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Most businesses are looking for ways to get new clients. Although this is a healthy practice, many miss out on a relatively untapped market: selling more to your existing clients!

You’ve already gone through the process of attracting a customer, getting them through the door and eager to buy your product or service. They are interested in what your business offers. Over time, most of your happy customers will forget about the great product or professional service that you offered. It’s just human nature. But how do you keep the relationship after the sale is over? How do you ‘still remain friends’ after the initial sale has completed? One way is through E-mail Marketing.

Sending your existing clients a regular e-newsletter is a powerful way to keep your customers in the ‘know’ about topics that they might be interested in. Here are some examples to include in your e-newsletter:

1)    Tips and tricks to get the most out of your products or services
2)    Recent news relating to your products or services that might impact your client
3)    New products for services that you are offering
4)    Promotions, such as 50% off all products or services until the end of the month.

These are just a few options. Think about what your customer would want to see. You know what your client wants more than anyone. Be creative!

In an earlier blog entry, the importance of performing E-mail Marketing the right way was discussed, which included the important point about always giving the customer the option to opt-out of the e-newsletter. As long as you’re respectful and courtesy, most of your client will appreciate that you didn’t forget about them once the check cleared.

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This article is written by our guest blogger, Amar Kumar.  Amar is a Business Consultant at Effensource Global Services, a firm that provides awareness to small businesses about tools and techniques to generate more sales and reduce operational costs.

Email marketing is a fairly inexpensive form of advertising. You can potentially reach thousands or millions of customers at almost no cost. However, many companies have been using this technique indiscriminately. The result of this is a huge amount of unsolicited emails (i.e. spam) that end up annoying people.

When email marketing is done badly, the offending company is often called a spammer and can potentially violate the law. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1) Permission
We should get permission from the recipient before sending them emails. You could have a registration form on your website, where the user can decide whether to receive emails from you.

2) Opt-out Link
Every email should include a link where the user can unregister so that they won’t receive any further emails from you.

3) No Purchased List
Some companies might buy an email list from a provider. This is very dangerous as the recipients who give permission to the provider might not welcome other emails from you.

When you’re doing any email marketing campaign, ask yourself a question, “how would I feel if I were the one receiving this email?” This common sense approach will help you to identify whether your emails are useful and relevant to the recipient or not.

Compare these two sentences:

“In the author’s opinion, it is in most peoples’ best interests when excessive verbiage is avoided by people who are engaged in the act of writing.”

“Don’t fluff up your writing.”

They say the same thing, but the second one is much more direct and memorable.

Whether you’re writing website content, instructions, or an important email - every word costs your readers time and energy.  If it doesn’t pay off quickly, you will quickly lose their attention and potential business.

Pack a lot of content into a few words.

If you’re not convinced, here are some illuminating resources:
- Mark Twain said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
- Google cuts words mercilessly.
- If you add 100 words to your website, people will read less than 20 of them.
- A book On Writing Well

You may want to consider setting up a toll-free 800 number so that you can:
· Project a more professional image
· Make it easier for your customers to reach you

Toll-free numbers used to be quite expensive - something only a big company would have. This is no longer true - you can set up a toll-free number starting at around $10-20 a month. But since most of your customers don’t know this, having one is a sure way to impress them. You’re also more likely to get customers from outside your immediate area to call in, since they don’t have to pay long-distance charges.

Here’s how it works. You set up a phone menu, and when your customers dial in, they pick what extension to call. You can forward these extensions to you and your colleagues’ local numbers and cell phones. If it’s after hours or you miss the call, their voicemail will be delivered to you via e-mail.

Here are some service providers that you can try:
· GotVMail - USA & Canada
· Toll Free Forwarding - International
· BT RingCentral - United Kingdom
· dm Club - United Kingdom

Do you have friends who talk to long-distance customers?