6 Clever Ways To Nurture Leads With Your Handwritten Letters
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The founder of Campbell soup, Douglas Conant, was known for being personal and writing handwritten notes. In fact, at Campbell Soup, Doug wrote over 30,000 thank you letters to his employees. In his book, Touchpoints, he encourages people to create at least three touch points each day resulting in thousand’s of touch points a year. This is similar to nurturing your leads and customers with your drip marketing. But, how do you stand out from your competitors?
Below, I have listed 6 clever ways to nurture your customers and generate more leads with simple handwritten letters.
1. After purchase — going beyond a thank you card.
Most of us send a thank you email after our leads convert and make their purchase. Some of us also send handwritten notes along with the product. The best thing you can do is wait a couple days and drop them a handwritten “thank you and hope you are enjoying the product” note. In addition, give them social proof by telling them who else bought their product. If you have testimonials that can be made public, mention them in your thank you note to your customers. If possible, make sure the testimonials are from recognizable people or companies. If you are B2B company, insert testimonials that show how the product they purchased has helped your other customers who are similar to them. Reaffirm customers choice of purchase and the benefits in a nice thank you note.
Tip: For B2B companies, make sure these letters are coming from your sales associate, account manager or sales director.
2. Be part of their journey.
These days we are constantly trying to build communities around our products but first you need to be part of their communities, their everyday lives. The best way to do this is to be part of their journey. A good product always helps customers achieve their goals and add value to their journey. It could be that you are making their job easier, making them look better in front of their peers and boss or you are helping them by taking their minds off lame jobs and letting them focus on important things. Whatever your value, you obviously want to acknowledge their achievements. Anytime Fitness is a superb example of this. Each week they give one customer a kicking “but” card for an achievement. Achievements in their case can be anything from making it to the gym everyday to working out in their office clothes because they forgot to pack their workout clothes. Take note and send your customers a congratulatory note or an encouraging note for a step they take towards achieving their goals.
Tip: Use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to take note of their goals, progress and achievements.
3. Make happy customers happier.
The most misleading belief is: provide good customer service and the referrals will come in automatically, but that’s rarely true. Even the happiest customer needs a nudge because whether you like it or not their lives are busier than yours. So, if you have a lot of customers that are very happy with your product and service, send them a thank you note and ask them for referrals. If they have provided you with a testimonial, send them 3 cards with their testimonial on it and send an extended trial offer for their friends.
4. Impressing between trade-show and office.
We all go to trade-shows. We all collect business cards, take notes, put them in a CRM and then send them a follow up email. Just like hundred’s of other sales executives manning the booths do. Instead send them a handwritten letter on the same day so it is waiting for them at their office when they get back. If you are sending it to a speaker or someone you connected with on a deeper level, send them a picture via email and let me them know in your note that you have a picture waiting for them in their email inbox. Don’t forget to insert your business card.
Tip: Take a stack of note cards or thank you cards with you. Make sure your company’s address is already pre-printed on the envelopes. Alternatively use services like Maillift to have somebody else take care of all the writing, addressing and mailing for you.
5. Closing the referral loop.
If you are getting a lot of referrals from your customers, send them a thank you note and let them know how it worked out with their referral. If the referral said something nice about the referee, mention that in your thank you letter too. The point is to always close the loop with your customers. Always keep them updated. Make them feel part of your company and community. To take it a step further, send them a card on their birthday and other special occasions. Keep your focus on making your existing customers feel special in as many ways as possible.
6. Evangelize social advocates.
If you have a lot of one-on-one chats with people on your social channels, then find ways to make them your advocates. Connect with your most engaged twitter and facebook followers through email. Get their address and send them a special thank you note. Give them an extended free trial of your product or even the upgraded version of your product.
These are my best ideas for using handwritten notes as part of my sales and marketing toolset. What other clever ways have you used handwritten notes for sales and marketing?
P.S. If you send out over 10 handwritten notes/per month, find out how Maillift can scale and automate the process today.
This post was originally posted on Maillift
