Archive for the ‘word-of-mouth marketing’ Category

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Be Good, Businesses

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

The plumber ruined my plaster ceiling.

A year later, the roofer broke my deck.

Does this look right to you?

Does this look "right" to you?

They both told me, “I want to make this right.” Then, they did everything in their power to avoid paying. (With limited success. I’m pretty tenacious.)

In the age of word-of-mouth marketing, with Angie’s List, Yelp and girlfriends getting together for coffee, how could any business person be so short-sighted to think shirking a responsibility today would result in profit tomorrow?

Honesty and virtue are key ingredients to long-term success. It sounds old-fashioned, because there’s nothing new about being a good business with good people.

Dishonesty can lead to short-term gains–remember Enron?–but ultimately ends in business disaster. For the plumber, I wrote a reasonable yet scathing review of his business and chose one of his dozen competitors to be my go-to plumber. As for the roofer, I related my story to friends and neighbors, so they can make informed decisions in the future. I’m just one home-owner, but my influence extends beyond my own purchasing needs.

And the same is true of your customers. Each day, your customers are evaluating your dependability and trustworthiness. They are sharing their opinions with friends and family. Their opinions carry more weight than the most perfectly-designed marketing campaign.

So, be good. Do the right thing.

Your business will profit from it, and so will your conscience.

P.S. Bonus: The effects of unethical business decisions extend further than word-of-mouth. If you have customers who won’t pay anything until the last jot and tittle of the contract are fulfilled, they’ve likely been treated badly in the past. They feel the need to protect themselves. And who can blame them? We’ve all heard the lie at sometime or other, “I want to make this right.”

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Posted in Customer Experience, Customers, Philosophy, Relationships, word-of-mouth marketing | 2 Comments »

Facebook Marketing Tips

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Facebook marketing is becoming increasingly important for certain kinds of businesses. These include locally owned businesses, brands with exceptional personality and organizations that inspire great loyalty in their customers.  Sixty-one percent of Internet users visit social networking sites, like Facebook. Chances are, a percentage of your customers visit Facebook every single day (or multiple times a day!).

The basic building blocks of marketing on Facebook are to develop a page for your business, regularly update that page and advertise to get customers to ‘like’ your page. Once a customer ‘likes’ your page, your updates will display on their wall; their friends will be able to see that they ‘like’ you, and they will have a chance to interact with your business on Facebook.

If you do a great job marketing on Facebook, customers will engage with you, recommend you to their friends and stay interested in all of your updates. Your page will be a great marketing tool that your customers will enjoy. If you do a bad job with Facebook marketing, customers will ‘hide’ your posts, and your efforts will be useless. If you do a really bad job, customers will ‘unlike’ your page and tell their friends about their bad experiences.

To help you do a great job with Facebook marketing, I’ve put together some Facebook marketing tips. To illustrate my tips, I’m using posts from the Cincinnati Zoo’s Facebook page. With 60,000 ‘likes’ and 2,500 check-ins, this marketing effort is extraordinarily successful. A quick glance at the page shows why their Facebook marketing works– the Cincinnati Zoo has implemented marketing strategies that attract interest and interaction from its customer base.

1. Post interesting content on Facebook.

Content is king. Content keeps your customers interested and keeps your business top-of-mind. Like this video post from the Cincinnati Zoo:

Not every business can post a video of a baby bearcat, but you must develop content that will be interesting to your customers. Try to post many different types of media like pictures, videos and blog posts. Strike a balance between entertaining, informational and promotional content.

2. Motivate your customers to interact on your Facebook page.

One way Facebook marketing is different from email marketing is that the customers can talk back to you. Inspiring interaction is a great way to get customers more involved with your business. The Cincinnati Zoo has a contest every Friday, soliciting photo captions, like the one below:

This particular contest received 346 comments, 149 likes and many voters on the individual comments. That kind of participation is well worth the prize given away. Other ways to encourage participation would be to have a poll, ask for picture and video submissions or simply asking an intriguing question.

3. Respond to your customers’ questions.

Before a joint event with the Zoo and the Cincinnati Reds, I posted a question on the Zoo’s Facebook posting. Someone answered my question in under an hour. By responding to questions quickly, you teach your customers that your Facebook page is a resource they should keep returning to.

4. Be subtle with your sales.

Facebook users are on the site to get updates on their friends, share about themselves, be entertained and learn interesting facts. They aren’t on Facebook to see advertisements on their walls. Here’s a subtle way the Cincinnati Zoo promoted their summer camp:

The Facebook poster shared a child’s experience and asked others to share their children’s experiences. It started a nice dialogue, but the real goal was to educate customers about the existence of a summer camp. It’s fine to occasionally post informational updates about a new product or your annual sale, but do it in a way that will interest your customers. Just posting a picture and a price isn’t enough.

