by Derryl P. Kostynuik, Creative Marketing Strategist
Here are three of the most important start up marketing tools you need to get and keep new customers:
- In Person: It’s essential you meet with customers/clients in person whenever possible. This shows you respect them and take the time to work with your clients to give personal attention to each of them.
- Follow Up Letter: Send a follow up letter about what you talked about, new agreements or partnerships made, and thank them for taking the time to meet with you. Likewise, you should always send thank you letters or small gifts to partners you find success with.
- Phone Call: Call to follow up with them to talk again about the matters you talked about in your meeting and offer any assistance you can to help their business run smoothly and more successfully.
None of these will work if you don’t have a quality product/service to back you up!
Here are the key steps for putting together your start-up marketing tools:
- Research potential customers, buyers, competitors, and their preferred methods of distribution.
- Talk to potential customers. Take a hard look at your product from a customer’s perspective and see what it needs to be successful.
- Follow up with your three-step process from above.
- Develop systems for contact follow through, quality control standards, and customer service.
- Develop a post-sale follow up system to keep lines of communication open with customers and build on your current relationship which increases future purchases.
“Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs” – Peter Drucker, Management Consultant.
This lesson has offered you the tools to put together a start-up marketing plan that can be used repeatedly to help your customer base and business grow in a manageable way.
