If customers can’t find you – it is tough to build a relationship.
I recently learned a lesson from a group of young boys who had developed a band. They were being interviewed on a radio station and when the disc jockey asked where fans could find them on the Internet they said:
“Just remember BOY BAND. We are on Twitter @boyband, MySpace and Facebook @boyband and our website is www.boyband.com.”
(BoyBand is just a place holder, that wasn’t the name of the band – I can’t remember the name of the band.)
The point being – they were consistent with their name in every online venue. Are you using the same name every where or do you some times use your company name or your tag line or your slogan? How easy to just say “find me at @Putcustomers1st on every site on the web.”
Check out this great tool KnowEm which lists 350 social media sites. You enter your name and it will tell you if it is available on all those sites. It is a great way to create a consistent name so customers can easily find you.
It’s hard to build a relationship on the Internet. You can’t make eye contact. You can’t ask questions and if you could – you certainly wouldn’t be able to hear the answers.
Yet the Internet is where our prospects and customers seek information and make decisions about potential vendors or companies with which they’ll do business.
So how do you tell your story? How do you communicate your vast knowledge and experience without a bunch of WORDS PEOPLE WON’T READ?
YouTube offers a platform to share your story – but you have to be creative if you want to capture the attention of viewers and hopefully create a message that “goes viral.”
In a recent edition of Advertising Age, Teressa Iezzi of Creativity Online shared the top creative picks of 2009. I’ve talked about one of them in an earlier post – the musical stairs in Stockholm. But this time I want to share the story of Johnnie Walker in their historical, yet extremely creative video called “The Walk” which chronicles the history of one of the greatest adult beverages known to man.
You have a unique story as well. One that people would be interested in hearing. Have you considered using YouTube to tell about how you got started? Or maybe your start-up story is ordinary, but how you came to focus on a particular product or service is unique.
For more information on how to connect with your customers and share your story using YouTube, check out this video from Small Business Trends by Jim Kukral with 101 ways to use YouTube and this article from Meryl Evans on the 34 ways to use YouTube for Business.
According to Trend Watching – one of the top ten trends for 2010 will be customers leaving tweets about your business. What will they say?
Real Time Reviews takes into account that people around the globe are jumping on the band wagon of telling anyone who will listen what they are doing right now. Whether they are using the status updates on LinkedIn, Facebook or tweeting away in 140 characters or less on Twitter – they are sharing their opinions.
Last year we asked “why would anyone care what I’m doing?”
This coming year we are going to be asking “what are people saying about us and what can we do about it?”
Gone are the days when a dissatisfied customer grumbled on the way out the door and maybe told 15 of their closest friends. Now they are on their mobile device sharing their bad experience with the world – or at least the hundreds of friends, family and various and sundry other folk that follow their updates.
Companies need to quickly get on board with reading what is being said about them on line – hopefully it is ALL GOOD – but on the off chance it isn’t, Twitter will become the fastest, easiest, most visible way for companies to “nip it in the bud” and show consumers they are on top of their customer service.
As more people are reviewing and contributing, the sheer mass of opinions will lead to a real-time stream of information, findable and viewable to all. In addition, online access and device convergence will allow more on-the-spot reviews. Twitter is the much-deserved poster child for real-time reviews: it has established itself as the real-time snapshot of what people are thinking/feeling/experiencing and yes, reviewing, around the world.
So what can you do?
Make sure your company name, your name, your top product names are set up with Google Alerts so you receive an email the minute someone writes using those names
For Twitter – consider the Twitter Beep for alerts about your company
Banks have had a rough year, haven’t they? Scandal, fear, anger, and a general loss of confidence from consumers have made banking a challenging field. Marketers for banks understood the concern and changed their primary message to one of safety and soundness but in many cases that has begun to change.
Maggie Kelly, VP of marketing for American Banking Association said “We’re seeing people move back to more product-specific promotions.”
As the confidence increases a wiser, more informed and perhaps cautious consumer is now looking for ways that banks can help them save and be more effective with their hard earned dollars.
In a recent article in Advertising Age entitled Banks Turn Message Back to What Consumers Want, reporter Beth Snyder Bulik spotlights the fact that banks are listening the consumers and changing their message to one that includes the answer to ‘how can you help me manage my finances?”
What I love about this is the fact that MARKETERS ARE LISTENING TO THEIR CONSUMERS.
One of the changes being made effects the bank websites. They are creating separate pages for each product with a “one-page simple explanation of each specific product…Forget jargon-filled ads and book-like bank documents; the bank of the future needs to cut straight to the point.”
Yes! Two enthusiastic thumbs up. We can all learn a lesson from banks by listening to our consumers and providing a marketing message that answers their most prevalent questions. And then here’s the important part: making sure the answers are simple and easy to understand and easy to find on our website.
It is a new year. What new things do your customers want to know? How are you sharing that information? Where is it in on your website? Is it easy to find? Is it easy to understand?
One of the primary services of my company AllWrite Ink is providing content for websites that connects with the reader. I always find it interesting that most website content focuses on the company; their history, their products and their services. I understand that the company wants to put their best foot forward and reassure the reader they have what the reader is looking for – but does that build a relationship?
