February 2020

3 Strategies to Attract More Clients

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Maintaining a steady stream of clients can be overwhelming. Even with over 20 years’ experience in business we still feel the lull of summer, and this years’ devasting bushfires have considerably hampered the momentum to the start of the New Year.

Here are three strategies you might like to introduce into your business this coming year to attract and maintain more clients.

1. Maintain Contact

Maintaining contact or reconnecting with past clients is a great strategy for stimulating a continued workflow. Clients that have interacted with your business previously are cheaper to acquire and easier to sell to, as you already have an established relationship.

Use the New Year as a reason to touch base with current and past clients via an email, a card or a phone call. Getting in touch doesn’t have to feel weird or stressful. Forget the hard sell and use the moment to reconnect, listen to their stories, successes and concerns and gently offer some useful or practical information where appropriate.

Pick up the phone

Just make the call, start the conversation and do more listening rather than selling. You want to genuinely find out how your client is doing, and what is happening in their world before you try to see if you can help them in anyway.

Send a card

Send your client a handwritten card. We have developed a suite of cards that we use for various occasions. In addition, add value by including a recent article or case study that you think might be of interest, include a note explaining why. Or instead you could include a gift voucher providing your past client with a benefit if they reengage with your company within the next month.

Mail your list and remind them you are back at your desk

Take the opportunity to email your mailing list and let them know you are back from your Christmas break and ready to serve. Keep this email short so that is it different from your usual newsletter. We include a couple of case studies to get the year rolling.

2. Do What Worked

When we start out in business and when things are quiet, we initiate a range of activities to get customers. As time goes on, we often forget what we did and get lost in the day to day running of things.

Consider the activities you invested in when you started your business. What did you do in the first few months to get clients? Did you attend networking events? Did you encourage referrals from family and friends? Did you do a letterbox drop? Did you promote your services on social media? What did you do? Try at least one of these again.

3. Form Partnerships

Strong business partnerships with others that sell to your ideal client are an invaluable way to sustain a continued pipeline in your business.

Attending networking events can be stressful and impersonal, so instead of your goal being to hand out as many business cards as possible, look at making new partnerships. Approach people that are in a similar business or within your supply chain. For example we work with copywriters, photographers, videographers and communication specialists; all these partners refer potential clients to our business.

When approaching businesses to partner with, make sure you are both a good fit, have similar values and talk about your expectations. You must have a good understanding of their business and them of yours, in order to attract your ideal client.