It is a simple truth…and it has been the tag line for Catch Fire Marketing for years. Simply staying in touch, showing an interest…is all many businesses need to do to retain a higher percentage of customers.

Think about how many times you, as a consumer, have reinvented your purchasing decision because you can’t remember the…plumber, carpet cleaner, repair company, printer…you used last time. What that means is that those businesses did not do a good job staying in touch leaving you know choice but to re-invent your buying decision…and it probably means that you did business with a competitor of the company you first used.

Let that sink in a minute because it is really crazy. It is pretty commonly known that the cost to acquire a new customer is multiples of what it takes to get a repeat order from an existing customer. Yet many businesses let there “gold”, a current customer, get away from them because they don’t have a system in place to stay in touch with the people who know them and like them. Is your business guilty of this?

How much contact should you have? That is no set answer for that question…it is going to vary by many factors including things like frequency of purchase, sales “ticket” size or size of the sale, level of competition among other factors.

For instance in real estate, where the commission amount is thousands of dollars and the transaction frequency is currently averaging about 6-9 years between purchases many experts are suggesting a frequency of contact over 30 times per year! Think about it, that makes sense…yes that is a big investment of time and money, but if I miss a transaction not only am I missing out on likely $5,000+ but I have to wait another 6-9 years for the next chance to earn your business. On the other hand, say you are a printer selling business cards where the average sale price is say $70. You couldn’t justify spending the time or money having 30 contacts annually on such a small sale, plus the likelihood that the purchase of cards will happen annually or more frequently.

Everyone in business needs to determine what their optimal rate of contact is and then build their marketing plan around that.

Next post we’ll talk about ways to stay in touch.