7 Creative Ways to Thank Your Clients and Customers

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Thanksgiving is a time we all stop and reflect on the things we’re grateful for. More than likely, your clients or customers are somewhere on that list (if they’re not, they should be—they’re the reason you’re in business). But, do your customers know just how much you appreciate their business? According to a small business study, 68% of customers leave cease doing business with a company because they feel that company is indifferent to them. As we spend time this week thinking and celebrating what we’re thankful for, here are seven creative ways you can say “thank you” to the clients and customers who are keeping your company in business:

1. Create a Loyalty Program or “VIP Membership” for your best customers.

This is something Robbie Baxter unpacks in her book, Membership Economy. Your rewards program doesn’t have to be complex. It can be as simple as offering customers an annual discount on their anniversary.

2. Make a donation to a cause you know your customers care about.

Reach out to a select set of valued customers and let them know you’d like to make a contribution in their honor to their favorite charity.

3. Listen to the suggestions customers provide and actually implement them.

There is no better way to communicate with a customer than to show them you were listening. Your customers are a great source of areas you can improve as a business. Reach out to customers and tell them how you’ve implemented their suggestions.

4. Give your loyal customers a discount or special promotional price, just because.

Sending a note telling a customer you’ve taken $50 off their December bill as a way of showing appreciation for their loyal and continued service is a great way to keep their business in the future.

5. Send customers your favorite business book that you know they’ll enjoy.

This is a great idea for B2B companies. This gesture offers customers insight into your company culture and opens the lines of communication for future discussion about the ideas that you use to help shape your products, services, or strategies.

6. Help teach customers something valuable that’s related to your industry or area of expertise.

Two huge benefits come from thanking customers this way — customers trust you, and they have a greater appreciation for your products. It’s the ultimate win-win.

7. Refer people you know to your customers’ businesses.

B2B businesses should make every effort to say thanks by sending business to their customers. Look for opportunities to refer your customers to other clients or link them to your network.  I’d love to know what some other creative ways you’ve let customers know how thankful you are in the past! As always, don’t hesitate to contact Green Apple today if you need some marketing guidance or assistance to go the extra mile for your clients and customers. 

4 Ways to Measure Inbound Marketing Beyond Leads

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Measuring your results is important in every area of marketing. However, it can be difficult to know how to calculate the ROI of tactics such as inbound marketing when you’re used to managing traditional marketing campaigns.   The good news is that you can measure your effectiveness at any given point throughout the campaign or at its conclusion by tracking various metrics along the way. You also have the ability to monitor, measure, and manage almost every aspect of your campaign, including landing pages, emails, blog posts, social messages, keywords, pay-per-click advertising, and other sources that are contributing traffic to your campaign. Ultimately, the success of an inbound marketing campaign is based on the number of leads that were generated, but it’s good to know what metrics influence that final number. 4 Ways to Measure Inbound Marketing Beyond Leads When evaluating your inbound marketing campaign, here are just a few questions that should be asked to see how your promotion channels did overall in the campaign:
  • Which emails did the best at bringing people into the campaign? 

  • What blog topics led to the greatest number of conversions? 

  • How did PPC compare to Social? 

  • Overall, what channels are most effective in this campaign? 

Inbound campaigns are an impressive feat once you have all channels firing toward the same end goal. The trick is to keep your campaigns focused and powerful. At the conclusion of your campaign, you can measure your efforts and evaluate everything from your offer to your promotional channels. This will give you an opportunity to analyze and optimize your marketing efforts like never before. A Free Guide to Inbound Marketing If you want to learn more about inbound marketing and how it can help you increase your overall effectiveness for generating leads and closing deals, don’t miss our free resource How to Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing. It will walk you through everything you need to know from setting goals to measuring ROI and everything in between.

5 Ways to Equip Your Sales Team with Content Marketing

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A common frustration among content marketers is seeing their well-crafted content being ignored by sales reps. Depending on who you ask, the estimates for how much content goes unused by sales vary from 60% to 90%. So how do you get sales to get on board with content and leverage the content you’re producing? Many times, salespeople see the primary function of these pieces as lead generation tools. However, by encouraging your team to use them as tools for cultivating relationships with current clients and leads, you’re able to essentially kill two birds with one stone: generate new leads & equip your sales team with resources to help them succeed. 5 Ways to Equip Your Sales Team with Content Marketing Here are five ways your sales team can use the resources you generate from content marketing to cultivate relationships, shorten the sales cycle, and close more leads:
  1. Send the downloadable content to a decision maker who has stalled in the buying process. This is a legitimate opportunity to see if you can get things moving forward again.
  2. Blast the downloadable content to your existing clients to remind them that you are still there. Everyone likes to know that others are looking out for them.
  3. Print the downloadable content out in color and include that with seminar or workshop materials. Give them something of value that doesn’t ask them for a signature at the end.
  4. Include it as part of your follow-up to a conference call or onsite meeting when appropriate. Again, this is another way you can separate yourself from the competition and interact with the prospect in ways that benefits them and you.
  5. Use downloadable content to add credibility to your product or service. Independent research, case studies, and white papers remind the prospect of what you discussed and can be used to affirm your position. You’re also helping your internal champion “sell” you to all the people involved in the decision process.
Take Your Content Marketing & Biz Dev Efforts to the Next Level Content marketing does more than help you generate new leads — it can also drive the success of your sales team. If you invest in content marketing, be sure to develop a process for equipping your sales team with the resources you create and encouraging them to share the content. If you want to learn more about how to integrate your content marketing and business development efforts to maximize ROI in both areas, don’t miss our latest eBook Biz Dev’s Guide to Inbound Marketing.