A follow-up tool such as a post card, HTML newsletter, or note card is essential to make sure that your services stay "top-of-mind" with the people that you meet. It's said that a prospect needs to hear from you seven times before they will make a purchase. So it's important to create tools and a system to enable you to followup with your prospects once you've made that initial connection.

Steps to planning your follow-up method and system:

1. Determine how your customers prefer to receive information from you. Communicating with them in the method of their choice makes them more receptive to your messages and more likely to buy from you. Consider whether your ideal clients are "computer people" or whether they'd be more likely to respond to postal mail.

2. Then, consider which media you're most comfortable using to follow up. Do you have the technical skills to produce an HTML newsletter or the budget to hire a specialist? And do you have the time to create articles about your area of expertise? Do you have the time to apply addresses and postage to post cards? Or do you prefer giving the personalized touch of a note card, and can you keep up with the time commitment of following up in that way? Knowing your level of comfort and commitment, and understanding the time required, will ensure that you can keep up with your follow-up program.

3. If the previous two considerations are in conflict, find a way to make them congruous. For example, if you have the skills to produce an HTML newsletter and your clients are "computer people", but you don't have the time to write articles, you can explore online article banks that offer free articles for you to include in your newsletter, such as the one at ideamarketers.com. If you don't have time to address and apply postage to post cards, find a high school student who will do it for you at a reasonable rate. Be creative!

4. Once you've determined the method of communication to use for your follow-up piece, create a plan for how often you will followup. For example, if you're doing a post card or handwritten note, quarterly contacts might be enough. If you're using an online newsletter, monthly or bimonthly issues are probably best to really capture a client's attention-your clients probably get a lot of email, and it takes regular contact to stand out from the crowd.

5. Creating your follow-up tools. Finally, once you have planned your follow-up system, it's time to move on to the design and content of your tool: the postcard, newsletter, or note card.

Be sure that your follow-up tool:

- Looks professional and uses elements of your Visual Vocabulary, to reinforce your brand identity.

- Contains content that is both valuable and accessible to your audience. Be sure to give good, quality information in your newsletter or post card, so that people will look forward to receiving it. And write the newsletter with language on your prospect's level-don't use technical jargon if you can avoid it, and if you can't, define the technical terms so that your audience can stay "on the same page" with you.

- Includes a call to action on non-personalized items like the post card and newsletter, and/or an offer such as a discount or special article. These can also be helpful in handwritten follow-up-giving the people that you're contacting a reason to get back in touch with you.

- Has some personalized information. A handwritten note card is personalized by default. If you're using a post card or newsletter as your follow-up tool, you can personalize it by using stories from your life, news on your hobbies, or updates on what you're doing, to make your newsletter more endearing to your potential clients.

- Offers your potential clients a way to get on and off of your mailing list easily-you don't want to be sending mail or email that's unwanted.

- Is sent out regularly. In addition to letting prospects know when to expect the follow-up, following-up regularly will also show that you do things professionally and in a timely manner.