How Do You Make Contact?

Making contact with your prospects and customers on a regular basis is critical for ensuring the long-term success of your business. You should follow up or make contact with a prospect 9 – 12 times before they’ll buy from you. Unfortunately, most people give up after the first one or two times! And the more you stay in front of current customers, the more likely you’ll be top of mind when they need to make an additional purchase.  The goal of follow up is to create conversations. Conversations lead to relationships, and relationships lead to more business and referrals.

Here are some creative prospect and customer follow up ideas:

Send a card.   A personalized card is a great way to stay in touch because it’s unexpected, especially in our technological world. Send a card for a birthday, an anniversary, a holiday, or just to say hello. You can even send a card with an upcoming promotion or a coupon for a future purchase. 

Send them an article of interest.   If you take the time to get to know your prospects and customers, you should know a little about their likes and interests. If you come across an article, blog, or video online you think they might be interested in, pass it along. They’ll know you were thinking about them and appreciate the gesture.

Add them as a friend on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.  You can import your contact list into any of these sites and automatically search for your prospects and customers. If they have a profile, add them as a friend and write a personal note to accompany your request. This allows you to follow up with them on a much more frequent and personal basis—great for relationship building.

Invite them to an event.  Are you hosting or attending an upcoming local or virtual event?  If so, invite them to join you.

Introduce them to one of your contacts.  Be a master networker and make some connections.  Send an email out to both of them and make a brief introduction. Be sure to follow up at a later date with each person individually to see if they ever connected.

These are just a few creative ideas for follow up.  Be sure you schedule follow up time on your calendar. Consistency is key and those business owners who follow up on a regular basis will reap the rewards in repeat business and referrals!

PAMPER YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMERS IN 2013!

One of the very first statistics business owners learn is this:  80% of your profits come from the 
top 20% of your customers.  Yet so many small business owners spend all their time focusing on attracting and converting new leads that efforts directed at existing customers completely fall off the radar.

Consistent communication with customers is essential--and this shouldn't end once a first sales is made.  Customers who had a positive experience with your company are more likely to think of you the next time they need a similar product or service.  Continue to develop relationships through nurturing what customers care about and letting them know about complementary products and services they might enjoy.

The best way to accomplish this is to create automated follow-up campaigns based on a scheduled sequence that continues to communicate with customers in the form of direct mail, email and other methods.  You could target this comunication to feature new products, services or promotions based on your customers' previous buying history, ensuring you're always delivering something of value.

I use an automated greeting card system called SendOutCards.  Through scheduled campaigns I send thank yous and other notes of encouragement to information about new products I offer.  Everything is done online, so I never have to leave my computer for efficiency and expediency.  When I want to
make it even more personal, I add photos and customized messages.  Regardless of the system you choose, the key to increased profits is in pampering of your customers by keeping in touch!

PINTEREST: A New Way to Market Your Arts

Pinterest can be an easy and very fun way for artists to market and promote their art to a growing audience of interested people.  It's a new social media platform that is visual in nature and content for all its participants.  

Think of Pinterest as your very own personal marketing bulletin board, open to the public where anything that you pin shows in a stream (much like a Facebook, Twitter or a Google+). People who like what you have pinned can take it and re-pin that image or post on their own board. As you post your pins or collect and post re-pins from other people, these pins can be put into separate boards for better classification, administration and better collective viewing.

The boards you create on Pinterest are related to your art and help to create interest in your other pins, posts and images. Pinterest is a community of people, who through the sharing of images that they like and find interesting, make it very easy to re-pin and share those images to others. The better the image, the more looks, likes and re-pins that the image will produce. The more that you are active on the site, the more you will get back from this platform, in terms of exposure.

Pinterest is already proving that it can drive a lot of traffic to an owner’s website.  Artists find that Pinterest is the perfect vehicle to post and showcase their art. The Pinterest platform makes it is very easy to accomplish this from the artist’s own website.  Pinterest  provides each member a “bookmarklet” for your browser and this bookmarklet takes you to your Pinterest page where an image can be posted to any of the topic boards that you have created. It will also allow you to provide a small description of what you are pinning, in order to help people understand what it is that you have pinned.  These descriptions of pins also help when people do a search on a subject.

Make sure that you not only stay active on the site, but also share, re-pin, like and comment on other’s images too. When you start out on Pinterest, do not post all of your art all at once as you will then lose the impact and the ability to attract more people to follow you. By spreading the posting of your art, you will be placing and presenting your art to different people, at different times, who in turn will re-pin and share that art to others as well.

