I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees?”
Well, in my humble opinion, many business owners can’t see their marketing forest because the ‘trees’ – all the stuff that comes at them between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. – blinds them to opportunity that is right there in front of them.

Why else would anyone else work 12-14 hours days in an effort to grow their business instead of sitting down for a couple of hours and putting together a simple marketing plan to let their existing customers know how other products and services they have can help them?

That effort could easily result in an additonal 20%-30% increase in sales. Not to mention freeing up time to watch Survivor reruns or finally figuring out where all those socks seem to disappear to.

So why don’t they (not us!) do it?

Here’s what I think:

We’ve become used to dealing with and deflecting and delgating stuff as it comes at us. It’s like the sound bite. Nothing ever takes too long. It shows up. Boom! We handle it. And then on to the next thing. We feel like we’re making progress.

The idea of sitting down and spending two or three hours on ONE THING can be daunting. It’s work. It’s a grind. As a writer, I’m used to that. It’s the only way to get some momentum and continous thought going. You can’t create a compelling sales story or marketing game plan for a client by only spending 20 minutes here and there and then coming back to it. You need some flow.

OK. Wake up. Here’s my point.

You have done all the heavy lifting with your existing clients. You’ve got the relationship. Shown how you can add value. And gotten them to do business with you.

They WANT to know how else you can help them!

Many business owners assume that their existing customers will just keep coming back if they need more services or products.

Here’s the truth: Many have no idea about the additional ways we can help them.

And they won’t until we clear a few trees out of the way and take a close look at our forest so we can see additional ways we can add value to people who are already pre-disposed to carefully considering our offer.

All you need to do is come up with an organized plan to let them know.

Today, with the use of autoresponder services, maintaining a customer list takes very little time and effort. You should be asking every customer or client you have for their email address and permission to add them to your mailing list.

And then put your plan into effect.

Here are 9 ways you can market additional services to your existing customers and help them achieve more of their their objectives.

1. Develop and use a customer contact management system (today, this is simple and inexpensive to do) to follow-up with customers to see if they are satisfied with their purchases and for an opportunity to offer them another product or service.

2. Offer a discount to them if they buy more than one product or service.

3. Give a discount to customers when they reach a certain number of any purchased product or service.

4. Develop package deals for groups of your products or services.

5. Offer an upgrade to your product or service as a deluxe or premium edition for a slightly higher price.

6. Offer a free sample of your product or service and inform your existing customers that they will get a discount if they order now.

7. Offer “add-on” products or services to the purchased product. McDonalds has built an global empire with a simple ‘do you want fries with that’ strategy. Studies show an average of 20% of customers will say “yes”.

9. Send customers a “thank-you” email with some special offer attached.

10. Send your customer a free surprise gift with a special product offer.

I realize that some of these ideas may not be a fit for your business but at least it gives you a bit of a jumpstart towards thinking about marketing and selling to existing clients and customers – people who trust you and have backed that trust up with action.

About The Author: Gerry Black is a marketing writer and consultant specializing in helping solo professionals and small businesses develop and implement simple, proven, online and offline marketing strategies that attract clients. Visit www.marketingwriter.ca for his free report, “”The ENGAGEMENT Factor – The Key To Converting Prospects Into Clients.