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Think about a product or service that does everything it’s supposed to do, rarely breaks down and comes with a reasonable level of support. For Rohit Bhargava, his cable service, which he bundles with Internet access, falls into this category. Though he wouldn’t call the package price a bargain, it’s not overly expensive; and when he did have a problem, the company quickly resolved the issue. “By every metric you could choose to assign to my experience,” he says at the Influential Marketing Blog, “I’m a satisfied customer.”
You’re waiting for the “but,” though, and here it is: “If something even slightly better came along as another option for me, ” he says, “I would switch without hesitation.” This, he argues, is the line between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty; while satisfied customers will jump ship at the first reasonable opportunity, loyal customers will find reasons to stay, even if you slip up once in a while.
According to Bhargava, achieving this kind of loyalty requires more than good customer service.
Your product or service must deliver on its promise.
Your brand’s personality must give your customers a sense of belonging and participation.
If your customers are merely satisfied, it’s time to work on their loyalty. “The fact is,” says Bhargava, “in today’s market customer satisfaction doesn’t matter as much as customer loyalty.”
Source: Influential Marketing Blog.
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“For too long, too many marketers have underestimated the value of email’s impact on offline retail,” say Lisa Harmon and Alex Madison in a post at the Email Experience Council blog. If you focus entirely on generating online sales, they argue, you might be missing out on bricks-and-mortar opportunities. They’ve seen retailers use multichannel “noteworthy tactics” like these:
In-store discounts that are unavailable online. The pair cite an email offer from Betsey Johnson touting a special perk for in-store shoppers: a gift card worth at least $25 for those who spend $250 or more.
Images and copy that heighten the appeal of an in-store visit. “Apple reminds subscribers … of their great in-store service by including a picture of a blue-shirted expert alongside store offerings,” they say, “and also by using beautiful store photography to make subscribers eager to experience in-store shopping.”
Personalized invitations. Have your sales associates write personal emails with an invitation to a special in-store event. Nordstrom, for instance, did this when inviting its most loyal customers to a special sneak-peek ahead of an anniversary sale.
Link your 2D and 3D. “Remember that there’s likely much overlap between your most loyal email subscribers and your loyal store visitors,” say Harmon and Madison. If you haven’t leveraged that crossover, try using strategies like these to help make it happen.
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“Now more than ever, the email channel in particular is being asked to contribute higher revenue,” says Stephanie Miller in a post at the Daily Fix blog. “Yet, we all must make that happen with existing (or lower) resources.” Reaching that goal requires innovation, and Miller reports on a number of ways that panelists who took part in a discussion at the virtual MarketingProfs Digital Marketing World conference have managed to work a few miracles. Among their initiatives, they:
Customize landing pages. Wendy Croissant of Sierra Trading Post tailors offers for visitors linking from certain locations. “She’s seen a significant rise in response on those pages,” says Miller, “even when just the image and headline are unique to the audience.”
Reactivate subscribers. Winning back an uninterested subscriber can be difficult, but it can work. Sal Tripi of Publishers Clearinghouse “uses his direct mail to reach out,” notes Miller, “but does so within 90 days of the last email action, so he knows the subscriber is still … ‘warm.'”
Capture everywhere. Stephen Gilberg of Happy Hours invites customers to sign up for email alerts at every touch point. “We ask them if they want email reminders for this one event, or every event,” Gilberg says. “Choice helps them feel confident that we will respect their inbox,” he notes.
Innovate! According to Miller, you might face resistance from colleagues: “It takes courage and fortitude to advocate for a great subscriber experience when all everyone else wants to do is ‘blast’ the file over and over.” But happy customers will make it worth your effort.
Source: MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog.
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A lot of CEOs seem to shy away from blogging. And a lot of PR teams keep asking, “Why?” Actually, it’s understandable: the head honcho must always represent the entire company, and that’s a lot of pressure for a writer. The real question should be: How can a CEO blog by day and still sleep at night?
Enter Tom Glocer, CEO of Thomson Reuters. Glocer is the head of a vast team of top-notch writers, yet he still produces an engaging blog without fear. His secret? He never talks business.
