Tips from the 15th new rule of online marketing
Old Rule: The dot-com era was the peak of the Internet.
New Rule: The Next Wave Internet boom is here – and it’s going to last.
No matter how you slice it, repeat business and referrals remain your most profitable source of business. Satisfied clients know you, trust you, and appreciate all your efforts made on their behalf. What better advertising campaign could you devise? Your next logical step is to put all that good will and positive energy to work for you – over and over again.
With the diverse methods of communication made possible by the Internet, customer relationship management has come into its own.
Seven Proven Strategies to Build Referrals and Gain Repeat Business
- Communicate regularly with your past clients and others in your sphere of influence. Take advantage of all available online and offline methods to express your professionalism and continued interest. At the end of each communication, always ask for a referral, and don’t be bashful about it. Some top e-Rainmakers report success with these techniques when asking clients for referrals:
· Make it worth their while by adding incentives happy homeowners will really appreciate. For each referral sent to you, for example, send your client a pack of tulip bulbs, or a template for rearranging furniture.
· Another approach would be to put your client’s name in the pot for a drawing on a romantic weekend at a popular B & B, hard-to-get tickets to an area sporting event, or a family portrait session at a well known local studio.
- Take all the credit due you for helping your buyers find their dream home. Who could resist the opportunity to show off a new house? As an example of your continued service after closing, offer your happy buyers this golden opportunity: Create a virtual tour of their new property and make it accessible to their friends through your website, as an e-mail attachment, or on a CD. Always include your contact information and a direct link to your home page. Virtual tour software will make this easy.
Another take on this idea is to prepare a “Welcome Home” template for the buyers, even if you were the selling agent. Include photos and location maps of the new home, the neighborhood, and the community.
- Demonstrate your continued high quality service with online newsletters. Whether you choose to create your own newsletter or take advantage of prepared e-newsletters, keep your clients’ interests in mind. What are past clients looking for? Not the same things, obviously, that they were looking for before you so diligently helped them sell a home or buy one. Articles on redecorating, gardening, and seasonal and year-round home maintenance will be welcome. Always ask for referrals.
- Feature links to all your e-newsletters on your home page with links throughout your site. Yet another bonus to online newsletters is that you can use links to specific articles as instant answers to prospect and client questions.
- Create a personalized stream of birthday and anniversary trivia for past seller and buyer clients. There are several sites on the Internet that provide amusing and interesting bits of information keyed to specific dates such as birthdays, purchase dates, and wedding anniversaries. For example, http://re-date.com will calculate your age to the nearest second and provide other fun-to-know facts such as how old you would be if you lived on Mars or Pluto.
- Strive to average at least one new client per closing. Again, don’t be shy. Make it your policy that closings are never truly closed until you have asked for referrals from all the players. Activate a business-building campaign after each closing that includes e-mails, faxes, phone calls, and follow-up-letters to the buyer, the seller, other real estate professionals present, their managers, loan officers, and attorneys.
- Get staff feedback on phone calls and e-mails received from prospects, clients, and past clients. As part of your lifetime customer retention campaign, you need to know what questions your clients are asking. Then go about answering those questions proactively for prospects in the pipeline. Put the answers up front in a Q & A section of your newsletter, or if the issue deserves more space, make it the subject of an article.
Follow-up is Critical
Your ultimate objective is to pull as many referrals as possible into the “Lifetime Marketing Cycle.” This all important cycle begins with lead generation and acquisition, moves on to prospect follow-up and conversion, and long-term contact and retention, which, in turn, provides more referrals.
Effective customer relationship management calls for quick follow-up at each step of the lifetime marketing cycle. The biggest mistake you can make after asking for and getting referrals is the failure to follow up with a series of targeted communications.
