In September of 2008, Natalie Doyle Oldfield, the Chief marketing officer of Halifax-based software company SolutionInc, asked her team to start thanking their customers. The catch? She didn’t want them to fire off a quick email or leave a phone message; she wanted them to do it the old-fashioned way. “We are going to start sending handwritten thank-you notes to our customers when they do business with us,” wrote Oldfield.

 

For a company that provides niche software and services to the hospitality and telecommunications industry worldwide, this simple act was like stepping back in time. For Oldfield it was just one part of her “back to basics” marketing campaign—one that yielded a 25% increase in the company’s customer base, its largest annual increase. “Along with opening doors to net new customers, this campaign is helping us go deeper and wider with these and our other customers,” says Glen Lavigne, SolutionInc’s president and CEO. “It’s really getting a larger share of their wallet.”

 

Facing the global economic downturn last year that hit the hospitality industry particularly hard, Oldfield quickly realized if the company was going to thrive in an already competitive market, it would have to embark on an aggressive marketing campaign to differentiate it from its competitors and grow its customer base. She believed her team could do this without spending a fortune by simply getting closer to existing customers and providing superior service with a personal touch. “We wanted to make sure that our product was evolving with the market’s needs,” says Oldfield. “The closer you are to your customers, the better you are going to know them.”

 

The first step was to develop a new team that combined marketing and sales experience. To provide better technical and business expertise to customers, Oldfield hired a product manager and dedicated a salesperson to service clients. Next, she devised cheat sheets   titled “10 Things You Can Do to Increase Sales at SolutionInc” for all employees dealing with customers. Her suggestions included sending an article of interest to a customer and calling a client they hadn’t spoken to in two years. Oldfield also led workshops, not just for the company’s sales team but also with its customer-support staff members, who take technical-support calls. “Everybody has an important part to play in developing new business for the company,” she says.

 

During the workshops, Oldfield aimed to hone communication skills by reminding everyone that “people buy from people,” and that it was their job to make each customer feel important. “You can’t connect properly with people by email,” she says. “Because we’re a technology company, we rely on email and PowerPoint for a lot of communication. You can gain so much more faceto-face or even over the phone.”

 

Increasing traffic to SolutionInc’s Website was another important part of the campaign. By spending less than $300 on Google AdWords, the company targeted competitors. When potential new customers clicked onto SolutionInc.’s website, they were met with a message asking them to switch to SolutionInc. In the first month of the campaign, the company’s website hits increased by more than 10,000, and overall it generated close to $500,000 in new net revenue.

 

In the technology industry where electronic communication is the norm, the company’s “back to basics” personal marketing approach not only differentiated it from its competitors but also led to new business. “We have an excellent relationship with SolutionInc,” says Tom Norstrom, a senior product manager with South Dakota-based LodgeNet Interactive Corp. “Everyone is genuinely concerned and trying to help. It’s definitely more like a partnership than a customer-supplier relationship.”

 

In addition to luring more customers, SolutionInc also widened its global footprint by adding new distributors in Asia and attending more industry events around the world. Oldfield knew her campaign was working when one of the company’s valued customers told her how thrilled he was to have received a handwritten note, and that it was a first in his 30-year career.

 

“We strive for close working relationships with our customers,” says Oldfield. “With insight into their business opportunities and challenges, we can create relevant products and services for them and ultimately help them achieve their goals and objectives.”