The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here.
N is for Nurture
As you grow your business, you will need to nurture the many client relationships that you develop. The best way to do this is to actually be interested in them. Faking this relationship is going to have an advese effect on your bottom line. Be consistent in your approach with them. They have developed a certain level of trust in you and your brand based on how you have behaved with them in the past. They like you for what you have to offer, so continue to offer them the same value.
No one will buy from your social media pages, they will buy because they have a connection to you. Spend some time connecting with the pain points of your clients to understand how you can make your own offerings to them better. However, you must also dedicate some time to getting to know them personally. Where are they in life right now? Can you identify with their situation because you have been in the same place before? When you come from a space of pure understanding, it's much easier for you to understand their expected outcome when they use your products or services.
Being nurturing does not mean that you start offering discounts and price cuts to make them feel happy. This is not a tactic that works long term. In fact you are setting a dangerous precedence for your clients, where they will demand more bargain prices from you. When you are unable to undercut others in the same market, you will lose these clients. Make sure that you keep your brand value high enough by demanding what your product and services are worth. Don't undervalue yourself, to sell more to clients.
Your nurturing practices have to be sustainable.
This means that you should be able to consistently repeat this nurturing behaviour without adversely affecting your sales and profit margins. What are some best practices to hold this nurturing behaviour with? Given in the exercise we are going to discuss a few practical ideas. Go ahead and customize it to your requirements.
The Exercise
What You Will Need: A calendar reminder for different events, email templates to use for individual clients and mass mailings,
When you first come in contact with them, get a way to get back in touch with them. They have a need which has brought them to you. It may not be clear what exactly the need is at first glance, but as you continue to interact with them, you will identify it. Having their contact information is vital to this process. It could be their phone number, or email.
This list here deals with emails, but you can customize it to work equally well for WhatsApp messages. Once you have their email id, send them a single mail requesting their permission to put them on your newsletter mailing list. This is best done during the initial interaction when you get their contact details. If they say no, please respect their wishes. If they agree, you now have carte blanche to send them emails.
What should your emails contain? Each mail should offer some value to your client, not everything should be about drastic promotions. Here are some ideas that you can use:
- Send out inspirational emails with positive and uplifting stories.
- Capture birthdays with a free giveaway on your website, and then send them personalized greetings, along with a gift coupon for the products on your website.
- Share educational video links or articles written by others, they should usually be related to your product and services field.
- Offer old clients loyalty incentives when they stay with the newsletter for three, six or nine months.
- Add incentives for established clients to try out new products or services by giving them exclusive discounts.
- Thank clients for referrals with a small token of appreciation. This can come out of your slow moving stock.
Keeping in touch with your clients is vital for your business to survive. If someone has bought from your before they will buy from you again. As long as the need still exists. You may also be able to tempt them into purchasing an upgrade, or parallel item in your inventory, if you truly understand what they need.
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