Effectively Communicating with Your Customers

Posted by Jackie Ewing on June 14, 2010

Whatever your business, the lifeblood of that business is your customers. Without them, you don’t have a viable business and it won’t make you any money.

Too many businesses make the mistake of constantly seeking new customers to sell to while ignoring the customers they already have. A lot of money is spent on marketing to prospects while little, if any, is spent on marketing to the existing customers.

Just think about it, you’ve spent time, effort and money in getting a customer to buy from you – are you just going to sell to him once, or are you going to make every effort to sell to him over and over again?

If you can communicate to your existing customers that they are special to you, you will find it far easier to sell to them than to a crowd of unknown prospects.  Business owners need to remind themselves constantly that their customers are people, and people like it when they are made to feel special in some small way.

So, how can you get this idea across to your customers?  By communicating with them on a very regular basis!  With the advent of so many new mediums in social media – Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In to name but a few – some people think this is the only way to communicate now.  That would be an incorrect assumption as not all of your customers will be in that particular social media audience.  There are still those customers out there who want to get something from you via email and snail mail – yes, people still do want to get something in the mail!

My recommendation for effective communication with your customers would be to have several different ways of communicating with your customers

• phone
• email
• direct mail
• some well-chosen social mediums

It’s my belief, based on my own experience with clients, with businesses that I do business with, with some of the major corporations that we all deal with on  a

daily basis, that using all of these together will reach far more of your customers in their way, at their time.  If you choose to use only one method of communicating with your customers, you will be limiting your success with them.  Your decision to choose only one could be based on time, money and/or effort – a very normal way to deal with this.  But email is relatively inexpensive with a wide reach; social media is free for the most part and direct mail can be inexpensive but have a great return on investment (ROI).

I recommend that you try several different ways at once, integrating them whenever possible.  If your website is the ultimate place you want your customers to land, then all other communcations with them should point them to your website.  You can connect your blog to your website, use Twitter to promote your blog, use Facebook to promote your blog and your website, use an email newsletter to direct people to Twitter, Facebook, your blog and your website. Are you starting to see the pattern here?

Next post will discuss each of these in a little more detail.

Feel free to ask questions that you want addressed.

Newsletters Keep You in front of Your Customers and Prospects

Posted by Jackie Ewing on February 14, 2010

Do you send a newsletter to your clients and prospects?  It could be an email newsletter or a print newsletter, but you SHOULD be sending one or the other, if not both.

Most businesses are unaware that their customer list is their most valuable asset.  Communicating with them on a very regular basis is key to you being at the forefront of their minds when they are ready to buy whatever product or service it is that you offer.  As mentioned in a previous blog called Mining for Gold,

You also need to communicate with your customers on a regular basis through email and print.  If you don’t have an email newsletter, you are losing out on the potential of building really lasting, long-term relationships with your customers.  Your communication to them is not a bother, if they don’t unsubscribe.  They may not react immediately because they are not ready to buy.  But when they are, because you communicate with them regularly, you are at the forefront of their mind when a particular need arises.  Some will respond better to print so you should also use direct mail as part of your mining process.  Continue to “mine” your list and communicate with them very regularly.

There are many options for you once you’ve made the decision to begin a newsletter. I’ve narrowed them down to three basic approaches:

1. Create your own email newsletter for next-to-nothing using your email software.
2. Use a service like Constant Contact, Vertical Response or MadMimi that has a minimal cost but gives you pre-made templates to use.
3. Delegate it or outsource it.

1. Create your own:

I don’t recommend creating your own unless you have the skills, talent and time to do it.  Believe me, it is not an easy task!  It may not end up looking like you want it to and you will be limited by your email service as to how many you can send out at one time.

2. Use an email service:

Using one of the sources mentioned above (or choose from a myriad of others) is a great way to get started.  It means you can take an existing template, customize it to your business in a few easy steps, add your interesting content (always the most time-consuming and difficult part, I say!), import your customer data and email out your newsletter.  Easy to follow instructions allow you to focus on the content that will most interest your customers.

3. Delegate or Outsource:

While this may cost a little more to get going and keep going, it allows you the freedom to continue doing what you do best -working on your business so you can make more money! Pay someone else to develop the newsletter format, find the content – interesting text, photos and video – prepare the customer database and get it emailed out on a regular basis.  Once the process has been started, you’ll be amazed at how smoothly it runs – you may only have to input a little article to personalize the newsletter – proof it, and give the OK to email it out on schedule.

