If you don’t take care of your advertisers your competitors will! It takes about fives times the money and energy to win a new client. What have you done recently to show your advertisers you care?
So what can you do to show your advertisers some love and keep them in a long-term relationship?
Here’s 6 ways to spread the ad-sales love this Valentine’s Day:
- Hand-written notes. The art of the personal, hand-written thank you note has neared extinction. Join me in reviving this age-old sales retention activity. Buy some nice thank you cards and grab a nice pen and get to work. I like to send along a $5 Starbucks card with my thank you notes too. Is your handwriting poor? Check out Bond.co. They will write your thank you notes for you for $7 each.
- Send some lovely small edible gifts. I use 1-800-flowers.com to send small tokens of appreciation like popcorn or cookies. A little secret is to buy the free all-year shipping pass. This means all of your shipping is covered for the year at one flat rate. There are many non-floral gifts for under $20.
- Send non-sales emails of appreciation. On a monthly basis, I find a great motivational article or Youtube video to share with my clients. I find many on Inc.com under their motivation section. I write a simple email and send them the link. I do NOT mention sales at all. “Hi Bob. I came across this great article and thought I would share it with you. – link – . Have a great day. – Ryan”
- Introduce your clients to experts that they’ll love. Set-up partner experts for your clients in areas that will benefit their business. For example, find a cyber security expert or an SEO expert and work out a deal with these pros where the first consultation is free for your clients. Or, you pay for it.
- Create online educational love-fests. (Or, you can call them “webinars” or “podcasts” or “videos” if you want.) Educational webinars/podcasts/videos are a great way to show your clients some love. For example, arrange for an expert to talk in a webinar about topics that are important to the industry or community that you serve. This is an invitation only type of online event. Those invited can ask questions as well. Don’t worry about large numbers of attendees. Keep it intimate and action oriented. Do not over think this retention activity.
- Have the boss make a call. Arrange to have your boss or a member of top brass simply call the client. Even if you get a voicemail the impact is awesome. Clients love to hear that the boss cares about them enough to call them. If you make this a monthly activity, the time commitment is fairly minimal yet the impact is monumental. Keep in mind, you will get voice mail 90% of the time.
Many of you will wait for the end-of-year holidays to show your love. By the time you wait for that Christmas holiday to say I love you, your competitor has asked them for a date 11 times. The odds of success are in their favor. Show your advertisers some love today!
P.S. Loving your advertisers and having an active retention plan in place is mission critical to your long-term success in the sales business. Those that master the retention game survive a VERY long time in the sales game.
XO Ryan
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Ryan Dohrn is an internationally certified ad sales coach and media sales trainer with a focus on the media industry. You can find out more about his training and coaching programs online at http://360AdSales.com.
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