NOTE:  Recently, copyright issues have been raised concerning the posting of other artist’s work.  This is the link to their terms of service for account users http://pinterest.com/about/terms.  When posting or pinning art other than your own, remember to always credit the artist and to have a link to their website.

Gratitude is an Attitude!

Sincere gratitude takes energy and thought and having an

attitude of gratitude 

requires the conscious effort of being thankful.

When someone expresses thankfulness, it not only impacts the receiver, but the one giving thanks often benefits as much or more. Recognizing the blessings in your life and acting upon them regularly increases your awareness and appreciation. Sharing your gratitude improves your quality of life because it can only result in positive emotions. Learning to appreciate what you have also makes life more rewarding and meaningful.

Will you join me every day for 30 days in JULY for a Gratitude Challenge?  

Yes, it takes time, effort and a little money but the outcome will be life-changing: 

GUARANTEED!  

For details, visit www.socgratitude.com/jerilyn and sign up today.  

You won't regret it, I promise! 

 Jerilyn 

Thank Your Top Ten and WIN!

Relationship marketing is all about building long-term relationships with customers, prospective customers and business associates.  Sending business thank you notes really makes a lasting impression and can help increase your bottom line if and when you get it right!

You can drive repeat business by simply using thank you notes and take your business to a whole new level!  It's all about going the extra mile ... and it works because people want to continue doing business with people who make this extra effort.

Yet many entrepreneurs, small business owners and sales professionals fail to grasp the simple fact that they need to show their customers how grateful they are for their business (without turning every letter or email into a product push). A thank you card after a referral or a sale helps to make customers feel valued and appreciated.

I have a simple program that allows me to recognize 10 people every month for anything from showing appreciation for business, to having a birthday or special occasion, to sympathy for lost ones, and the list goes on.  I know that if I can think of 10 people, it has been a good month and I have every right to be thankful!

if we are to achieve our goals in this competitive world, we cannot underestimate the power saying thank you in business. Become a card sender today and not only will your attitude change about your business, it will change your outlook on life as well!  And that's a good thing.....

"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

William James

M is for Mother (she's the artist in us all)!

With Mother’s Day around the corner, it is fitting to blog about this timely topic!  What does it have to do with art?  You’ll see. 

Ancient cultures are said to be the discoverers of the tradition of honoring our mothers. The first Mother's Day ceremony was a church service in 1908 requested by Anna Jarvis, of Philadelphia, to honor her deceased mother. Jarvis, at an early age, had heard her mother express hope that a day to honor all mothers would be established. So, in 1914, Congress passed legislation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

Mother's Day to this day is a celebration of not only the involvement that a mother makes within her family by nurturing her children but also the contribution she makes to society.  Mothers take us under her protection from the day we are born. She feeds us, cares for us when we are sick, looks after our growth and teaches us to walk, play and CREATE! 

Think of the countless hours (and resources) mother’s spend encouraging and motivating the artistic abilities of her children!  Mothers are the original inspiration we all have to become artists, singers, musicians, writers, dancers…and the list goes on and on! 

What do you remember about your mother?  Did she sing to you, draw and color with you, help you write your assignments in school?  Did she drive you to art or music lessons, encourage you to practice, take you on trips to see and experience new and exciting things?    

A mother deserves much more than a single Mother's Day.   No thank you can ever repay mother's debt, but at least we will make her happy by recognizing her on Mother's Day.  Even if your mother is deceased, you are estranged or thinking of her brings you pain, you can still take time to give her the moment she deserves.  Whatever method you choose to remember her, the best gift you give her this Mother's Day is the feeling that you thought of her and made an effort to make her feel really special in its own way.  She brought you into this world and most likely sacrificed in more ways than we will ever know to mold us into the artists we are today! 

THANK YOU MOTHER!  I am who I am in part because of the woman you were and the portion of your life you gave to me!

WELCOME TO MY BLOG!

Welcome friends!  I am excited to welcome you to my blog!

MARKET YOUR ARTS! is for anyone in the creative arts world desiring a new and different approach to getting the word out about artwork, photography, music, books, talent, theatre, and the creative list goes on.....

Thank you in advance for following my posts.  

I look forward to learning more about your "ARTS" 

and how I can help you grow your business! 

Until next time,

Jerilyn McDonald