If you love the idea of surprising and delighting your clients, but once you actually start to brainstorm options, your mind goes blank – don’t panic. Not only is it easier than you think to create enthusiastic clients, it can (and should) be done at every stage of the marketing funnel.

So let’s start from the top of the funnel then, shall we?

Delighting Prospective New Clients

You’ve created awareness around your brand, and now you’re stuck trying to convince prospective clients that you are the right choice in a sea of competitors. Now, you nurture these prospects by demonstrating the value you provide.

A great way to surprise and delight your prospective clients with something intangible (aka free for you – woo!) is to share helpful resources that are specific to their industry or potential use case. Like an article, video or report.

By doing this, you’re proving that you understand their specific problem – all without having to further sales pitch yourself. Sending a helpful resource as an unprompted surprise shows that you are the type to go above and beyond to solve their problem. And that is the state of mind in which conversions happen.

Once your prospects are farther down the funnel and close to converting, you can try and seal the deal by surprising them with an actual gift! You don’t have to go overboard here, either. There are tons of options out there for small, creative client gifts that won’t break the bank, but will grab attention.

Going Above And Beyond For Current Clients

Once you’ve nurtured your leads into paying clients, the surprise and delight game really kicks into high gear. Your most important job now is to make sure your clients go from liking you to loving you.

Get to know your clients off the bat by sending them a new client survey. Set yourself up for success here by asking which communication methods they prefer, . By sending out a survey, you can avoid the guesswork and get down to delighting clients on their terms.

Then, we recommend sending a surprise booking gift to your new clients, especially if you did not send a gift during the prospect phase of their journey. No matter what you get, make sure to include a message and emphasizes how happy you are to work together! And one extra pro tip: it’s easy to overdo it on the “swag” feel, so go with subtle branding.

Once you’re reaching the end of your first big project together, an effective way to continue to delight current clients is to offer a loyalty or incentive program.

Say you’re hired to put together one marketing campaign for a company. They’re impressed with your work so far and before the project wraps completely, you let them know that you offer a 10% discount for repeat clients. This will keep you top of mind, and incentivize them choosing you for future projects.

And a repeat customer is born.

Creating and Rewarding Brand Evangelists

Finally, here is how to continue to surprise and delight your most important clients, your evangelists.

We live in a world where we are met with faulty products and bad reviews so often that it’s usually more shocking to read accounts of impeccable service. With the power that reviews hold in influencing future clients – you should be extremely concerned with what your current clients are saying about you. 

You need to bring this process full circle and let your funnel feed itself by always:

  1. Engaging in impeccable customer service
  2. Asking for reviews in the moment once you have saved the day for someone

Author Bio

According to Inc.com, “Greetabl is the world’s easiest way to make people feel valued.” Creative professionals use Greetabl to send beautiful, personalized, and thoughtful gifts without the hassle. Their one-of-a-kind greeting card/gift box combo is the perfect way to bring people together. See how it’s done at greetabl.com.