One of the most important aspects of running an online business is keeping in touch with your subscribers, clients, and customers. Read on to find out why keeping in touch is important and tips on how to keep up the relationship.
If you aren't keeping in touch with your current clients, prospects, leads, customers, etc., you could be a big loser. You may be losing an opportunity to provide someone the benefit of your expertise, losing a chance to build a long-term relationship, and, ultimately, losing money.
Why is keeping in touch important? If you're in the business of providing a service, especially an online service, you need to interact with people in order to start a relationship. Sharing information, providing tips, asking what types of information or products may be of benefit – are all ways to cultivate that valuable relationship. It follows that people want to do business with people they know and trust, someone whom they have a relationship with.
Keep in touch by keeping it simple
Keeping in touch with your current list is simple enough. Using a list manager program, like Aweber or Constant Contact, can be used to automatically send announcements and publications, such as enewsletters or ezines.
Writing a newsletter is a source of joy for some and a source of pain for others. If writing a newsletter isn't your 'thing,' get creative! For example, Ginny Edwards of Refreshing Times Wellness Center sends out a "Weekly Refreshment" every Monday morning to start her readers off on the right track. Life coach Carey Powell of Fearless Soul Life Coaching sends a "Weekly Fearless Message" each Tuesday. Not only are these approaches creative, these are great examples of how these two coaches are using coaching in their marketing.
Articles – Submit 'em if you got 'em
Did you write an article for your newsletter this month or have you written articles in the past? Why not leverage your existing content and submit to free article banks? Besides increasing your credibility and providing valuable incoming links to your website, it also provides a way to get your message out to thousands of people who otherwise might not have come across your website or blog.
There aren't many rules for article writing other than the content should be unique and approximately 500 words in length. Also, write for people and not search engines. Search engines will reward those who write unique and quality content submitted to a few high ranking sites over those who submit a poorly written article to a 100 low-quality article banks.
Here are a few recommended free article sites:
And one that I recently learned about, http://www.articledashboard.com/, is considered a top pick by many. If you can only submit to two article banks, make it ezinearticles.com and articledashboard.com.
Whether you are a virtual assistant, coach, bookkeeper, or consultant, I believe you have a calling to do what you do. But too many times we set up shop and then…nothing. Perhaps you don't think that keeping in touch is important. Or maybe you feel that someone could not possibly want to hear what you have to say or worse, not want to buy anything from you. This thinking is so far from the truth! Look hard and you'll see that you possess expertise, talent, and valuable information others do not.
You know you are not a loser, so stop losing out on valuable opportunities to establish and maintain relationships and start keeping in touch!
Copyright 2007 Lisa Wells.
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