How do you keep your clients? Email marketing automation!

Picture this: Your business is humming. Clients are bringing their friends. There's a buzz about your place. And by the way, revenue's growing. It's what we want in our businesses.

How did you get there? Most likely, personal connection and attentive service.

Giving clients attention when you're with them is pretty easy. It's tougher (but just as important) to make sure they remember you when you're not with them, especially if they don't use your services often. Reaching out to customers helps them stay engaged, shows you care, and makes it more likely they'll keep returning. In short, it increases retention. And the more individualized and personal your outreach, the likelier it will succeed.

Here are some simple ways to remind your clients of the personal relationship you're building with them:

• Your client is brand new. Send them a welcome that offers a special consultation.
• It's your client's birthday. Offer a free class or other service to celebrate.
• You haven't seen your client for two weeks. Show that you've noticed. Entice them back.
• It's the anniversary when someone became your client. Offer a service they haven't tried.

To help you focus on that personal connection and reduce the effort of staying connected, Pike13 automates personal communications that remind clients that you're paying attention. By integrating email marketing in Pike13 via MailChimp, you can set up emails to be sent automatically for each of the examples above, triggered by an event or date.

Be sure to customize your email template for each event so that you offer something that's specific to the event and client—like how long they've been with you and the services they do or don't use. It's also important to offer something of value to them, like a service they use a lot, one-on-one coaching, a new offering, or one they haven't used but would support their goals.

Analyze client patterns to see if there's a trend in your business when membership falls off, and identify events that make sense for triggering the automatic emailings. For example, you might notice that most clients start out enthused but participate more sporadically after six weeks—a reminder of the progress they've made toward their goal might be the motivation they need to stay (or get back) on track. Or you might see that clients who take a particular workshop also participate regularly and for a longer time in regular classes—you might want to offer that workshop in a welcome or birthday email. Also track when clients cancel and why they cancel—so you can learn when you lose people. To play that out in an example, if it's at month 9, you can set up an automatic email at month 7 or 8 to reconnect before they drop out.

Pike13 provides the reports for analyzing client patterns and, with MailChimp integration, the way to respond to client trends. While doing the outreach is time-consuming, it's how you can get clients back in the door. The important part is your personal connection when they walk back in so you can keep them, you, and your business humming.

Want to know more?

• Using MailChimp for email marketing from your front desk
• 5 client engagement hacks: A cheat sheet for increasing client retention
• How to boost revenue and attract new clients