Building Business: No-Cost Communications

by Susan K. Maciak | CAMEO Consulting | cameo100.com | ask@cameo100.com

Keep in touch with customer base

Whether you call it promotion, advertising, public relations or communications, business owners/managers must constantly keep in touch with both current and potential, new customers. No matter how tough the times or how little money is left in the marketing budget, you should reach out to your niche at least once month. You don't have to spend a fortune.

There's more to communicating with the public or staying in touch with your base than mailing expensive full-color brochures.

Here is a no-cost, low-cost idea for keeping your business up front in people's minds:

Pick up the phone every day and call just one (1) current customer and one (1) prospect. You can do it yourself, or approach a staff member with these instructions: Introduce yourself and tell each contact that you're just calling to remind them how to reach your when they need your company's goods or services (Do you have our phone number? Know our web site and email addresses, etc.). When funding is flush, you can pay to put those messages on refrigerator magnets, pens or other popular promotional items to hand out.

But before you say goodbye and hang up the phone, remind your existing patrons of upcoming sales, tell them about new or popular products or service, and ask if they have any questions. Thank them for their business (or tell prospects that you'd like to have their business).

These five-minute phone calls don't add a dime to your phone bill; but go a long way in showing customers that you care. They're almost as personal as face-to-face communication, the most effective kind. If you make just two calls a day, 52 five-day weeks a year, you've reached out and touched 260 folks who will feel valued because you called.