You’ve spent a lot of time and money capturing contact information about your clients, potential clients, web and email prospects, sphere of influence people, professional colleagues, industry professionals, talented craftspeople, association and organizational members, etc.
Hopefully, with all your effort and resources, you’ve captured more than just the basics. To use your database to personalize your communications and build relationships with your contacts, you need information that is personal…information such as the names and ages of children, pets, hobbies, destination and food favorites, birthdays, anniversaries, professional specialties, etc.
Think about it…who wouldn’t like their real estate agent to ask them about their family’s snowboarding sabbatical in Telluride? You want to build a communications strategy that goes well beyond when you think your client might need your services. You want a communications strategy that builds relationships.
Appreciating that the more information you have in your database, the more powerful your database can be, here are some ways you can use it…
- Use your database for gift giving…personalized, thoughtful, “treat yourself” gift giving such as tickets to a golf tournament if your client is a golfer or a gift voucher to a restaurant near where your client is moving or a package of yoga classes if your client is into yoga. Get beyond generic, “utility” gifts that could be for anyone. Be personal…be memorable.
- Use your database to leverage partnerships…approach local businesses and community organizations to discuss special deals or event discounts they might offer to clients in your database. Such “deals” or discounts could turn into win-win scenarios for both of you. Think of “all home” type businesses such as landscapers, cleaners, painters. Also think of referring your business owner clients (marketers, attorneys, lenders, interior designers) to your database clients. Again, this could be a win-win scenario for both of you.
- Hold exclusive, and/or non-traditional seminars/events for your database clients. Clients love “special invitation” events such as hiking/cycling local trails, women only events, thought leadership speakers, etc. Such events give you opportunities to build face-to face relationships with database clients and give your clients the feeling of being special and interacting with like-minded people who just happen to be your clients.
- Implement an annual check-in call with all your database clients. Call them on the anniversary of their last transaction with you, on their birthday, on the release of your latest sales report or market report that your client might have, on the holidays, etc.
- Create touch-point experiences with and for your database clients that set yourself apart. Invite your financial advisor to speak about real estate investment to your high net-worth clients, your young families to an organization’s picnic and gunny sack races, your musical clients to a performance of your chamber music group.
