Ten years ago, the only way to keep in touch with customers was through a mailing list.
Sure, there was phone and snail mail support, but the expense – not just financial, but the time it took – was excruciating and the efficiency just wasn’t there. And, while an email mailing list offered a large audience and simplicity, it didn’t offer the most valuable online currency: transparency.
Today, things are remarkably different.
Instead of the old, closed system of communications, every method of customer feedback and contact is distinctly open.
At face value, the three principal ways to solicit feedback online today – Facebook, Email, and Twitter – all seem to be really simple to use, and yet to get the most out of these unique discussion forums takes a little more savoir faire, than might initially meet the eye.
If you’re an online business and you’re not on Facebook, you should be. Not just because it opens you up to a massive amount of marketing avenues, but because you have immediate access to your customers.
How can you make the most of this new contact?
- Start a Facebook group for your company’s fans.
- Inspire conversation and bring communities together around your product.
- Communicate with your fans, and get public testimonials.
To find out more, click here to read my blog post on ‘How to easily set up a FaceBook Business page, or group’.
Email feedback is one format that’s been around for years, yet is remarkably different today. The difference is in the influence of your customers and what they can do with your communication.
Ten years ago, nobody was blogging. Today, almost every online presence has a blog of some sort. When you can make an impression over email, you open yourself up to the possibility of a supporting blog post, SEO link juice, and a wave of free traffic.
So, make sure that when you email people, make your missive as personal as possible. Address them by name and include content that makes them feel as if you are addressing them alone. This can be done by naming the product or service they’ve brought, or, by naming the region in which they live, for example, but above all, it will be achieved by including information which is exclusive and of genuine interest to them. Let them know they are first to know what you are sharing, and that it’s hot off the press! That way they are more likely to repost your information elsewhere.
Finally, Twitter is becoming possibly the most lucrative of all social media communications tools. There are two ways to use Twitter for businesses, which are complimentary to one another. Don’t think that you have to use them exclusively — combine both and watch as your influence grows.
The first step is harnessing the feedback that’s already out there. Search Twitter for your product or company name, and get in touch with people that are talking about you. If you find a lot of positive feedback, use this public feedback to generate discussion and credibility for your product. This can be as simple as putting together a Delicious account with all of your “press” bookmarks, or as complex as inviting each person to become a brand ambassador.
The second step is to use your own presence to talk with these customers. Focus on those true fans first, and appeal to new customers second. When you embrace the customers that already like your products, you bypass the most difficult step of social media marketing: generating credibility. With these customers talking about you, you’ve generated massive publicity, bypassed the need for a large advertising spend, and garnered credibility and influence that a direct campaign could never achieve.
For years, contact was the great divide between customers and companies, and today it’s gone. This new model of soliciting customer feedback, isn’t a replacement for the old model, but a complimentary presence that can prove massively valuable. Embrace social media for two-way communication, let your customers know that you care, and enjoy the added sales and marketing efforts that it produces.
To read more and deepen your knowledge read my recent post ‘Why some small businesses often fail at social media marketing’.
If you found this post useful, please share it by bookmarking it with the icons below. I would also love to read your comments, please add them to the comments section. Thank you very much for your time.
Recent Comments