In yesterday's email on the “marketing critical path” I mentioned a number of key activities that have a big impact on your ability to win new clients.

Here's something we often overlook though: retaining or extending our work with our existing ones.

Getting more business with existing clients (or retaining them when they might have gone elsewhere) is every bit as valuable as getting new clients, but an awful lot easier.

Don't get me wrong: you need to have a steady flow of new leads and clients. You can't just keep doing more with your existing client base. 

But my experience has been that most of us are very focused on that new client side already and rather less focused on doing more with our existing clients.  

A little while back I created a little “retention checklist” for my Momentum Club membership program to help me make sure I was doing everything I could to help my members get the most from my program and so stay as members for as long as possible.

I've extracted some of the more generally applicable ideas here to help you think through what more you could be doing to retain and strengthen relationships with your clients:

1. Make a brilliant personal first impression – e.g. a personal welcome letter/video/tweet/phone call/gift.
2. Get new clients getting results fast – e.g. a quick win review, extra training material, diagnostic to highlight areas for fast results.
3. Deliver extra value at “drop off points” – identify the points that clients typically leave or don't renew and make sure you're delivering extra value at those points.
4. Make your content/training/communications easily consumable – e.g. checklists, templates, do things in bite-sized chunks.
5. Engage pro-actively – watch for drop off in communication and interaction and reach out personally to re-engage.
6. Provide additional value they'd miss if they left – e.g. extra client-only webinars and content, personal critiques and feedback, tools & templates, discounts on your other products and services, “grandfathered” pricing.
7. Create community – have a private forum/group for clients, encourage sharing, discussion, helping each other, arrange live meetups.
8. Inspire with success stories – e.g. interview clients and promote their successes, encourage testimonials.
9. Make renewing easy – e.g. auto renewals via direct debit, credit card.
10. Find out why people leave – e.g. do an “exit” survey or interview and fix the problems people report.

Implementing just one of these could have a big impact on your client retention.