Don’t forget about your clients! Learn how to use video to reach existing customers and past clients.
You should be using video to reach your existing customers. Did you know it costs five times as much money to acquire a new customer vs. keeping an existing one? And yet only 18% of businesses place their main focus on customer retention (vs. 44% with a main focus on acquisition, and 38% with an equal focus between the two. In this post, I’ll show you how to properly connect with your existing or past customers.
Brand new businesses may not have any choice but to focus on acquisition. However, as soon as a business begins to acquire clients and customers, retention should be a high priority, and video is an amazing, personal way to communicate and help current and existing clients (en masse).
This video gives a quick overview, and the article below goes into even more depth
By the end of this article, you’ll know
- Why getting no clients is expensive and time-consuming
- How to get more sales by creating videos for current or past clients
- What quick and easy personalized videos you can create to help generate sales in the future.
Why it’s SO challenging and expensive reaching new customers vs old ones
It’s a big step to go from “I have never heard of this person/company/product, and I know nothing about what they do and offer or if they’re trustworthy or not” to “I am ready to buy, entering in my credit card information now.”
This is especially true for businesses that need to build a lot of trust, like dentists, chiropractors, or videographers. So many businesses set up an online ad and expect to go from never heard of calls and sales. This method sometimes works, but it more often leads to burning through cash wondering why the phone hasn’t been ringing.
When trying to acquire new customers, it’s often easier to get someone to give you their e-mail in exchange for something for free that they want, or to start by directing them to valuable information first, before asking for the call or the sale. It’s a lot more challenging than what I’m going to lay out in the rest of this article, reaching existing customers is the easy part.[
Current and Past Clients are much easier to sell to
When people have bought from you, they already know you, like you, and trust you. They’ve already purchased from you and are likely to do so again. We assume that the next time that person goes to buy, they’ll remember you and the work you did for them. Then, they’ll give you a call, and you’ll both be set. Sadly, we tend to overestimate how much we’ll be remembered (even if we did a great job).
A study found that 70% of people who worked with a realtor didn’t remember their realtor’s name by the next time they were ready to buy or sell a house. Their realtor was sitting there, waiting for a call from a client who didn’t even remember their name.
People have busy lives with a lot of things going on.
Certain purchases stick out in people’s minds, but most do not. If you fall off the map, you’re going to miss out on an incredible amount of sales. There will be people who would want to buy from you again, but you’ve been absent and now they don’t remember you.
This is why it’s important to find SOME way to stay in your customers’ consciousness. This can be accomplished using handwritten letters, e-mail lists, or gift baskets, but my personal favorite is using video. Video is incredibly personal.
We remember faces more than we remember names, and well-crafted videos can bring fond memories of working with you and collaborating together.
You can send out your videos to hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously.
When the process of working together is wrapping up, ask your customer if they’ll subscribe (and turn on the notification bell) for your YouTube channel, or sign up for your e-mail list. You’ll want to pitch people on why being a part of your list and channel would be of benefit to them. And then you’ll want to produce content that is of benefit to them.
You can offer people a slight discount if they sign up for your list, but often it’s not necessary to offer people a financial reward for joining. If your video content is incredible, and you do a good job selling the content you’ll be providing, they should be eager to sign up. See if they can do it in person so they don’t forget.
You can help people accomplish many things once the sale is made. If you’re a chiropractor, you can give people tips on prevention, recommend helpful products, give people stretching routines, etc. If you’re a realtor, you can give home remodeling tips, decoration tips, and market updates.
You can tell if people are finding your content useful two ways: the first is to see what type of posts, e-mail headlines, or topics people respond best to, and the second is to directly ask people.
Your goal is to be of service to your clients, so the ability to ask them directly what kind of content they’d like to receive is powerful.
Your goal is not only to add current and past customers, but also to keep them engaged. They won’t unsubscribe if your content is good, useful, and helpful. And the next time they need a product, you’ll be the trustworthy, helpful person that’s been sending them messages for months or even years.
