Girl meets business owner.

Business owner sells product or service to girl.

Girl leaves business owner.

Girl and business owner live satisfied ever after.

It’s not the stuff of dreams, is it? It wouldn’t even make a good story. It happens every day. Yawn. So what is it missing? How about a chase? Girl meets business owner.

Business owner sells product or service to girl.

Girl leaves business owner.

Business owner writes to girl, emails, calls, etc. to get girl to come back.

Girl comes back to business owner, and buys again and again.

Girl and business owner live joyously ever after.

That moves me. The drama of the unrequited love (okay, unrequited marketing perhaps). The tension could be cut with a knife. It would make a good Lifetime Channel movie, only without the peril and rescue elements.

But this too really should happen every day. Business owners, and their sales representatives, should make an effort to reach out to their customers to keep the relationship alive. This goes beyond continued advertising, which lacks a personal touch. They should make an effort to send an occasional note, especially if they can afford the time to make it personal, with a handwritten comment or request.

Ask your customers for referrals, tell them about upcoming sales opportunities, events and clearances. Just keep in touch, but do it with a benefit to the customer. It doesn’t have to be major. Tell them about new products that they may be interested in. Tell them about new advances in the way you provide your services. Tell them any little thing that will make them think positively of you and your business.

If you can’t think of anything, then send them a reminder of something notable. Mothers Day is coming! It’s Women’s History Month! Happy Birthday! Just don’t appear to be sending an impersonal form letter.

Remember that it takes less to keep an existing customer than to win a new one.

Next blog: Ah, Italia!

Delia Passi, Founder of WomenCertified® and author of Winning the Toughest Customer: The Essential Guide to Selling to Women is a regular columnist on eBrandMarketing. Want my take? Email me and visit my sites www.medelia.com, www.womencertified.com