I’ve made thousands of extra dollars off this tactic. It’s a fun, positive and free way to build your brand and generate high quality leads. Use it!
The Thank You Blog
Do you send thank you cards to clients?
Most business owners and salespeople know how well thank you cards help build a relationship. Because so few people do it on a regular basis – you stand out from the competition, in a good way.
Well, the thank you card concept just got better.
I call it the thank-you-blog. When I ran my event company in New York I was “famous” because of my thank-you-blog. Here’s the concept; when you do an event, work with a great vendor, and especially clients – blog about it.
For example, if we did a party at a catering hall, we’d take the time to speak to the owner or manager and share genuine praise. I’m not suggesting flattery – but genuine praise. Get a photo of the manager – that’s really important.
Now – create blog post about the venue and the manager. Share your honest praise in the post and publish it. Make sure it’s not just a generic review about the venue- make it about the person. Make them the star.
Next, send the subject of your thank-you-blog a link to the post (and print out a copy and mail it too – along with an old fashioned thank you note).
Guess what happens next? Besides making that venue manager like you more, and make you more memorable – like a thank you card would – the manager will send that post to friends, family and business associates. We’re talking viral.
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When the subject of your thank-you-blog posts your link on their Facebook page or website, you’ll end up with a back-link and targeting traffic.
Plus, when you use proper keywords (keyword+local append) you now have content that can attract new buyers.
A prospective bride may be looking for a review of a hotel or banquet hall. When she reads your review on your page – she may reach out to you too. (Make sure your individual post pages contain sales copy in the sidebar and header).
I booked thousands of dollars off of one thank-you-blog post. Give it a try!
Make sense? Any questions? Leave a comment. Hope this helps!
Brian- I love this idea! I am methodical in my Thank You card distribution both with clients and vendors because I know how great that feeling of recognition can be- and it always pays off on my next event. BUT… that feeling of recognition and gratitude fades quickly and doesnt concretely translate to new business. This idea opens up the potential of spreading that emotion and recording it in a public (but appropriate) forum.
Do you think there are risks or downsides to making your vendor/venue relationships this transparent? What should I look out for in managing this kind of blog?
Hi Adam!
I’m glad you pointed out the potential downside; your competition could reverse-engineer your client and vendor list. Yikes! I hadn’t thought of that!
If your thank-you-blog posts help your most-valued vendor attract new clients, that’s a plus not a minus. (Unless your vendor can’t serve more than one client, or they’re your secret weapon – in which case – send lots gift baskets instead!). The more favors you do for vendors, the more they’ll do for you. So, I say openly promote the people behind your vendors and venues by name.
As far as corporate or institutional clients, I agree you might have to be a bit more protective. You should still post thank-you-blogs but perhaps only refer to the people as the “event team at XYZ bank” You can still post photos, but you may not want to tag them with names.
I think most social event clients are safe to post by name. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, Sweet 16′s etc., are not really hot prospects after the party is over.
Thanks so much for sharing a great observation.
Just stumbled across this post via twitter and read several of your articles – so insightful and helpful for someone (me), a planner for a small but successful local catering company, looking for new ways to expand our marketing. We, too, are avid fans of hand-written thank you note but this blog idea it so much more interactive. The potential for forwarding is huge! Thanks for the fresh ideas and insight.
Gina,
Glad you stumbled by and found the idea helpful. I love using this idea because it is such a positive and personal way to market your business. I have a number of other ideas in More Clients Now – feel free to download it.
Brian
I’m running out of compliments to give to you and running out of people to forward your great information to so I’ll just re-tweet this & call it a day. Keep up the fabulous work!
Great idea!!!
Why didn’t I think of this first
I was thinking the same thing … why didn’t E.G. Sebastian think of this first?
Great ideas as always Brian!