One of the most successful marketing campaigns I’ve been involved with was sending personal thank-you notes to over 1400 customers. The notes simply said, “Thank you for your business.” They were hand written by an executive management team, fifty at a time. The benefits were twofold. First, the customers were blown away. Many said that they had never received anything like it from a vendor. The rewards for renewal of business were in the millions of dollars. But there was a more subtle reward. The management team got more vested with the customers. Their personal signatures made them feel more responsibility for customer satisfaction and loyalty. They began to think about their customers differently, appreciate and pay attention to their needs.
Thanking customers and clients for their business is “Marketing and Sales 101.” But it’s rare when we do it with sincerity. Many companies send year-end holiday cards, but I sometimes get the same reaction from this that I get when my bank sends me and email on my birthday. Sometimes it’s better to send nothing.
One business I know sends Thanksgiving Day cards. No one expects them, and they don’t get lost in the shuffle of the end of the year holidays. So they stand out a little more and are appreciated. There are a hundred ways to say thank you. So what’s stopping us?
So thanks. Thanks for reading this. Thanks for the encouragement, and thank you if you’ve passed this blog on to others.
PS: And right up there with thanking your customers is… thanking your employees.
PPS: Marketing, please thank your sales team.
PPPS: Image Attribution
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