I was recently presenting to a group on ways to do marketing with little money, and I choose to drive the conversation in three area – social media, nurture marketing and referral marketing.
Now I have my tried-and-true nurture marketing techniques that I have talked about and demonstrated, but I wanted to bring something new to the table. And what came to mind, was an old technique, made new through all the great search technology available to us today.
I grew up with a father who was salesman. He was a stockbroker – now retired – and a pretty successful one. And his success was not because of his prowess in picking stocks, but in his ability to keep his clients in the forefront of his mind – keeping what was important them, as something that was important to him.
While I don’t think he called his client recruitment process the building of “know, like and trust”, that is exactly what he did with his FYI marketing. Here’s what he did:
After meeting with a prospective client, my Dad had an understanding of what was important to them, both personally and professionally. And he took action on that.
I would frequently see him come home with stacks of newspaper clippings, or copied articles, or watch him rip the Sunday paper apart to get more articles. And on each of these, he’d write FYI – Bob, and then put a sticker on the article with his contact and company info. It would go into an envelope and off to his prospect or customer. (As I got older, I was also a frequent recipient of these).
Now what he was doing is pretty evident – he let his prospects and customers know he was thinking of them. He was putting content he had seen into context for his customers. And with tools like Google Alerts and Twitter Search you can easily do the same today – faster, easier and with less postage.
Think about that really important customer you have and want to keep. Or that prospect you really want to get working with you that just won’t return your call. Set up an alert or search on what is important to that customer or on the prospect’s industry.
Once a week or a couple times a month, filter through those alerts for the one or two articles/blog posts/comments that are relevant and well thought out and send them on to your target electronically with a quick FYI. No explanation needed. No hand-crafted marketing slick required. Just a quick note to let that customer or prospect know you were thinking of them. Make it random in the timing and frequency, but consistent in approach over a long period of time. One day, the phone will ring with a call saying “I appreciate you sending that article to me it helped me do X. Lets talk about how we can work together”.
Yes, an email is not as “romantic” as a hand written note, but the value of the information – that you have been thinking of them – is what really counts. So give it a try and see what the results are or if you do this already, drop me an FYI note and let me know how it works for you.
