A good friend and colleague of mine passed on a funny and/or disturbing story…depends on how you look at it.
Their firm had a relatively manageable mailing list, roughly 1,000 names or so. They’ve been mailing promotions, holiday cards, newsletters, etc. to this list for years. He said the list usually gets updated based on returned packages, with a few manual reviews every now and then.
As a “strategic” marketing move for the year (he was quite sure to point out that it felt a lot more tactical than strategic), the firm was combing through every name on the list to ensure they were accurate. Much to his surprise, on only his fifth name into the list he uncovered an out-of-date contact. No big deal, really.
However, he discovered that the contact had passed away…seven years ago. While this clearly pointed out that somebody hadn’t been taking care of the list very well, it more blatantly showed how out of touch the firm was with their prospects.
For most firms, last year was all about cutting expenses, yet still trying to bring business in the door – in any way possible. But how many prospects, leads or potential clients are already on our lists that we haven’t even bothered to make a personal connection with? These are people that are pre-qualified, know who we are, have received our mailings and have maybe even received a proposal from us before. Nothing says “we really want to work for you” like submitting one proposal and never calling again, right?
I’m not suggesting that regular follow up phone calls are the way to go for every lost contract, but it is important to stay in touch with the people that you really see as prospects. The moral of the story to me was, if they are a good fit for your firm, make an effort to keep in touch. If they aren’t a good fit, don’t put them on your list in the first place. It might save you seven years worth of wasted mailings.