These are just four tips to help your Facebook marketing, and following them is crucial to building a successful presence. There’s lots more to learn to become a Facebook marketing expert, though. If you have specific questions about your business’s unique situation or offerings, feel free to email me: amanda@zooinajungle.com

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Posted in Advertising, Customer Experience, Marketing Theory, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

Marketing Throughout the Lifecycle

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Do you have different marketing strategies for interacting with customers at each phase of the customer lifecycle? Most businesses don’t, but they should. The cost of acquiring a new customer can be quite high– think of traditional metrics like CPM, CPC or less traditional ones like the time spent making unfruitful sales calls and writing proposals. However, the cost of keeping a customer is usually much less. (Additionally, the cost for getting referrals from your customers is often nothing.)

There are many different customer lifecycle models, but I like Steve Yastrow’s. In fact, he wrote a great article about the topic, “Most Companies Stop Marketing.” Here’s his model:

As illustrated, most businesses focus their marketing on helping customers learn about them, then slack off when it comes to purchasing and the ongoing customer relationship. Think of it like the cable TV, wireless phone provider or car insurance model: reel customers in with a great deal, then see how much hassle you can get them to put up with before a competitor entices them with a better deal. Most businesses aren’t quite as blatant as this, but the result is the same– customers get upset or bored with them and move to a competitor.

Your business will have an incredible competitive advantage if you develop and implement marketing strategies for keeping your customers. When competitors lose their customers, those customers will come to you. And these customers will stay with you, breaking the cycle of fickleness.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing Theory, Relationships, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Marketing Podcast: Word of Mouth Marketing

Friday, May 20th, 2011

In this marketing podcast, I talk about word of mouth marketing- the marketing strategy for getting referrals. Word of Mouth Marketing is the most powerful way to get new customers. Why do I think that and what can you do to improve your referrals? Listen to find out!

Listen or download below:

Word of Mouth Marketing

Download the Word of Mouth Marketing MP3 file here. (6.1 MB)

This segment first aired during “Getting Down to Business” on Alaska’s Fox News Talk 1020.

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Posted in Marketing Podcasts, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Word of Mouth Marketing

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful strategy for getting new customers- it’s harnessing the potential for referrals. All good businesses have a treasure trove of customers who love them and could refer them to friends, family or colleagues.

But most businesses take a haphazard approach to referrals. They just hope they happen. In fact, you need to develop strategies for word of mouth marketing. It’s not enough to provide a great product and service, while hoping for the best. Fortunately, word of mouth marketing is not that difficult or costly.

Why is word of mouth marketing important?

People trust their friends and believe their advice about 1000 times more than they believe your advertisements or marketing messagaes. If you are looking for a plumber, who do you trust more for a recommendation, your brother or your phone book? (For the purpose of this article, please assume your brother is reliable.)

Because your potential customers trust referrals, and you have lots of happy customers who can refer you, word of mouth marketing is a profitable proposition. Imagine if half of your customers sent you one referral each year. What would that do for your bottom line?

How do I improve my word of mouth marketing?

Ask your customers for referrals. If they like you, and you ask in a personalized way, your customers will be eager to help you succeed and share helpful advice with their friends, family or colleagues. This seemingly simple step is overlooked by almost every business I’ve been in contact with. It’s easy and effective, so you should start asking your customers for referrals today.

When asking customers for referrals, it is common to reward those customers, but you should reward the referral for buying from you as well. Some customers might feel awkward about recommending something to a friend that they are getting “paid” for – and their friends might be suspicious as well. If everyone involved receives benefit, that concern is lessened.

Besides offering rewards, you can provide your customers with a referral marketing piece that they can use to refer you. For instance, your could give them sample products or supply postcards they can hand out. This approach is effective because it helps them to remember to refer you, gives them something tangible to pass on, and your marketing message will have a better chance to be clearly communicated.

Sometimes, customers don’t have the opportunity to refer you right away, but they might in the future. Think of the plumber example- your brother might not have called a plumber for years. How will he remember which plumber was the best? To get your customers to remember you in crucial referral moments, develop a way to stay top-of-mind with your customers. Offer an informative, interesting or entertaining newsletter; ask them to ‘like’ your frequently-updated Facebook page, or get old-fashioned and mail them something. Madison Tree Care & Landscaping mails me a quarterly newsletter with tree care advice and cute company updates. It’s informative, but more importantly, it helps me remember them. Because I remember them, I refer them. (An added bonus to staying in touch with your customers is that they might just give you more business as well!)

Word of mouth marketing extends beyond the circle of people your customers know. If they write online reviews of your business on a site like Yelp.com, their referrals will live on for years and shape the opinions of people searching online for businesses like yours. So how do get customers to write online reviews? The same way you get them to refer you. Ask them; reward them; give them suggestions.

Small businesses are especially apt to benefit from word of mouth marketing because people feel good about buying from small businesses and referring them, especially if the business is local; knowing about it provides a level of exclusivity, or the owner has a likable personality. You just have to ask!

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Posted in Customers, Internet, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | 3 Comments »

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