Build Relationships to Develop Loyal Clients

The key to word-of-mouth referrals is to build relationships that develop loyal clients. When your clients trust you and know your customer service exceeds their expectations, they will go out of their way to promote you and your services to others.

So how can you build relationships that develop loyal clients? You begin by giving your prospects something of value. Provide a free report and valuable information in a newsletter. Your newsletter should not just be an ongoing pitch of your services. Provide something of value - tips, advice, and resources they can use in their business. This helps build trust in your expertise.

Once a prospect becomes your client, continue providing valuable information. Let your clients know of any specials or events that may interest them. Connect with them on Facebook and comment on what they are doing.

What do you do to build relationships and develop loyal clients?

Take 5...Minutes to Connect With Your Target Market

It's easy to feel overwhelmed with all the various ways to market on the Internet. Because we are so busy, we may feel there's not enough time to make real meaningful connections with our target market using social media.

Why not just Take 5? Take five minutes a day and do one of the following five things to connect with your target market.

1. Direct message (DM) a contact on Twitter. Perhaps you noticed they just posted a new blog entry you enjoyed reading. Let them know with a DM.

2. Send a message to a connection on Facebook. Did one of your clients just announce a new service or product? Send them a message and congratulate them!

3. Comment on a blog post. You should be following blogs relevant to your industry. Take 5 minutes to make a meaningful comment on a blog entry and add value to the conversation.

4. Write a short blog post. Take 5 minutes to write a short blog post with the top 5 tips on how to... Not every entry you post needs to be a novella.

5. Send an email. Have you recently met someone at a networking event that you would like to follow up with? Send a brief email asking when would be a good time to chat for 10-15 minutes by phone to learn more about their business.

You know you should market your business every single day. On those days when you just feel too busy and overwhelmed to do that, keep this list handy and remember, Take 5...

What can you do in 5 minutes to connect with your target market?

10 Tools to Promote Your Online Event

Creating a teleclass, teleseminar and webinars online can be very effective ways to build your list and educate prospects and clients.

Once you've created your online event, how do you promote it? Here are 10 tools you can use.

1. EventBrite.com - Here you can set up an account at no charge. EventBrite provides ways to post the event on your website, send out invitations to your contacts, and follow up with reminders to those who registered.

2. Facebook - You can create an Event and invite all your friends. You can also send reminders, post links, photos and videos, and others can post comments.

3. LinkedIn- You can also post events here and invite contacts.

4. Twitter- Use Twitter to post a brief sentence about what your contacts will learn with a link to your sign up page.

5. Blog - Post a blog entry about your event, focusing on what your prospects and clients will learn.

6. Website - Post the event on your website. If you've used EventBrite, you can post a 'Register Now' button that you created at EventBrite.

7. SeminarAnnouncer.com - This is another free tool you can use to post your events.

8. CCULearning.comm - Conference Call University is one more free place to post your event.

9. EventSetter.com - Post your virtual events here at no charge.

10. Local Online Newspaper - Your local paper may have an online version where you can post events at no charge.

These are all free and easy to use. Your virtual assistant could post to all 10 of these free sites within two hours. Where will you post your next online event?

Twitter Tip #6 of 6

Tip #6

Watch the Direct Messages you receive and any @ messages. Try to connect with these people and start building relationships.

Use Twitter as a starting point to connect with prospects and then graduate the connection to Facebook or email. Focus on providing value and benefit to your prospects so they will want to connect with you.

Twitter Tip #5 of 6

Tip #5

If you have a Facebook account, make sure your Twitter posts automatically feed to it and widen your exposure even more.

Basic Do and Don't of Facebook

Facebook can be a great tool for networking and marketing yourself. Here are a few simple things to do and not do.

Do:
1. Complete an accurate profile, including a professional looking photo.
2. Be polite.
3. Be authentic.
4. Share quality content.

Don’t:
1. Share anything you wouldn’t want your future client, partner or employer to see.
2. Send out meaningless messages to people you don't know.
3. Do anything you wouldn’t do in real life.
4. Never break the rules of etiquette.

Using Facebook to Market Yourself

Using Facebook to market your business is becoming more popular. It's not just for your kids any more. Here are some statistics regarding Facebook from Hubspot:

• Over 120 million active users
• Adding 250,000 new users each day since Jan 07
• 4th most trafficked website
• Most trafficked social media site
• Top Social Search Engine
• More than 55,000 networks
• More than half are outside of college & the fastest growing demographic is 25 years or older

Learn more about how you can use Facebook at Hubspot.com.