How to Communicate Effectively with Your Customers

Customers are the lifeblood of your business, without them you don't have a business, so it really is essential that you keep in contact with both existing and new customers. There are lots of ways you can keep in touch with customers, from regular emails that feature offers to mailing lists and Christmas cards. Of course, not each of these communication methods will suit you or your business, so it is about finding what will work for your business and your budget.

But hold on, before you go any further, why not take a few minutes to work out how much money you have to spend on communicating with customers, and what you want to achieve for your money. For example do you want to increase sales from existing customers, do you want to inform all customers about a sale and so on. When working out the figures and a budget for your customer communication it is worth bearing in mind that it is more costly to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing ones. So, spending that bit extra now will save you a lot more in the long run.

Now that the financial costings are done, it's time to move on to the fun part which is deciding which medium you want to use to communicate with your customers. There are literally hundreds of platforms you can use including:

• 1. Creating and distributing your own e-newsletter
• 2. Creating a twitter page for your business and following your customers/they follow you too.
• 3. Having a Facebook account for your business so people can see what your business is up to.
• 4. Sending out email offers at regular intervals.

When it comes to deciding which platforms and mediums to use it is worth keeping your customer in the forefront of your mind. Ask yourself, what would they appreciate? Do they use twitter? And do they even check there email account. Once you have the answers to these questions it is time to get the ball rolling and put your plan into action.

Once your plan for communicating and contacting customers is in place it is worth monitoring at regular stages, for example every month, just to see what is working and what is not.

Finally, a top tip is to only implement one medium/platform at a time, this way you can see what is working, what is achieving results, and what perhaps is not.