How Often Should You Contact Your Customers?

We all know it’s important to stay in touch with our customers, but how often is enough?

You want to build your relationships, trust, get referrals, and more frequent orders, but you don’t want to be a pest either… So, how do you know how often to do it?
The answer is simple, test.

If you don’t test how often to do it, you’ll leave a lot of money on the table. Ted Nicholas, a famous direct marketer, told me at a recent seminar that even he didn’t know the answer for his own customers until recently.

He had thought contacting his customers four times a year was enough, but being a direct marketer and deciding to apply what he taught others to his own business, he tested going to once a month. Once per month turned out to be much more profitable than four times/year, so then he tried ever other week.

He thought he’d see the profitability drop off when mailing that often, but to his surprise, it didn’t. Long story short, he found the answer to be every week – 52 times per year!

Are you thinking, that’s him, my business is different? Maybe it is, maybe not.

The only way to know is to test.

If it turns out you can mail 10 times more often than you do now and have it be massively profitable why wouldn’t you do it?

Another example. Bill Glazer, a menswear store chain owner, has found by the same testing that the right number for him is also 52 times a year. Keep in mind, all the contacts don’t need to be by mail. Bill uses voice broadcasting, personal calls from the customer’s sales rep (4 times/year), direct mail postcards, email, direct mail sales letters, and even mailings with premiums and other “grabbers” enclosed.

All his contacts are interesting, fun and provide a true value for his customers. Bill has also accomplished something most retailers only dream of – he has people paying him an annual membership fee to be a “preferred customer” and have the first shot at any new merchandise!

The bottom line is that whatever you are doing now is probably not enough. I know many businesses who never contact their customers and just wait for them to contact them!

They’re losing business and will be losing customers too. Don’t let that happen to you. Many of these customer communications can be automated with today’s technology so not having the time to do it is no longer a valid excuse. Now we can automate email, voice broadcast, opt-in fax broadcast, and even direct mail greeting cards and postcards.

Let me know if you need help getting it set up.

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