Our recommendation for this type of service? Ewing Enterprises of course!  This is one of the services that we provide to our clients.  If you are ready to take the plunge and have someone do this for you – someone who LOVES to do this!! – take a look at what some of our clients have to say about our newsletters and service:

Kim Williams

With Jackie’s help & support we finally got around to sending out newsletters to our past guests.  I never seemed to find the time to do it myself but it’s has been fun working with Jackie as she does all the hard work!  Jackie’s encouragement to write my ‘piece’ each month has provoked a new interest!  And the past guests have been delighted to receive our communication – it’s like a continuation of the holiday time they spent with us.  Working with Jackie at Ewing Enterprises has made it all so easy.

Kim Williams, Clermont, Florida. VILLASFANTAZMIC

Jackie has proved to be totally reliable & trustworthy – she meets the deadlines set and is the sole of discretion.

David Leather

She has taken on the onerous task of categorizing our data base, which is at least 7 years old, and writing monthly newsletters which are both factual and easy to read.

David Leather, St. Cloud, Florida. HAYES VACATION HOMES

I learnt that Jackie Ewing does this as part of her consulting services and I asked her to explain to me how it worked.  She visited my

Joanne Kjolsen

office and the only effort was in the formation of the names database which was just a matter of data entry – not difficult at all by any standards and now I have a created list in the correct format to now receive monthly newsletters.However I had no idea about what to say/what to write/format etc, and once again, Jackie has this down to a fine art.  She comes up with the topical news snippets which are of interest to my client base both potential and existing and creates a newsletter for me and all I have to do is provide a couple of photos of things done during my month and a few words about one or two topics and she does the rest,.I proof read it before it goes out and voila!  I know my customers are reading it as I see them mention something in it during correspondence with me, it might be something that I did or something that was mentioned in the newsletter. Either way, it’s a very simple and informative way of keeping me in touch with my clients on a monthly basis without it appearing as a direct selling piece. It totally is, but they see it as a fun thing to read about the place they love, Orlando!

Joanne Kjolsen, Kissimmee, Florida.  BELLA VACATION HOMES

Are you speaking your customers’ language?

Posted by Jackie Ewing on August 13, 2009

Those of us that hail from the other side of the “pond” often wonder how it is that although Americans speak

English, we very often don’t understand what they are saying! I suppose the same could be said about Americans not understanding us Europeans either.

I’m from Ireland and I know my husband Jeff (who is American) has spent years deciphering what I am saying to mean entirely different things to what I am actually saying! We’ve had a lot of fun with our “misunderstandings” over the years.

In the vacation home rental industry, the one word that always causes pause is “villa”. To me, a villa is some grand structure with turrets, teeny windows and lots of airy rooms, overlooking a vineyard somewhere in France or Italy. To many others it is a Florida pool home. What does it mean to you? Or better yet, what does it mean to your clients?

When we are marketing our vacation rentals (or holiday villas as the case may be!) we have to remember that our clients may not understand our industry language and may be confused between the various terms that we use to describe our product. We need to find the language that helps us to connect with them.

Sidney Barrows in her book ‘Uncensored Sales Strategies‘ says;

“Customers need to hear or read words that resonate with them – words that make them feel you understand who they are, that you know what they need or want, and that lead them to believe you have or can do that which they are seeking.”

If you can connect with your customer at that level, it will be so much easier to make the sale. Knowing and using this language connection will help increase your conversions – turn phone call and email inquiries into reservations.

If we delve a little deeper into the specific words we use when dealing with our clients, we can identify some that will actually help us in that process of confirming the reservation or resolving an issue.

The following are also featured in Sidney Barrows’ book;

• Clients or people we serve, NOT customers
• Choose or take, NOT buy
• OK the paperwork, approve the (booking) form, NOT sign here
• More economical or better value, NOT cheaper
• Total amount or total investment, NOT total cost or total price
• Challenge or concern, NOT problem

Listen to what you or your staff are saying to your clients and how they are saying it; look at which words you are using in your brochures, sales letters, emails, web pages – it might be time to review and make some changes.

Think about how the words are perceived from your clients’ perspective, not yours.

Learn to speak the language that your clients’ best understand. It will result in better communication with them which builds relationships and ultimately will result in increased sales for your business.

Until next time,

Toodles, bye bye, see ya, ciao, later

Jackie