Marketing Corner: Summertime is a Fabulous Time to Get Connected
Let's face it, with summer in full swing, focus on business can get a little slow with everyone headed to the beach instead of spending time thinking of their legal issues. Regardless, that's no excuse for your marketing plans to take a vacation on creativity! Don't stop your relationship building.
Here are a few tips for getting and staying in touch:
As you begin, be mindful to regard everyone who you know as a potential prospect or referral source. Be overly inclusive as opposed to exclusive.
1. Compile existing contacts. Enter all the business cards you've been stacking up from various sources and assign them to specific categories (prospect, professional contact, referral source, etc.).
2. Develop a system with your support staff. If you have support staff, develop a standard operating procedure of capturing all contacts with which you have a relationship. For example, when you return from a networking event, hand the cards off to your assistant to enter them into a contact database (Outlook Address Book will be ok) and be sure to assign them to a specific category/categories (referral source, college classmate, etc.). This is very important.
3. Time and inattention have a way of eroding your base of contacts. Creating an efficient system (such as the one described above) will avoid diminishing the time you have invested in building and maintaining a solid contact database. It truly is the cornerstone of solid client base.
Indeed, it is a necessity to keep a clean and precise record of contacts. And this need is greatly emphasized by the functions that a contact list is born for. What are these? A few are listed below:
* A map. Truly, a contact list is a guide. It brings you closer to those with whom you want to do business. It gives you the shortest route of reaching your prospects. With a simple telephone number and an email address, you can easily reach your point of destination in the absence of costs, long time and fatigue of going there yourself.
* Database. Business contact information is also one of the most important resources for businesses. Maintaining an actively-managed contact list (and even better, in a CRM) will provide ease and convenience to your business development initiatives.
* The only means of making communication happen. When you want to connect with prospective clients, you do it through communication, verbal or written. Through beautifully designed brochures and well-thought-of messages, the power of direct mail and even more powerful email marketing campaigns can be unveiled if reached to the right persons or companies. The same thing happens with other media where it is possible to communicate.
The foundation of any successful email marketing is a quality list. What makes a quality list?
A group of people who are interested, engaged and willing to both talk about and share your messages. We will discuss in future articles about the best practices for building and maintaining your lists through harnessing the power social networks, mobile technology, and word of mouth from your loyal readership. In the interim, be sure to include some joy and fun into every summer day!
Kimberly Alford Rice is Principal of KLA Marketing Associates, a business development advisory firm focusing on legal services. As a law marketing authority, Kimberly helps law firms and lawyers develop practical business development and marketing strategies which lead directly to new clients and increased revenues. Additionally, Kimberly provides career management services to lawyers in transition. She may be reached at 609-458-0415 or via email at kimberly@klamarketing.net.