You can get a stack of postcards made for your business and keep them handy to send out after a job is completed, sending a handwritten note saying thank you.
Contests are another was to stay in touch and help you be top of mind with your customers. One of our clients uses a postcard to announce a contest that he has each year about this time rewarding all his customers of the years with an opportunity to win a vacation get away. What a great way to stay in touch and say thank at the same time. And all for a little more than quarter postage.
It is the holiday season and cards can keep you in front of your clients. And it can be helpful to think outside the box here. If everybody is going to be sending holiday cards, send yours before or after the rush. At Ajalon we have sent out Thanksgiving cards rather than December holiday cards. Our cards come before everybody has become ho-hum about all the cards. We have also sent out a Happy New Year card in January, after people are back from the holidays. This assures us of standing out and being noticed.
At Ajalon we have the ability to meet what ever you want in terms of newsletters or cards. We can produce short runs digitally or print thousands of newsletters, all economically. We have templates of pre-designed holiday cards that we can personalize and even address the envelopes for you. Or we can custom design something that you want done if you have a vague idea of what you want or if you have a clear idea in your mind.
When you want to stay in touch with your clients, remember Ajalon is here to help.
Written by David Walrath
Ajalon Printing & Design
