This year in my email newsletter, Scribbles, I decided to look for something topical to write about each month, which is related to marketing. So because Easter falls in March this year, in the March issue I asked “What can we learn from the Easter Bunny about marketing?” You might think this is a rather tenuous link, but carry on reading and I’ll show you that the Easter Bunny really does know a thing or two about marketing! (She also rather enjoys skiing!)

If you’ve been reading my newsletter or my blogs for a while, or you even have a copy of my first book, Magnetic Marketing, then you’ll know about my two rules of marketing. The first one is that ad hoc marketing does not work.

What do I mean by ad hoc marketing? I mean writing a newsletter for just three months and then stopping because you’re too busy or because you don’t think it is working. I mean going to one networking meeting, collecting a few business cards and then going back to the office and expecting the phone to ring. I mean sending out one piece of direct mail, never following it up and wondering why it didn’t work.

When you sell a service such as coaching, consulting or training, where people are really buying you and your time and expertise, you need to build up a relationship with them over time. The only way to do this is by keeping in touch with them on a regular basis. Or as the Easter Bunny says, you need to keep rabbiting on about what you do! (Told you it was a tenuous link!)

Here are a few ways in which you can keep rabbiting on and sharing your expertise with your potential clients:

Email newsletters – every month I send Scribbles to a carefully built list of contacts. Every month I share marketing advice and every month someone replies to ask for some help with their marketing.

Blogs – build up trust with potential clients by going into more detail about what you do in a series of blogs. If you coach people to lose weight, write blogs full of tips about healthy eating and exercise.

How to Guides – because you can’t write the full answer to a technical question that one of your clients might ask, as one single blog post or one newsletter, write a How To Guide instead. You could write about How To Recruit Staff (if you’re an HR Consultant) or How To Save Tax (if you’re an Accountant.)

Social media – turn your blogs and newsletters into 140 characters of advice and put them out on Twitter every day. Give your audience links back to your blogs and newsletters so they can read more and get the full answer to their problem.

Videos – let people get to know the real you by talking to them on video. It’s also a great way to show off your service, if you do something practical like building websites, hedge laying or voice coaching.

Workshops and talks – run seminars or clinics for your prospects, where you just share advice and answer their questions. Record your talks and make the videos available on your website and through social media.

It can take a large number of contacts with a potential client before they are ready to buy from you. They might need to meet you at a networking meeting, read some of your blogs, subscribe to your newsletter, see some of your tweets and watch you on video, before they trust you enough to pay for your advice. Look at how you can keep rabbiting on, on a regular basis, to build up that trust.

Next month we’ll be looking at whether or not you can use April Fools jokes in your marketing. Send in your favorites to be featured in the April issue of my newsletter, Scribbles, and the best will win a copy of one my books (no joke!) If you’d like to subscribe to receive your own copy of Scribbles direct to your inbox, just click here. Every month we pick one lucky new subscriber and at the end of March we’ll send them an Easter Egg! If you’d like a chance of winning, just sign up.