Your Personal Marketing “Stay In Touch” Program to Complement Your Telesales

As promised in the post above, here are some specifics you can use in putting together your own stay-in-touch program with prospects you want to keep in contact with.

1. Define Your Follow-Up Criteria and Categories. Determine who you will discard, and who you’ll place into your system. For example, anyone now spending over a certain dollar level with a competitor could be a category. Or people with a project planned over two years in the future.

2. Use Automaton. Even the simplest CRM programs make this a snap for you. Otherwise, it could be a nightmare, and would take away from your selling time. My CRM program is specifically built for entrepreneurial companies, but can work for larger ones as well. I am able to set up a virtually endless follow-up sequence combining emails, faxes, and mail. Once I set it up and someone is in the system, they are being marketed to without me having to be involved. The software company, Infusionsoft has put together a cool 8-page report, “6 Steps for Effective Follow-Up Marketing.” Download it at http://crm.infusionsoft.com/go/efm/artsobczak

3. Plan and Execute Your Communications. Decide how you’ll communicate with your prospects, and how often. Here are some ideas:

• newsletters, special reports, or other articles that provide useful content, with a subtle underlying sell message

• post cards

• articles you clip that would be of interest

• free samples of your product

• emails that contain value, not just sales pitches.

• links to useful video

• handwritten notes

• birthday cards

• other holiday cards, or even cards for no particular reason

• special items for very select prospects. I’ve sent books to prospects on topics unrelated to what I sell, but what I knew they were interested in.

4. Follow-Up. Keep your list clean, stay in touch, and have something of value every time you call.

It’s a long process, but well worth the effort.