We’ve all heard the statistics when it comes to new leads:  80% of the conversions and sales go to only 10% of the businesses out there.  Why?  Because those businesses followed up consistently and repeatedly.

But making sales isn’t just about converting prospects.  It’s also about staying in touch with your current and past clients.

As you know, I send out my ezine every two weeks.  Do people open it?  Do they read it?  Do they click on the links?  I look at the statistics and have an idea of what people are doing.  Am I disappointed 100% of my subscribers don’t click through to read the rest of the article?  You bet!  In reality, I know that’s never going to happen — not even if I offered $200 for clicking a link.  

Nevertheless, let me tell you what did happen.  A client I haven’t worked with in six years emailed me.  She changed career paths and is now working for a company instead of herself, but she needed my services.  And because my name shows up in her inbox every two weeks with relevant, newsworthy information – and has been for six years – I was top of mind.

Could she have unsubscribed at some point?  Yes, and you can’t control that.  But what you can do is provide appropriate content so the desire to unsubscribe is less.  If you only send emails selling, the likelihood of someone unsubscribing goes up.  You need to make sure you make enough deposits into the free content account before you withdraw by sending an email that sells.

So when creating a campaign or newsletter to stay top of mind with prospects, current clients and past clients, make sure you’re delivering pertinent, worthwhile information.  Put your readers’ needs and desires ahead of your own and deliver news they can use.

Here are four other ways (besides an ezine) to stay in front of your past and current clients:

1) Send a greeting card.  You can send this around the holidays or just out of the blue.  Who doesn’t like to get a card in the mail?
2) Give them a call just to check in and see how things are going.  Maybe the last time you talked to them they were planning a vacation.  Ask about it.  And if you’re not using some type of CRM system (like Infusionsoft) to keep track of those things, you should be!
3) Send a gift.  This could be a book or bag of yummy goodies to eat.  Or you could even create a free report or video for them to download from your website (just make sure it’s something they can use).
4) Send a print newsletter.  While our email inboxes are overflowing, our paper mailboxes are becoming less crowded.

The important thing to do is to stay in contact consistently, no matter which method or combination you choose!  And if you don’t have time to do it all yourself, find a Virtual Assistant who can help you.