Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

Announce Your News Early & Often!

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This year instead of writing original content – I’m going to try something new. Updating content I’ve written over the past 9 years that I think still holds up and/or could maybe use a revisit. First up – one of my very first blog posts from February 2012…

How falling off the radar and coming back with a BANG can fill up your sales pipeline in a day

 

As you know, I recently launched Yellow Dog Consulting. I’ve had the idea since early 2011 and started the company in May 2011 but didn’t announce it to the world until October. After sending out my first email announcement mentioning an upcoming event, I had 75 emails by the end of the day. I also had coffee appointments, drinks, lunches and more by the end of the week filling up my month(s).

If you have a monthly newsletter you’re forgetting to use, or even if you’ve been off the radar, who in your network hasn’t realized they miss you until you reach out to them?

Try it. Make the commitment to send out a newsletter or just an announcement, open coffee, dog park meet up,  15 minute phone consultation, whatever it might be, just “reach out and touch someone,” (but don’t make it weird, OK?)

What’s Changed in the Past 8 Years?

I stand by this blog post whole heartedly. Just yesterday I met with someone who recently started their own business. I told them this exact story. Then, my FIRST piece of advice was to announce what they are up to. Build your list of colleagues and send out “What am I up to Now?” newsletter. Share some services you’re offering, ask what events people are attending, share events you’re attending.

The goal of this announcement is to make sure people know you’re alive and kicking and open for business. And then keep it going. Send a monthly newsletter with updates, client wins, additional services that you are now offering because you realized it’s what people want and need. Starting a business is scary. Take the time to share your GREAT news with the world, I promise they will welcome you with open arms!

5 Ethical Ways to Add Current Clients to Your List

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5 ethical ways to add clients to your list Recently a client reached out asking for some help with adding their current client base into their newsletter. They wanted to ask them to subscribe instead of automatically adding them to the list, which I understand. In some industries this is the right way to handle it (thanks HIPPA!)

I checked in with Mailchimp on some logistics and confirmed that Mailchimp is OK with you automatically adding your clients to your list, which is great. BUT sometimes you still want to politely invite them to join your list – or as I often suggest, let them know that your feelings won’t be hurt if they unsubscribe because you automatically added them in.

Here’s 4 suggestions I made…

  1. Send an email to all clients from your email directly – not through Mailchimp. This means batching it into 100 emails at a time and BCCing them – unless your client management system will let you send emails through their system.
    • I’d keep the email simple – “We have a monthly newsletter we’d love to have you signup for to stay in touch and get updates and additional resources to supplement your work with us.”
  2. Create a basic landing page in Mailchimp for them to sign up with. You can even create a tag to properly tag them as clients when you build the page.
  3. In your initial forms when you have a new client, I would suggest you add in a “subscribe to our newsletter” checkbox and then you can add people in from there moving forward instead of having to send an email afterwards.
  4. Add a subscribe form to your email signatures – it could pitch an optin offer if you have one or just a “stay up to date” kind of blurb. Short and simple.

Here’s what we ended up doing…

We’re going to setup an automated email so whenever new clients are added into the account they will get a welcome email that thanks them for being a patient and letting them know they’re going to receive the monthly newsletter but they’re welcome to unsubscribe at any time if it’s not for them.

Welcoming your clients to your newsletter is a nice thing to do, especially if your newsletter is newer than your client list. Remember that Mailchimp is okay with you automatically adding in clients. Giving them a quick heads up is just good business etiquette!

You Have to Be On It

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You Have to be on ItI was talking with a client the other day about their ongoing marketing efforts. Thank you notes, holiday cards, phone calls on birthday’s – they are ON IT. As we were talking about what’s working and what needs to be kept up, they reminded me…

You Have to be on It

Always.

This is one of the hardest things I see for business owners. There’s so many different hats you wear as a business owner, and yes your marketing efforts are one of those hats. I often see people drop their marketing efforts when business gets busy. It’s the worst thing you could do. Why? Because it won’t always be busy and you’re going to need more clients – cultivate them when you have them so they’re ready when you’re ready.

Continue to have good marketing habits throughout the year. Go to your networking events, schedule that call or coffee meeting, even if you don’t think they’re ready to hire you. Send your newsletter, do your follow up, engage on social media. Run your business. Continue to blog (this one might just be a reminder for me…)

Having systems and schedules in place makes your life a whole lot easier. If you haven’t downloaded my free Monthly Marketing Calendar – I give you a good place to start and make sure that you’re considering all the marketing efforts out there and available to you. They’re usually FREE and with some setup it won’t take you much time. You’re busy running your business, keep doing it. And don’t forget to keep on it along the way.