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Marketing In Ireland? Your Customer List Is Your Business
By Matt Eve
It never ceases to amaze me that over 80% of the time, when I do a audit for a small business, and I ask the owner how large their database of existing customers is, that this question is met with a blank look.

In this day and age of easily accessible and low cost technology it is really surprising to see that 80% of businesses are not keeping customer records in a proper system. Indeed even if they are using computers in other areas of their business for example bookkeeping very few Irish business owners are maximising the use of technology to improve their marketing.

These figures are very worrying. Huge amounts of money are being spent by the owners of these businesses. Attracting new prospects can be an expensive process so it is even more worrying that existing customers that have been so hard to come by in the first place are allowed to slip through the net.

The cost of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 100% less than the cost of having to acquire a new one and convert them to customers. Current clients of your business have experienced your service before and know how to find your premises. You have built up an relationship and track record with them so it is a pity to waste it. So in my mind it is more important to first look after the customers you have already rather than spending huge amounts of money in trying to attract new clients.

It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for an author to write a book and then sell it to one customer and then go back and write a second book. It would be much more lucrative to keep selling the first book and maximise its potential so that it provided an ongoing revenue

stream far into the future.

Once you understand the value of maximising your past customers you need to look at how you can implement some kind of system in your business to benefit from it. Each time you do business with a customer then you need to take note of their details and enter them into your computerised CRM system.

Then a few days later send the customer a postcard or an email thanking them for their business. This will knock their socks off, they won't expect it. Then a month after their initial purchase give them a call and find out if everything is going ok. Perhaps they might need something more to go with whatever it is you supplied them.

Keep up the communication over time and a few months later perhaps you could send them some kind of gift card for ‘VIP clients only’. The key is to do something, and make it into a system in your business.

Looking after your past customers will give you better business results in the long term, instead of just focusing on looking for new clients all of the time

Article Source: http://articlecrazy.com

Author: Matt Eve is a writer and owner of a marketing consultancy in Ireland.See more of his articles at his irish blog
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