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5 Tips for Keeping in Touch with Your Prospects & Customers:
How to Follow Without Being a Stalker
 We've all been there. You trade cards with the owner of a massage shop at a business mixer.
The next morning you open your e-mail to read that you'll get 20 percent off a deep-tissue massage if you call in three days.
Now, none of us want to be the person who did this. Why? Because we don't make our new acquaintance feel valued. We make them think that they are just a great big dollar sign to us.
If we look deep inside ourselves, we just might admit that following up with a prospect or client feels like this-just a wee bit.
"I enjoyed meeting you. So can I design a new website for you?"
Yeah, that's gross. And it's not the way staying in touch, in an authentic way, should feel. But if we turn it around, put the effort into building a living, breathing relationship first, well, that feels right to us-and to our prospective customer.
Yet it is precisely because we are afraid of being stalkers that we lose perfect opportunities for regular, friendly and solutions-based communication. Here are some strategies the true stalkers never use:
5 Tips for Keeping in Touch with Your Prospects & Customers
1. Give friendly, helpful advice to someone you've just met. You will be remembered if you return from a networking event and happen to run across a blog post, an article (better yet is it is one of yours) that helps solve a problem the person you met talked about. And send it their way.
2. Pull up old quotes and email conversations and send a "Hope you found what you needed" email. If you keep a list of "clients in limbo," and you probably should, you can regularly send a "just checking in" email. They're most effective when you don't ask for work. It's better to say, "Just a quick hello. Hope you found a solution to your website redesign problem." At Cat's Eye, we have had numerous call-backs and new jobs from people who say, "You know the timing wasn't right before, but I'm glad you contacted me because I'm ready to move on it now."
3. Help your prospect find what they need, even if it isn't you. This is just good karma. And it shows that what matters most to you is that your prospect gets his problem solved or need addressed in the best possible way. There is something very impressive about that. And people usually want to help people who have helped them.
4. Send an invitation to follow you on Twitter or become a friend on Facebook. Social media tools give you a unique and powerful way to stay in touch with customers and prospects. It works two ways. You keep up to date with what they are doing and thinking and they get to hear your thoughts (and see your expertise) on a regular, but non-threatening, basis.
5. Leave a comment on their blog. We all love to get comments on our blog posts. Check the blogs of prospects and clients regularly and if you have something to say, leave a comment. (A forced comment will not be appreciated by the author, so be careful to only say something when you can add value to the conversation.)
With these five tips you will be remembered by your customers. I guarantee it.
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