How frequently should you contact customers?

http://www.royalmail.com/small-medium-business/smart/useful-extras/research/frequency-communication

How often should you contact your customers? Communicating, whether it’s face-to-face, via direct mail or through an online campaign, means you build a relationship and establish your brand with your customers.

Research conducted by Royal Mail reveals that successful SMEs are those who get the balance just right. The research defined success as SMEs that increased their number of employees, turnover and profit, or at least one of the three. Roughly half of the research sample (473 out of 922) fell into the ‘successful’ category with a similar number (449) classified as not successful.

Here are six tips on how best to contact customers:

1. Frequency is key
   The research confirmed that successful companies use media with greater frequency than their less successful counterparts. In total, successful companies communicate 33 times per year (compared to 25 for their less successful counterparts).
2.  Use a wide range of mediaSuccessful companies, as measured by increases in number of employees, turnover or profit, use a wider range of media and spend more on communications and advertising. The research found that this was especially true for smaller companies with up to 50 employees, and that they were more likely to have increased their customer base and generated more positive attitudes towards the use of mail for customer acquisition, retention and re-engagement.
   
3. Shout louder in a recessionBecause of the economic downturn, your instinct may be to cut financial corners and slash marketing budgets. In fact, this is the time you need to work harder to keep existing customers happy, while still actively seeking new ones. The research found that successful companies were the ones who had been focusing on their marketing output and planned to increase communication and advertising budgets in the next year, despite the economic environment.
   
4. Invest in advertising and communication…
   From the companies profiled, the average annual spend on advertising and communications was around £44,000. However, for successful companies, this was £55,000 and for unsuccessful companies, it was only £31,000.
   
5.  … but spend it wisely
   The research found that most successful companies spend most of their marketing budget on retaining their existing customers and then focused on the acquisition of new ones. Third on the list was the re-engagement of lapsed customers.
   
6. Maintain your customer database
   It’s official – successful companies are more likely to have a customer database, so get your data in order. According to the research, 87% of successful companies have a database.