How and How Often Should You Reach your Customers?

By Joanna L. Krotz

How would you feel if your insurance broker phoned once a week to pitch more coverage on your life insurance policy? Annoyed, right? Or how about the ski resort that sends out monthly reminders in April, May, and June to "Reserve Now." Useless, no? You haven't even planned your summer getaway yet!

But what if the local florist mailed you a timely postcard, asking whether you would like to duplicate your delivery of last year's order of a dozen roses on a certain day? That date just happens to be your wedding anniversary. Now that is helpful and could prompt you to act.

Reaching out to customers is not only about focusing on loyal or high-volume buyers. Timing and frequency count. You need to market to customers when they're receptive to your message – that is, when they need or want what you're selling.

How frequently you contact a customer is determined by the kind of business you have and sometimes by the personality or circumstances of your customers. You want to be in touch often enough so you develop recognition and trust, but not so much that you turn into a nuisance. Different businesses demand different timing and tactics.

Direct-mail flyers work best when you're marketing a call to action. Rely on flyers, whether formal or casual, when you want to produce an immediate customer response. The message and the medium say: Get it while it's hot. Direct mail flyers get your message across fast, and are easily produced whenever you run a promotion–especially if you set up design templates. A retailer with weekly specials, for instance, might send out flyers or discount coupons every week or two. A dry cleaner that just opened might mail a few rounds of flyers to nearby home owners to announce the grand opening and short-term deals created to entice customers to switch services.

Posting the flyers on bulletin boards or at local shops and community centres can help build awareness of your offer or message. The posted flyers will help but will not be as immediate or direct.

For professional services, postcards can be an effective way to keep in touch with customers on a less frequent basis. Professional services don’t have the same sense of urgency as a retailer. It would border on scary to receive a flyer from your accountant. And weekly communications from the dentist, for example, might irritate clients enough to change dentists. Healthcare practices, law firms, or management consultants see clients on very different timetables than retailers. Their marketing needs, therefore, are both more formal and less frequent.

Most service firms can benefit from sending out messages once or twice a year, including "Time to Make an Appointment" reminder postcards.

Postcards can be used to run promotions, and can also be used to deliver news such as special services, that a noteworthy expert joined the firm, or that weekend hours are available. More formal note cards with an envelope can deliver the same message. All of this communicates to clients that the firm can serve their needs.

Of course, when you vary the design and tone, postcards are also a terrific medium for mass-market mailings. But a formal postcard, with conservative design, text, and impressive paper stock, can offer customers timely reminders about expert services.

When you want to forge customer bonds over the long term, newsletters are the way to go. They're affordable, effective, and set up an expected and anticipated benefit for customers. By sending out the newsletter on a regular basis, you become an authority in your field or the trusted source for advice. Newsletters give customers consistent attention, while your payoff is the ongoing relationship and business.

Newsletters will work only if customers value the information or features you deliver. You must offer articles or news that they can't find as easily or anywhere else. The newsletter should make them feel like an insider. Some ideas for a successful newsletter include:

• Stories that customers will find informative, educational, or entertaining

• Tips on getting more out of products or services, both ones that you sell and those your customers use in conjunction with yours
   
• Advice on achieving some goal or getting something done more conveniently, quickly or efficiently
   
• News or views on your industry, field, product innovations, or services
   
• Profiles or statistics of the industry, or field or reviews and announcements of relevant events
   
• Resources that give customers deeper access to information, free samples or special events. A wine shop owner, for instance, might create a wine-tasting club for top-tier customers, inviting them to special events. Once they join, customers get a monthly newsletter that provides news of tasting menus and schedules as well as features about the latest deals, harvests, imports, and expert ratings
   
• Interviews, profiles, or question-and-answer stories with personalities or experts

Besides offering valuable information, newsletters must be well designed and easy to read. If hastily or sloppily produced, customers will simply toss it. Designing a newsletter with Publisher is a good way to start. You can also design and produce issues efficiently by setting up a template for the first one, then updating articles and images in later issues.

Typically, newsletters are sent out once a month or every quarter because they require commitments–both for you to produce and for customers to read. When an issue is delivered, you're asking customers for time and attention. You had better make it worth their while. Mailing a newsletter as frequently as every week is liable to dilute your efforts. It's too much too soon.

You can, though, increase the frequency and deepen the relationship with e-mailed or digital versions of your newsletter.

One idea is to create a longer quarterly mailed newsletter and a monthly newsletter created in Publisher and distributed by e-mail. You can also post the newsletter on your website. Another option is to send out an e-mail blast, headlining the news in the issue, and then follow up with the mailed edition and a posted version on the Web site. Again, make sure your timing matches customer interest and needs.