In this day and age of easily accessible and low cost technology it is really surprising to see that 80% of businesses are not keeping customer records in a proper system. Indeed even if they are using computers in other areas of their business for example bookkeeping very few Irish business owners are maximising the use of technology to improve their marketing.

These figures are very worrying. Huge amounts of money are being spent by the owners of these businesses. Attracting new prospects can be an expensive process so it is even more worrying that existing customers that have been so hard to come by in the first place are allowed to slip through the net.

The cost of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 100% less than the cost of having to acquire a new one and convert them to customers. Current clients of your business have experienced your service before and know how to find your premises. You have built up an relationship and track record with them so it is a pity to waste it. So in my mind it is more important to first look after the customers you have already rather than spending huge amounts of money in trying to attract new clients.

It wouldn't make a lot of sense for an author to write a book and then sell it to one customer and then go back and write a second book. It would be much more lucrative to keep selling the first book and maximise its potential so that it provided an ongoing revenue stream far into the future.

Now that you are aware of the importance of building your customer list you need to think about how you can implement such a system in your business. Each time you do a transaction with a customer you should be recording their details, ideally in electronic format. To keep costs low in the beginning you could even use a spreadsheet to do this.

Once you have the customers? details how hard would it then be for you to send them a mailing such as a card to thank them for doing business with you. This is going to come out of the blue for them and set you apart from your competitors. How about then a month after they did business with you, you telephoned them and asked if the product was working ok for them. You never know they might need something more for you but just hadn't got around to getting back in touch with you.

Keep up the communication over time and a few months later perhaps you could send them some kind of gift card for ?VIP clients only?. The key is to do something, and make it into a system in your business.

Before too long you will have a steady supply of business and you should be able to reduce your spend on attracting new customers and just focus on the ones you have.