Are you guilty of the same marketing mistake that most businesses commit?

Do you believe that marketing is mostly about finding new customers?

The truth is, the best customers for your business are the ones that have already brought a cake from you.

So ask yourself, when you are planning your marketing budget and are looking at the costs of stands at wedding fares, yellow pages ads, or online ads, how much of your budget are you putting into marketing to existing customers?

If you want to get the most out of your marketing budget (which of course you should) you should be directing atleast 50% of your marketing effort (time and money) at your existing customers.

3 reasons why existing customers are your best marketing tool

1. Existing customers are the most likely to become raving fans – that’s the type of customer that would seize every available opportunity to tell people how fabulous your cakes are.
2. Existing customers already know how great your cakes look and taste and they understand their true value. They may not place another order this year, but they will be back.
3. If you believe that a large number of your orders come from word-of-mouth, then who do you think spreads the word? Yep, those lovely existing customers.

So what’s the best marketing for existing customers? Here’s a few of my suggestions:

Monthly email newsletter

The cakes you produce frequently play an important role in your customers celebrations. Chances are you got the opportunity to make their cake because they became interested in you and your business.

That interest doesn’t stop right after the last slice has been eaten. So let your customers know what’s happening with your business. Let them share in your successes.

With a monthly email newsletter you can easily keep them up-to-date with interesting cakes you’ve made, competitions you’ve entered, press coverage you’ve gained, etc…

If you have a list of customers name and email address you can use a mail marketing service like MailChimp, which will allow you to email up-to 1,000 people once a week, for free. To send an email to a group of more than 20 people in one go you need to use a service like MailChimp, otherwise your email will go straight to spam.

If you are really clever (or lazy!) you can even automate this process if you have a website that produces an RSS feed. But more about that in another post.

A personal email on their birthday or wedding anniversary.

Email marketing works best when you know something specific about the person you are emailing. Because you created a cake for their wedding / birthday / retirement you know something specific about that person.

So why not email them on the anniversary of that occasion? After all, your cake was part of that day. Let them know you are celebrating with them. Perhaps email them a photo that you took of their cake being created, a photo that they might not have already seen before.

Think this might become too time consuming? You can set up a Canned Response (more about this in a future post) to use as the template of your email. Just change the name of the recipient, a few points in the message and hey-presto, a personalised message is on it’s way.

Text message on their birthday or wedding anniversary.

This is definitely my favourite of the 3 ideas.

Now, let’s make one thing clear. I’m not suggesting you text everyone of your customers, but the ones that mean the most to your business. You must know who they are. They are the ones that spent a small fortune, but still told you you hadn’t charged enough. The ones whose friend just placed an huge order. These are the customers you should be texting.

Texting is infinitely more personal than an email and is considerably more likely to be read.

A simple congratulations is all that’s needed. It’s enough to tell them that you feel part of their special day and remind them that you exist.

Be careful that under no circumstance you try and sell them another cake. You are privileged to have their mobile number, you most not abuse that.

Better than Facebook

I hope you realise that staying in touch with your customers goes way beyond encouraging them to follow you on Facebook. That method obviously has value, but by taking a more personal approach you will build a much tighter connection with your existing customers, which will ultimately lead to more business.

Photo credit: Mike Brice Photography / Gruntzooki

About the author: Rob Watson works for an Internet marketing agency in Northampton, UK. He’s been friends with Laura for about 10 years and loves her cakes – especially the one she made for his birthday.