Why keep in touch with your contacts and clients? Your prospective translation clients have your details, they didn’t take you up on your offer or express raptured delight at your marketing. They’ll contact you if they need you, they might have even said so.
Well they might. And they might not and it wouldn’t be any reflection on your marketing or the fantastic impression you made.
For starters:
- Your potential client could lose your details (easily done)
- Another translator could get in touch right when they need a translation
- A colleague could mention how machine translation or AI saved a friend so much money and time
- Your contact could leave the company and you’ll never know until you try and contact them
- They could be promoted and not pass on your details to their replacement
Both of those last two points have happened to me and others. One of my course students contacted a quiet direct client and discovered that her contact – who did most of the company translations – was leaving and they needed help. Purely because she made contact at the right time, her details were passed on to the marketing manager, then the CEO connected with her on LinkedIn.
During my first direct marketing campaign I rechecked one contact’s details and discovered she had moved departments. Her replacement was now in charge of translation so I needed to make a quick adjustment.
There are so many reasons why a person won’t stay in touch with you. As you can see, you might be forgotten for accidental reasons that are no reflection on you!
Translation = You
You want to be the person your contact remembers when they need translation or language services. And to ensure that happens, you need to keep in touch with them, not rely on their well-intended promise to keep in touch with you. If you want the business, you retain ‘control’ of the conversation.
How exactly?
It’s easier with clients because you know a little (a lot) more about them. Your existing clients are a good place to start if you’re considering how to stay top of mind between projects. You may already be doing some of the following suggestions:
- A card or postcard for Christmas, New Year or any other occasion throughout the year (you stand out more outside of the holidays and you can always find a reason to send a postcard).
- An email to advise of any upcoming holidays/availability.
- Commenting on your clients’ social media posts or sending an email referring to an article/topic they’ve mentioned.
- A gentle nudge to help them get their texts to you in good time if you’re ever involved in regular projects such as annual reports, sustainability reports, academic updates, regular newsletters etc.
- Do your clients have busy periods or attend conferences or trade shows? Besides helping with their pre-event preparation, you could send them a ‘reward’ for their hard work. Help them deal with the post-event slump and remind them you’re here for support.
The FBI has nothing on us
Dan Kennedy, commonly referred to as the godfather of direct response marketing, used to keep a physical file for each of his contacts/clients. Whenever he came up with an idea for them or saw something related to that person, he’d add it to the file. Every so often he’d bundle up these useful snippets with a couple of notes and send this package by post.
You could keep similar files on your contacts although you might find that you naturally absorb details over time.
I once chatted to a chemical sales consultant about the book Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris so I know I could talk to him about an interesting podcast episode of the Tim Ferris Show. From his social media feed I know he’s into running and he travels a lot for events.
I’ve not noted this information down formally, although you could. In this instance, that information has been absorbed accidentally over time, through conversations, attending similar events, being connected on LinkedIn and Instagram. Another reason for creating content – it builds relationships and connections without you realising it. Hopefully it also shows that you don’t always have to talk about business or translation.
Expanding your horizons
If you’re thinking “but my clients are happy and send me regular work, it’s my prospects I need to keep in touch with” – we’re getting to that. However, in the spirit of making your life easier as well as turning your clients from happy to raving superfans: What could you create/make available to both potential and existing clients?
Keeping records for each client and contact takes time so I’d love you to create something once that can be used again and again. This makes your marketing easier and easier over time because you have everything you need already in your toolkit!
Create once, send to many
This is the same principle as adding articles and other content to your website. Keeping in touch with prospects is another form or extension of content marketing. You can condense articles from your blog, compile a selection of useful tips, answer common client questions. All of these can be published as a separate resource ready to send out to clients or made available for them to request or download from your website.
What comes first, the content or the format?
Actually, there’s one step before that. Consider your objective and also decide what you want to commit to. Could you create regular content or a one-off resource every now and then?
Regular content
I like receiving newsletters and enjoy writing, so a client-focused newsletter was a good fit with my direct marketing strategy. It gives me a reason to keep in touch without blatantly selling. Several people from my marketing campaigns receive my newsletter and respond positively despite us not working together yet. In more than one case, people have moved company and asked to update their details so they can still receive it. And one of these became a client (details in this blog “5 ways to find direct clients that I’ve used in my translation business“).
Creating regular content in this format gives me a) an incentive (and regular deadline) to get those articles written and b) an outlet to publish shorter tips rather than long articles all the time. I can send this to my current, past and potential clients and adapt the content as I choose. It’s pretty flexible and can include offers, updates and ad hoc extras.
A newsletter like this may not appeal to you but how about a one-page version or email?
Regular doesn’t have to mean monthly. Commit to a frequency you can maintain even if it’s once every 3-4 months. If you pick a long interval like quarterly, make sure you keep in touch in other ways in between times. A lot can change in 3 months.
One-off resources
If you don’t want to commit to a newsletter or similar, you could create a booklet, guide, or glossary, for example. A resource that is specific to your target audience, and will help them in some way.
When some of my potential clients told me they handled translation in-house, I created a short booklet with hints and tips to help them. They tell me it’s useful, containing common mistakes I see German speakers like my clients make when writing in English. It also highlights reasons why they might work with me as well as a call to action at the end – always suggest the next step.
You can add these resources to your website, share as a digital resource, get them printed and sent out. They position you as an expert and offer a little something extra, including a nice bonus for your current clients. And once you get started, they’re very quick to create because you’ll have been researching these topics as part of your daily work.
How will you keep in touch?
What will you create for your clients and marketing prospects?
Your potential clients will contact you for translation or editing work when they are ready – assuming you have reminded them regularly that you are there for them and occasionally let them know what you have to offer. By providing valuable resources, asking your contact to take action at the end won’t sound salesy. It’s a natural, expected and obvious next step if the reader wants more.
The trick is to communicate with your contacts regularly, whichever method you use to keep in touch. This form of marketing and follow-up puts you in control of the conversation. It also means you can educate potential clients on subjects in a light-hearted way and turn them into the perfect client. I attribute a fair few sales to my newsletter and it definitely nudges current clients to see what upcoming projects they have. I can’t wait to see what you create!
Do you want to create a newsletter?
If you love the idea of creating a newsletter to keep in touch, Publish your newsletter will take you from blank page to a marketing asset for your business. From identifying your readers to inspiration for content and how to use it to generate enquiries, you’ll find everything you need inside. Publish your newsletter is available as a standalone training or included as part of the membership when you join The Expedition Group.
You’ll never be stuck for ideas with inspiration about how you can contact people individually, client-focused resources you can create, ways to repurpose the hard work you’ve already invested in your marketing, and finally have an easy way to keep in touch with past, present and future clients.
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