Not marketing to current clients

If you take the time to look over your project roster for a decent period of time, you’ll likely see the 80/20 Rule in action. The 80/20 Rule is one of those weird things that keeps showing up in things. It means that if you’re like most service businesses, 80% of your work comes from 20% of your clients. These folks can be prime pickings. They know you. They like you, or they wouldn’t have sent you all that work.

But, they may not know all the services you offer. Clients like to pigeonhole designers – “Oh, she’s a catalog designer.” “He’s a web guy.” “That firm does annual reports.” Pigeonholing isn’t a bad thing. It helps to focus our marketing and our niche. But, you probably are capable of doing more for your clients than they may think. You need to tell them.

Another side to this is that if you work for a larger client, they often have other departments and/or divisions where you can promote your offerings. For instance, one of my clients was a Fortune 500 and I worked closely with one department for several months. They liked me and my work. When the P.R. department needed help with a project that their regular firm couldn’t handle, my departmental client referred me. P.R. referred me to yet another department and also referred me to the President of the company for his special projects. My marketing techniques? Personal contact, lunch meetings to talk about what was happening in their department and such. Becoming an information resource and simply asking for referrals was also key.

Larger companies can offer big opportunities, but be careful. Try to not let any one client represent more than 30% of your total revenue. That can be dangerous if the relationship sours.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt