Guerilla Marketing: The F.U. Lesson

For the past few weeks, I've been meeting with a guerilla marketing coach, who has helped me focus on the marketing plan and tactics for Kalico Design. During the course of my work day I get so caught up in producing eye-catching and effective graphic design to help others portray their marketing message, that my own marketing kind of gets put on the back burner. Not anymore! I meet once a week with my coach, and take an hour or two out of the week to work on my own marketing with focused intentionality and determination. While I am not permitted to share the specific guerilla worksheets, verbiage and lessons; I'd like to share some of the (very simple!) actions I've taken in the past few weeks which have yielded results. I plan to hit on one or two topics each week, in the hopes that some of these my help others out as well.

My first "field work" assignment was relatively simple (I've found that most of the guerilla marketing tactics are actually extremely simple, and I often think to myself "Duh. Why HAVEN'T I been doing that?"). Anyway, my first task was simple — follow up, or F.U., as one of my networking buddies has coined! I actually thought I had been doing a relatively good job at this. I follow up consistently with clients during the course of a particular job, and often soon after the job as well. What I hadn't been doing was following-up with clients on a regular, scheduled basis. I would just send a follow-up email or give a client a quick phone call when I had the time or when it popped in my head, which resulted in putting the follow-up on the back burner, or sometimes forgetting for weeks or months on end.

So, last week, I followed up with the majority of my past clients, just by sending a quick email. And guess what!? I had an 80% response rate, which immediately resulted in new projects for 40% of those I had contacted, with several more potential projects in the future for others. All by just sending a quick email! I now have also scheduled a semi-annual F.U. session on the Kalico calendar, so I will be sure to follow through on the whole follow-up!

Are you doing consistent and effective follow-up with your existing clients? If not, try it out and let me know what results you get. Send and email, or make a phone call—whatever works best for YOU and your business! Be sure to make it a habit and designate certain F.U. days on your calendar to help you remember!

Also, if you'd like more information on guerilla marketing, please visit their website or check out the guerilla blog for more marketing suggestions!