The purpose of your website should be to get the reader to take a predetermined action: pick up the phone, send you an email or fill out a contact form.
When it comes to building relationships on your website with the reader you have to first:
Get their attention
Show them you understand their problem/pain
Convince them to read beyond your headline
Inspire them to take the action
We only have 3-7 seconds to grab the reader’s attention once they land on our website page. So how do you get their attention?
Start with a question. Questions require an answer and if the question hits a chord with the reader, they’ll find themselves answering the question and reading the next line. bonus!
Use short sentences, lots of bullet points – make it easy and fast to read the most important points
Use BENEFIT STATEMENTS – don’t talk about your line of widgets, instead talk about the difference they’ll experience because they’ve used your widgets: a life that is better, faster, cheaper, better looking
INVITE them to pick up the phone and call you – MAKE IT EASY TO CONTACT YOU
The real relationship building comes when you have actual contact with the reader. That’s when you can ask additional questions, uncover needs and make recommendations. It is that relationship development that begins the process of building trust in the mind of the prospect and hopefully turns them into a customer.
So does your website capture the attention of the reader and inspire them to call you so you can start to the process of building a relationship?
Visit Ohio Web Writer for a free web paper on the 5 Elements of a Website People Read. Make sure your website is doing its part to capture the reader’s attention and get them to pick up the phone so you can do your magic.
My mom recently had knee replacement surgery and when she left the hospital, she selected a live-in skilled nursing facility for her rehab therapy.
One of the added bonuses has been the friends she’s made of the other patients during her two week stay. What do they talk about? Their surgery and their recovery.
They compare notes.
They observe and brag about their accomplishments.
They notice when one receives special treatment and they don’t.
“I feel like the red-headed step sister,” said one of my Mom’s new friends. “The physical therapists sit with you and encourage you and no one ever does that for me.”
“Yeah,” adds her other friend. “The doctor seems nicer to you than he is to us. What’s up with that?” Okay – maybe these 70-something patients didn’t say “whadddsup” but you get the point. My Mom was receiving special treatment the others didn’t benefit from. Her customer service exceeded that of the other patients.
During her discharge meeting with the doctor she asked if it was her imagination or if it was fact.
“No – it’s true,” he confirmed. “The surgeon that operated on you is a favorite of ours and we know he likes us to treat his patients with extra care.”
Wow. Imagine if your customers/clients/patients sensed or observed such inequity. Luckily for us – my Mom was on the good end of the stick – but what if it was the other way around.
Should there be a separate policy of customer care for t hose we like more than others? Certainly it is EASIER to take care of someone who is friendly and meets you half way in the building relationship process. And when a customer is irritable or difficult it can be more challenging to be positive and friendly.
But should we offer different levels of customer service based on who we like and who we don’t?
Customers talk. Word of mouth advertising is the number one way to brand your business. If your customers talked would they all have the same story of great service?
The best way to discover the answer is to ask. Call your past customers and ask about the service. See what kind of answers you get. What are customers saying about your service?
In our little local paper I recently read that the County Engineer has decided to use Twitter to keep the local citizens informed of road construction updates.
What a clever idea!
Spring/Summer is a classic time that cities start/complete road construction projects, fill pot holes and repave roadways. What better way to keep the public aware of the best roads to take – or not take – during a certain period of time than with Twitter?
In Summit County Ohio you can just follow @summitengineer for the latest roadway updates.
Who said Twitter was just a silly time waster with people complaining about their day?
How are you using Twitter to communicate time-critical data to your employees/vendors/customers? How COULD you use Twitter for critical updates? Not part of Twitter yet? What’s stopping you?
They say you only have 3-7 seconds to grab the attention of visitors to your website. Talk about your Make or Break Moment!
What words do you use?
What graphic image will convey your expertise in such a short time?
I just learned of a company from the Netherlands called HEMA who use a unique and clever form of technology to keep your attention AND help you scroll down the page to view multiple products without lifting a finger!
Check out Hema’s home page. Don’t click on any products, just be patient for about 2 seconds. Make sure your volume is turned up. Click on the photo below to go to their site.
Awesome, isn’t it? It grabs your attention. Gives you a visual of all of the products on their home page without having to scroll down the page. It’s fun. It’s clever and it makes you want to click on more pages to see what you’ll find.
Hats off to the web developer!
Bill Brokaw owns an advertising company in Cleveland and when I first went into business and did a little research I found his website. It’s clever in a slightly annoying, filled with truth kind of way. Check out the Brokaw website and tell me what you think. My first thought was: “Now that is the kind of company I want to work for or work with. They get it!”
What does your website say to visitors? Is the content all about you? Is it cluttered? Is it focused on solutions the visitor will enjoy should they hire you?
This past summer I gave a speech to a group of writers at Ohio State University. The topic; Writing for the Web. In that speech I talk about the home page content and the fact that you need to write in a way that will interest the reader. Here’s a little snipit that talks about your home page content. Does your website grab your visitor or will they move on to visit the thousands of other sites using the same key word phrases?
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If customers can’t find you – it is tough to build a relationship. 