They won’t just remember your name; they won’t want to do business with anyone but you.
Is it Better to Connect With Clients and Customers With YouTube or E-mail?
Both YouTube and e-mail lists are a great way to keep people engaged. An e-mail list has the added benefit of being able to make the message feel more personal. You can also choose to show only certain videos you create to your list. On YouTube, it’s often best to post 3 times a week to grow a following, but you may not want your past customers to be notified 3 times a week that you have new content.
You also may want to post some client acquisition content, which wouldn’t be as relevant to current and past customers. And while it’s unlikely, YouTube could always shut down your account or change who can see your content, whereas an e-mail list is yours to control.
E-mail lists do take time to build and create, so directing people only to your YouTube page is a viable option. And if someone is a diehard fan who’s thrilled to learn more, you could encourage them to sign up for both. That way, they could see all of your video content, but also see all of the e-mail text and content as well.
I discuss this topic a bit further in this video:
Individualized Videos
Birthdays are a big deal. I want you to picture this: it’s your birthday. The big day has arrived. You hop on Facebook and see several posts: “Happy birthday,” “happy birthday,” “happy b-day,” “happy birthday.”
You get some texts: “Happy birthday,” “happy birthday,” “happy b-day.”
But then you get a personalized video birthday message: “Hey Jake, I noticed it was your birthday, and I wanted to say that I appreciate you, and I hope it’s an amazing day today.”
I send these birthday videos all the time, and clients love them. They often say it made their day. I’ve never received one myself…and they’re SO easy. It takes less than a minute to record and send. It’s insanely easy, but it’s also kind and personalized.
Adding past clients’ birthdays into your calendar can do wonders for your business. The nice thing is, if they’re receiving your valuable content through your YouTube channel or your e-mail list, and you set a precedent of sending them a message every few months, it won’t be out of the ordinary. If you suddenly start sending someone lots of messages 5 years after you’ve worked together, that will be strange.
That’s why it’s important to let customers know early on that you’ll be providing helpful and useful information on occasion after your transaction. They’ll know what to expect and will expect to receive e-mails and videos once they sign up and subscribe.
Remarketing
Another method for reaching clients or people interested in your brand is remarketing. Once you install a Facebook pixel on your website, you’re able to send ads and messages to people who’ve been on your website, or who’ve been to a specific page of your website.
There was one site I visited where I put a book into my cart, but then didn’t check out. A few days later, I got served an ad by the author talking about how amazing the book was and why you don’t want to miss it. It was a bold move, but it was speaking directly to me. And it’s much easier to sell a book to people who’ve put it in their shopping cart, then left, vs. people who’ve never heard of you and know nothing about you.
The large chasm between “I’ve never heard of you and know nothing about you” and “I’m ready to buy.” Close the gap of your customers!
Well, with retargeting, you’ve narrowed that gap. You can even set it up so you’re only sending a message to people who’ve visited your site for more than 30 seconds. That way, you’re reaching out to people who spent some time looking around your site and didn’t immediately click away. I’m currently working on a more in-depth post about retargeting, and I’ll link to it on this article as soon as I’m done.
Want to know how to set up a Facebook Pixel? You follow this easy step by step video tutorial
Conclusion: You now know many ways to use video to reach existing and past clients
There are so many ways to use video to reach existing and past clients. If your current or past subscribers subscribe to your YouTube channel or sign up for your email list, you’ll have the opportunity to provide helpful information and stay top of mind. Personal messages on birthdays, holidays, and special events can reestablish your connection with a past client. Remarketing allows you to advertise to people who’ve visited your website previously. It’s much cheaper to advertise to people who are already familiar with your company and your product or service. By implementing these 3 strategies, you can increase your repeat customers and your overall business.
Nervous about getting started creating your first videos?
I put together this awesome guide on how to create videos using your phone. It has 100 minutes of FREE TUTORIALS.