With top companies spending billions of dollars advertising to prospective clients, customer acquisition appears to be the most important objective at these businesses. However, a business’ most valuable consumers are often its current customers.

Here are five tools that businesses can use to follow up with customers:

1. Start simple with a Thank You card. Businesses that don’t send Thank You cards are usually facing time constraints. Thank You cards send a positive message, especially if they are hand-written. Although this does take time, a thoughtful Thank You card can separate your business from the competition (especially if they’re too busy to send one!)

2. Similar to Thank You cards, postcards are another way to follow up with your customers through the mail. An added benefit of using postcards is that they can deliver a variety of messages. Postcards can serve as reminders, congratulatory messages, holiday greetings or marketing fodder. Keep the message informative and fun, but not overly promotional. Imprinting a brand logo on the postcard is a sufficient reminder to the customer.

3. “Leave Behinds” are simply promotional products given to customers after a client meeting or sales transaction to show a business’ appreciation and leave a lasting impression. The product essentially follows the customer to their home or workplace and serves as a reminder tool.

4. Use corporate gifts to build customer loyalty while increasing your brand’s value. Corporate gifts are a popular use of high-end promotional products. Start by gathering a list of your top clients. It could be a large or small group depending on your budget. Keep in mind that the goal of corporate gifts is to add value to a brand and its relationship with the consumer, so choosing a high quality gift in lower quantities is more effective than a high quantity of products with lower value. Corporate gifts are a great way to keep your business at the top of clients’ minds.

5. A strategy to communicate with customers after a sale is to collect feedback. Follow-up a sale with a phone call or e-mail that surveys the customer’s experience and satisfaction with the product or service. This is a strategy that has two-way benefits. Not only will customers feel empowered with the opportunity to voice their opinion, but businesses can greatly benefit from the information gathered. Just remember to keep the survey short and simple.

When implementing these CRM strategies, it is important for businesses to keep two key ideas in mind. First, personalization helps cut through the clutter. A direct mail piece addressed to “Our Valued Customer” defeats the purpose of CRM. Imprinting a brand logo or message onto a promotional product makes the gift more personal. Personalization reduces the generic feel that plagues most marketing campaigns. Secondly, a loyal customer is a business’ best salesperson. Customers who are satisfied with their relationship with a business are a doorway to new sales leads. In other words, investing in customer retention also leads to customer acquisition.

Question: The Career Center wants to encourage new students to register for information on internships, job opportunities and career fairs. How do we inform students about this service?

Answer: A great way to reach new students is during orientation. Coordinate with orientation administrators to set up a booth or work shop for students to attend. Hand out fun, yet practical items to students who register for the program. Products such as ice scrapers, mouse pads or lanyards imprinted with the career center’s contact information serve as reminders for students to utilize the services.

Businesses and marketers often face a common obstacle: How to advertise a brand, its products and services under budget constraints. With the many costs involved in running a business, advertising budgets are one of the first to shrink when funds are tight. Therein lies another challenge. With less advertising, how can businesses garner enough attention to attract consumers and generate sales?

The solution is a concept called Credibility Marketing. It’s the idea that support by third-party consumers has higher credibility than messages created by marketers.

Here are three ways to generate third-party endorsements:
Testimonials- Offering prospective customers testimonials or blurbs about another client’s positive experience is a big credibility booster.

Case Studies- Consumers like product demonstrations. It gives them a chance to see how the product works, what it can be used for and how effective it is. Case studies are demonstrations on paper.

Press Releases- If your business is looking for a large audience, media publicity is the way to go. Dabbling in the publicity arena may seem scary because businesses feel as though they have no control over what is being said.

Using testimonials, case studies and press releases is a cost effective way to advertise a brand, product or service. These third-party endorsements are great credibility boosters that give consumers more confidence in a business.

Headlines on Microsoft’s $44 billion bid to buyout Yahoo almost read like a melodramatic love triangle between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google.
• Microsoft wants to win over Yahoo to compete against Google.
• Google calls Microsoft’s move a mockery of the Internet’s “openness and innovation.”
• Yahoo re-evaluates its worth. Says Microsoft undermines Yahoo’s value and rejects the offer.
• Does Microsoft feel scorned and defeated or is it biding, waiting for the next opportunity?

It’s a good thing marketers can take away several lessons from this tangled Web.
1. Alliances are healthy, but not at the sake of individuality: Companies are merging left and right, leaving great power in the hands of a few. If this trend continues, consumers will fall into the umbrella of one big corporation and individuality will be stifled. Marketers should work to preserve uniqueness and innovation. Consumers need a variety of products, services and experiences to fit their individual lifestyles.
2. Always, always keep your stakeholders informed: Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang sent a message to employees, assuring them that leaders are trying to avoid a Microsoft acquisition. It’s important to keep employees and stockholders informed of the company’s position on major issues. When internal communication breaks down, the business could very well crumble with it.
3. A little “shock and awe” can up the ante. Microsoft’s bid made big news, and in the wake of the offer Yahoo’s share price rose 1.48 percent. Shaking up the marketplace can have positive or negative effects. Sometimes the market calls for a little (or big) change in order to re-shape the landscape for competitors and consumers. Here’s when it pays to be prepared no matter what side you are on. Always periodically evaluate your internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. You don’t want to be in for too big of a surprise.

Marketing is constantly evolving and adopting new strategies to reach people. Traditional media, such as television, radio, newspaper, magazine and mail flyer advertising, are not as popular as they once were. Some consumers even find traditional advertising annoying.

A recent survey by IBM titled “The End of Advertising as We Know It,” found that “Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising.”

Alternative advertising refers to marketing that uses unconventional methods, such as text messaging via cell phones, viral advertising on the Internet or social networking through Web sites like MySpace and Facebook.

Here is a list of more alternative advertising ideas from Kaboom Advertising:

- Street teams

– Street Stunts

– Pop-up lounge

– Guerilla Signage

– Promotional Materials

– Event and Conference marketing

– Mobile marketing and Video interactive marketing

Alternative Internet Marketing Strategies:

– Blog marketing

– Email marketing

– Online media buying

– Source http://kaboomadvertising.com

Although new marketing strategies are constantly emerging, traditional strategies do not have to disappear, but evolve.

Consider sending out a street team to spread the word about your new company and send traditional mail fliers to local companies. This strategy allows you to reach the general public with an alternative marketing strategy with the street team and helps you to get local business recognition with a traditional flier.

Alternative advertising is new and exciting, but some traditional methods are still useful. Update your flyers with your Web site address or send out a monthly email with insider news about your company. Using a mix of alternative advertising and traditional advertising is an effective way to get your brand recognized.

For businesses with a .com domain, piggybacking on the high search authority of .edu or .org sites can improve search engine optimization. A business can earn a link on sites of area colleges, universities, or not-for-profit organizations that it has good relations with. (Keyword: Earn).

Seomoz.org says folks who receive such coveted links on .edu sites have four things in common:

1) they are generous with their time,
2) generous with their talent,
3) generous with their money, or
4) know a lot about an academic subject and are very good at writing about it.

Helping an organization with its Web site, writing professional articles that professors can recommend to their students, making donations in your business’s name or volunteering at charitable events are just some ways in which a business can earn a link. Earning a link on a .gov domain may or may not be more difficult, but try getting more involved with your city and state government through civic events. You never know when an opportunity can arise. The core tactic to earning links is to create a mutually beneficial relationship.