Comments on: Nudging the Client

By: Lori

Lori — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:04:21 +0000

Paula, my sister's kids have MP3 players that cost a fraction of an iPod with the same or better capacity. Fifty bucks versus $150-$300? Yea, I'd take that, too!

Sound/Fury - loved it, too. If you love Faulkner, you'll like Toni Morrison. She's a Faulkner scholar, and it shows.

By: Paula

Paula — Wed, 26 May 2010 21:08:49 +0000

Oh – forgot to mention, The Sound and the Fury is perhaps my favorite novel. So I tried to read Absalom! Absalom! but never made it through the lengthy descriptions of the old neighbor lady's parlor. (Am I remembering that right? It was withing the first 50 pages. Images of heavy dark dusty drapes and Victorian furniture – perhaps a birdcage or two – are coming to mind.)

But I loved me my Quentin in Sound/Fury. (Not so fond of Sound/Fury's Quentin2 – upon first reading I thought maybe Quentin had undergone gender reassignment surgery … but I digress.)

And me? No iPod. I'd love one, but can't justify the cost. A friend said my Mac is too old to download iTunes….which I doubt since it came with an iTunes application built right in.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:43:36 +0000

Bribery works for me, too! LOL Great ideas, Cathy!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:55:40 +0000

Lori-Don't know if I hit the cancel-or what-but the comment went into LaLa land-sorry if this is a repeat...

Great ideas! Because of my niche (health care/insurance/wellness), I routinely send articles or reports to my clients that I find while researching-not too much to be annoying, but enough to stay on their radar.

The other thing I do that they LOVE is give referrals or introductions-when it's a good fit & okay with both parties.

I also occasionally send a gift of fruit (wellness :-)) for no special reason--bribery works!

I love LinkedIn. It's been my most productive social media for new business.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:21:53 +0000

Kathy, I need a similar system. I used to use Excel, but damn if I'd open that thing. It works only if you work it, I guess. :) Love your offer idea. I may try that myself.

Devon, great idea. I think it's time I bust out some postcards.

Paula, good idea. LinkedIn has been great in connecting with clients. Not as great as Twitter for some reason, but different tools for different people, right?

By: Paula

Paula — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:12:29 +0000

Hey, IF (may I call you IF? It's so much easier than typing Irreverent Freelancer) - If you haven't done so already, I'd suggest joining LinkedIn and connecting with as many clients and colleagues as possible. Why? When people change jobs, they tend to update it on their LinkedIn account, and you don't need their new e-mail addresses since you can contact them directly through LinkedIn.

I recently learned a rather irksome editor has switched to marketing, so I might pitch something to that market again. I deal with a lot of publicists, and publicists have a habit of job-hopping; PR agencies merge, fold and re-emerge with new names, so the easiest way for me to keep track of which publicist is working where is through LinkedIn. Heck, today I learned a long-time publicist is packing it in to become a psychologist!

I've got it on my calendar today to check in with two editors who should have more assignments coming up soon. Sure, I just turned in two articles to one of them last week, but it never hurts to ask if he has any questions about it.

I was also going to check in with another editor I knew should be assigning soon, but she beat me to it and called with four assignments yesterday. They're all short, but sweet.

By: Irreverent Freelancer

Irreverent Freelancer — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:26:46 +0000

I was just thinking about this since Memorial Day always heralds a slump for me. Fortunately, just as I was contemplating how I would contact all my former clients (which I should add is always the quickest and easiest way for me to secure business), several small projects came in. However, two points I'd like to make:

1. My initial idea was to send each client a promotional offer, maybe 20% off the last item I wrote/edited for them.

2. I need to get a better system in place for keeping my clients' contact info close at hand. If I've worked with them in the past year, it's easy enough to do an email search. If I haven't, yikes! And when I do find that info, what are the chances it will even work anymore?

Any suggestions regarding #2?

By: Devon Ellington

Devon Ellington — Wed, 26 May 2010 10:58:20 +0000

When I'm on my game, I send postcards every three months, a hey, how are you, what are your needs? type of thing. That usually gets a strong response — both from former client and from clients I sent direct marketing pieces to, but didn't use me from the intial mailing.