I sometimes have a call from a client who, upon questioning, confesses rather ruefully and apologetically that they haven’t been in contact with their database recently (or at all).

I’m a believer that you should be in touch with your database somewhere between six and eleven times a year, meaning once every month or two.

And that doesn’t mean just posting on Facebook, LinkedIn or throwing the odd picture on Instagram. It means sending something of interest to them either by email or good old-fashioned snail mail (well, snail mail at least every so often).

Now here is some good news! If you haven’t been in touch with your database lately then it’s never too late to start.

What you should do is write what I call a “me-to-you” letter for your database.

I call it that because it is written from the heart and it’s you just having a chat with them, kinda one-on-one, letting them know what’s happened about the place and including a couple of subtle selling pieces about new techniques, interesting and popular products and services and so on. But it’s gotta be subtle, newsy and showing them your fallible, gentle, human side (and of course apologising for not being in touch and committing to do so in future!).

You’ll be amazed how well it works providing it’s from-the-heart and not just a downright, in-their-face-salespiece.

By the way, having a blog helps but the one downfall of the blog is that your database has to subscribe to it. And sometimes that’s something they mean to get around to doing but often don’t.