Something profound for my 10,000th tweet

Yesterday on Twitter I hit a milestone – it was the day that I hit my 10,000th tweet.

Many will say that this is irrelevant and playing the numbers game is futile when it comes to Twitter, I tend to agree. Twitter is about engagement and building relationships by helping others, sharing content of value and showing people you are a credible expert in your industry (I’ll get off my soapboax now) …however 10,000 tweets is something I thought I needed to celebrate or commemorate with something profound. I could have just tweeted my view on what Twitter is I guess…

…but here was my 10,000th tweet:

“Building a relationship with a prospect/lead will bring you more than just a sale. It will give you long lasting profits for years to come”

As a loyalty marketing consultant and retention marketing specialist, I truly believe in looking beyond the sales process and moving more towards a process of building long lasting relationships with followers, subscribers, leads and customers.

When you live in a sales mode, all you tend to be focussed on is where the next person is going to come from to buy your product or service – this is normally thought to be a new customer and someone that has never bought from you.

Having a good lead generation or acquisition marketing plan in place is crucial to the survival of any business and you need to ensure that you have a way of working out this plan. Having all you focus on this though is not a great idea.

A few years ago when recession hit the country very badly, we saw many companies lose out and end up closing. My previous business was one of them in 2009. We lost retained contracts in a time when budgets were slashed and no-one else was buying. We couldn’t get enough new business in to survive. All our efforts were focussed on getting new business, we couldn’t get enough and the business closed. (There was more to it but you get the gist of what I am saying here)

Having a mixed focus on both acquisition and retention marketing will keep the wolves from the door.

You need to ensure you have your lead generation tools all working for you but forgetting to build relationships with, or simply keeping in contact with your existing customers or subscribers, will leave them open to choosing someone else above you.

The biggest way that this happens is when they have a problem and someone else presents a solution before you. Keep a communication channel open with them about everything that you do (one message at a time) and you stand a chance of being the first person they will call or refer others to.

Build a relationship with your prospects and leads first… don’t rush the sale… it, and many more, will come later.

For comments and to add your view, please visit the original post on www.anthodges.co.uk here.