Depending on your industry, client projects may take weeks or months to complete. At that stage, you will have hopefully developed great working relationships and will have spent a fair amount of time understanding that client’s brand guidelines, product messaging, and beyond. In other words, you will have put in a heck of a lot of legwork outside of the completed project itself. Which is why it can feel frustrating when that project draws to a close, and it’s time to say goodbye.
At this point, it won’t matter if you know all about Sharon from marketing’s love of double spacing or the email preferences of Tom in sales. You’ll be left out in the cold with nowhere else to go. Unless, of course, you take steps to ensure that this isn’t goodbye after all.
Finding ways to bring existing clients back on board, even after you’ve finished a commission, is one of the best ways to ensure all-important customer lifetime value. But how can you ensure those clients come back for more? Keep reading to find out.
# 1 – Perfect Your Post-Project Follow-Up
If you simply hand over a completed project and walk away, then that client probably won’t follow you. In fact, they’ll forget you even existed in a few months. That’s why you need to implement proactive post-project follow-ups that keep your brand memorable.
At a base level, this should include project check-ins a few weeks down the line, where you can actively hear and address any secondary problems or concerns. But, perfecting this focus also means going the extra mile. For instance, sending a dedicated thank you through either a bunch of flowers or one of these branded hamper baskets can be incredibly effective for keeping relationships alive. It’s also worth requesting client testimonials, as these can bring all of those project pluses back to the fore, making immediate repeat orders more likely.
# 2 – Get Proactive
Sometimes, it’s not enough to wait for a client to come back to you. After all, just because they’ve paid for one service doesn’t mean they understand every single thing you could do for them. Hence, it pays to get proactive and tell them upfront.
Let’s say you’re an SEO agency that improves a client’s website, but during your research, you discover that they’re lacking key content resources. They won’t necessarily notice this lack, or your ability to fill that gap for them, unless you bring the problem to their attention via a quality content plan. Sure, this may mean putting in a little work without a guaranteed order, but more often than not, it could result in incredibly lucrative secondary deals.
# 3 – Offer Loyalty Benefits
Sometimes, you also just need to fall back on basic but effective tactics for recapturing client leads, such as offering loyalty benefits like a discount directly after finishing your first project. This is a simple method, but it works, and can prove especially effective when paired with the other methods mentioned throughout this article!