“We are all subject to a lot of official communications these days from companies,” Glocer says at Tom Glocer’s Blog. “All too often, these are ghost-written passages concocted by overeager PR machines.” Well, that doesn’t happen in this blog. Glocer alone writes it, and he only writes about “what interests me.”
Is it working? Well, a recent two-part report on father/daughter bonding, including his account of their Night at the Museum together, has so far garnered close to 1,000 pageviews. Not bad.
“I imagine much of my audience will be internal at Thomson Reuters,” he notes in his intro. But that’s OK, too. He’s letting the blog determine its audience. “My real aim is to engage in an electronic dialog with whomever [sic] wants to comment on a post or otherwise share their views,” he concludes.
It’s OK to be you, even at the top. Engaging blogs like this one help prove the point that above all, blogging works best when it’s personal and individual.
Source: Tom Glocer’s Blog.
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“Evangelism” is the catchword of the day. Companies are diligently turning their customer-service reps into “evangelists.” How precious. But is there something behind this movement? Is evangelism actually taking CRM to a new level? Ben McConnell thinks so, and he cites an example at the Church of the Customer Blog. “It’s one thing for your company to say, in blog posts and email newsletters, that it loves customers,” says McConnell. “It’s another thing to go out and do the hard work of brand grassroots-building, and demonstrate it face-to-face.”
That’s what he says Betsy Weber, chief evangelist at Michigan software company TechSmith, does daily. “[Betsy is] building a passionate fan base for TechSmith by meeting customers and being the warm, caring person she is naturally,” he notes. He cites some of her evangelical numbers. Over the past six years, Betsy has:
- Met 7,000 customers in person
- Attended 30 conferences per year
- Picked up 3,000 followers on Twitter
Have her efforts paid off? Apparently so. “TechSmith has done well in that time: double-digit revenue growth every year,” McConnell says.
The message for marketers? Be a good listener. The old model of talking the talk (hawking your products to a mass market) has shifted to walking the walk (letting your customers have their say, and adjusting your offerings accordingly).
Walk that extra CRM mile. These days, engaging with customers across a range of media is a real key to keeping them loyal.
Source: Church of the Customer Blog
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Not long ago, Avinash Kaushik posed this question via Twitter: “Inspire me: If there is one web analytics question you want answered what would it be? What’s your juiciest/mundane, daily, challenge?” The tweet generated a huge response, and in a post at his Occam’s Razor blog he answers a number of queries that range from the serious to the lighthearted:
How do you convince people to look beyond page impressions for usable measurable metrics? In essence, replies Kaushik, you must demonstrate why the aggregate metric cannot measure or reflect customer behavior. He advises the gradual integration of analysis based on metrics like visitor loyalty and length of visits. For instance, report the number of impressions, but note that visitors from Source X had more impressions.
I want analytics data justifying the removal of main navigation:-) Kaushik offers a facetious commendation on the reader’s bravery before responding with a serious response that applies to any concept, however solid or foolhardy: “You have only one option,” he says. “Test!”
According to Kaushik, your focus should be on the three basic outcomes a website can deliver: increasing revenue; reducing costs; and improving customer loyalty and satisfaction. “When in doubt ask yourself if what you are doing falls into one of those three buckets,” he says. “If it does, keep going. If not then I suggest you revisit what you are doing.”
Source: Occam’s Razor.
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In an article at MarketingProfs, Mack Collier explains why it pays to obsess about the traffic coming to your blog. Here are some of the key questions you should be asking:
Where do my readers come from? If you see a sudden spike in traffic, it’s worth finding out why this happened. “Was it one blog link?” asks Collier. “Or did one blog link to your blog, then three other blogs saw the first link and added a link on their sites? Or did a prominent Twitter user send a link to followers on Twitter?” When you have the answer, you’ll know where to step up your social-media efforts.
When do people visit my blog? Maybe you’ve noticed bloggers rarely post anything on Saturday or Sunday. “The reason is that most people read fewer blog posts on the weekend,” says Collier, “so bloggers have decided that it makes more sense to publish new posts during the week.” It makes sense to align your publication schedule with your traffic. If readers tend to visit first thing on Monday morning, for instance, don’t publish a new post on Tuesday afternoon when it’s likely to be ignored.
What catches their eye? Flag the posts that receive the most comments—this is an easy way to gauge your audience’s interest in various topics. “The information you gather will help you create posts that are interesting and valuable to your readers,” Mack Collier says, “and that will increase your blog’s traffic.”
