Follow up, as we said last time, is a critical component of your marketing system. You need to stay in touch with your contacts. The tricky part is making sure your follow up doesn't cross over into pestering. This is where creative follow up comes in.
Last time we gave you some follow up tips, here are some more to help you kick start your follow up strategy:
Ask your contacts to get together with you over breakfast, lunch, dinner, golf etc... to catch up or explore potential business energies.
When you are running a special promotion, send your prospects a follow up letter extending the offer to them personally.
Pass along a newspaper or magazine clipping or URL that you think could be of interest to your prospects.
Periodically send along some educational tips or FAQs as a creative follow up.
Send along a case study. This type of follow up showcases how you are helping other businesses like theirs.
When something new and interesting happens, use the opportunity to send a follow up letter. Examples include when you win a major account, win an award, move to a new location, launch a new product, or provide a new service guarantee.
An excellent type of follow up, and one that will help hold you in high regard, is to send a warning letter about a virus outbreak, a hoax, or some other IT security issues.
Bottom Line on Follow-Up
Follow up is used as a reason to stay in touch. You want your name to remain in your leads' minds. To do this effectively you need to come up with innovative excuses to follow up. Don't use your follow up to make a hard sell - that's not the point. You want to be perceived as a friendly, neighborhood computer business whose follow up is helpful, interesting, and engaging. We have given you a number of creative follow up ideas, now it's your turn to get out and try some of them.
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