How to Market to Your Existing Clients

If you’re only marketing to your prospects, and not your customers, you’re leaving money on the table. Successful B2B companies secure referrals and more business from their current clients while still prospecting for new ones. However, to do this effectively , you must communicate with these two groups in different ways. Here are five tips for marketing to existing clients. 

Treat Each Client Individually

Customers want to feel appreciated. To make them feel valued, rather than grouping them, treat each client individually. The chief marketing officer of Denver-based marketing agency Paige Black, Marilyn Heywood Paige, echoed these sentiments and explained ways you can achieve this.
“Personally call your customers on the phone and talk with them,” Paige said. “Ask them if there is anything you can do to help them, and then be quiet and listen. Also, provide loyalty offers to your repeat buyers. Expressing sincere gratitude goes a long way and should never be underestimated.” 
Paige Black’s CEO, Mike Black, suggested another option to consider.
“A great way to make your clients feel appreciated is by hosting customer-only events,” Black said. “This can be done either online or in person. This may seem like a small gesture, but it’s not.” 

Exceed Expectations

Rather than simply meeting your clients’ expectations, exceed them by providing elite customer service. This will help ensure that they realize how much you treasure your partnership. You can do this by proposing ideas or recommending specific products or services that can help them achieve their business goals and objectives.  “An effective way to exceed your clients’ expectations is by providing educational material that can help them meet their business goals,” Black said. “While doing this, explain how additional services that you offer can help them.”  Ultimately, such gestures can transform your clients into your foremost advocates. Conversely, some of your customers may have a negative experience with your brand. If faced with such a predicament, use top-flight customer service to proactively respond to their concerns and reshape a negative experience into a positive one. 

Stay Active on Social Media

Social media is an exceptionally effective, and efficient, way to market to your existing client base. Interactive technologies can distinguish your company’s brand from competitors and allow you to maintain a solid online presence.  “Write blogs on all the different services or products you provide and then send customers links to the blogs via email and social media,” Paige said. “Also, be sure to tag current clients in your social media posts with subjects that pertain to them. Lastly, create custom landing pages for your biggest clients so that when they arrive on your website, they see a custom landing page that has language pertinent to them.”

Send Surveys to Your Customers

Periodically send surveys to your customers to receive feedback regarding what products and services they enjoy, and which ones they dislike or believe could be improved. Subsequently, send them a newsletter that answers their questions and details how you plan to rectify any concerns or issues that were raised. When clients recognize that their input matters, you can boost customer loyalty and retention. Moreover, this can help you grasp what your clients want, which can create a blueprint to elevate or expand your offerings. As Paige said, “Rather than telling clients how great you are, show them by proactively asking them questions and providing them with answers.”

Secure Face-to-Face Meetings

Video-based conference calls have become commonplace since the emergence of COVID-19. Fortunately, we seem to be on the cusp of returning to normal life and, therefore, now is the time to start scheduling face-to-face meetings with your clients. Direct communication, such as treating your client to lunch, is more personal and it can help you earn trust and strengthen bonds. Furthermore, face-to-face meetings are a great way to avoid miscommunication. 
"I like to get to know my clients, what their businesses are all about," Peelu Shivaraju, the owner and operator of a Money Mailer franchise in Michigan, told Business News Daily. "I do a lot of research about their business and ask them lots of questions to genuinely show interest. I want to learn everything I possibly can so that I know how best to help their business."

Cost of Marketing to New Versus Existing Customers

According to Forbes, it costs five times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. After putting this statistic in perspective, perhaps you’ll consider putting five times more effort into actively wooing your current clients. By deepening your current connections, you’ll turn the tables to your advantage.