Keeping tabs on how and when your readers arrive at your blog can improve its content—and keep them coming back for more.
Source: MarketingProfs.
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I
n a post at the Brains of Fire blog, Spike Jones tells the story of Pizzeria Delfina, a San Francisco establishment that chose not to ignore its one-star reviews at Yelp. Instead, the restaurant printed up employee T-shirts with gems like “This place sucks” and “The pizza was soooo greasy. I am assuming this was in part due to the pig fat.”
Is this restaurant crazy, or crazy like a fox? Feedback to the blog post is mixed, but includes thoughts from a Pizzeria Delfina regular. “I have to say,” she says, “knowing how good their pizza is, and knowing what their employees are like (pleasantly truculent), this t-shirt idea is brilliant. It reinforces the feeling that their REAL customers are special. It makes us (REAL customers) feel like we alone are capable of appreciating truly great pizza.”
Another commenter worries, though, that idea might inspire others to create fake reviews: “Now people will write negative reviews on Yelp in the hope they too can be featured on a t-shirt.”
Jones offers this Marketing Inspiration. “Embrace the fact that some people hate you,” he says. “It’s so great to know that not every one is drinking your Kool-Aid or sitting in your camp. It’s what makes the world go ’round. And by embracing the negative, it will make you better. It will show that you’re listening. And you’ll soon find out that the haters make the lovers love you even more.”
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Just because an email strategy works for one company—even one very like yours—that doesn’t mean it will automatically work for you. “This is due to different cultures and expectations,” says Debra Ellis in an article at MarketingProfs. “The only way you will know the best strategy for your organization is to test.” Sure, “test and test again” has gained cliché status in the industry, but that’s because testing works.
Here’s a sample from Ellis of an easy A/B test that can produce great data. With your next email, she advises, send your “A” group the original version of your message. For your “B” group, though, make only the following changes:
If you normally use a generic corporate address (eg, companyx@companyx.com), switch it to the name of an actual person whom most customers will recognize (eg, presidentx@companyx.com). Though you can create an inbox specifically for this test, many of Ellis’ clients channel replies to the individual sender’s actual account.
Open the message with a short, personal note from the sender that includes the customer’s name in the salutation and closes with the sender’s signature.
“Keep everything else the same,” Ellis says. What will this accomplish? It will help you “[c]ompare your open, click-through, and response rates” using simple personalization elements.
Being testy can be a good thing. “The best email strategy isn’t created,” says Ellis, “it evolves. Test something with every mailing.”
Source: MarketingProfs
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These days, companies are scrambling to stay competitive. Is there a silver bullet out there that can help? Something to get you through these tough times? According to Geoffrey Moore at TCG Advisors, it all comes down to focus.
Moore offers a guide for achieving a company-wide focus that can help clarify your goals, simplify your tasks and solidify your standing in this difficult marketplace. Among his tips:
Declare your company’s core. First, decide who you are. “We call the job of identifying a single focal point for your organization’s competitive success declaring core,” Geoffrey Moore explains. “Core, in this sense, is that which sets your company and its offerings apart from the competition. … It is the reason that customers and partners will choose you. It is your claim to fame.”
Separate the chaff from the grain. “When you declare core, certain projects immediately come to the fore,” he says. This is where you put your funding, your energy and your support. All other projects need to take a back seat for a while, Moore advises. “These must be resourced, but at the margin; you will pare back here.”
The result? By clearly telling clients who you are, you’ll encourage their business in uncertain times. “Think … Dell on supply and delivery chain systems, Nike on inspirational branding, Google on scalability,” Moore says.
Declare your story and stick to it. Define one clear purpose for all that you do; that focus could help see you through until the upturn.
Source: TCG Advisors.
Think about a product or service that does everything it’s supposed to do, rarely breaks down and comes with a reasonable level of support. For Rohit Bhargava, his cable service, which he bundles with Internet access, falls into this category. Though he wouldn’t call the package price a bargain, it’s not overly expensive; and when he did have a problem, the company quickly resolved the issue. “By every metric you could choose to assign to my experience,” he says at the Influential Marketing Blog, “I’m a satisfied customer.”
