Learn six ways to promote your brand and drive online traffic through providing great Customer Service? In this article, we will show you just how to do that! Have you ever noticed that people are more likely to participate in things if they are given an incentive?  Well, if you haven’t, just know it is true.  People like rewards, it is that simple.   

What Does This Mean to You?

Because social media is such a huge deal nowadays, everyone wants to be a part of it, and they all want the same thing out of it: more business!  So how on earth are you supposed to stand out when everyone, including your competition, is doing the exact same thing for the exact same reason?

In this endless frenzy of businesses jumping on the social media bandwagon, it is very easy to lose sight of certain things.  One thing no one should lose sight of though is customer service.  You may be thinking, “Customer service on Facebook?”  Well, yes!  Anytime you are representing your brand, customers and customer service must be what we never lose focus on.

So, how do you drive business, get people onto your website, and have more loyal followers/customers than your competition?  Offer great customer service, and offer rewards.  Rewards are an amazing way to inspire people to visit your pages. 

Let’s check out a few examples so you can see what I mean… 

Available ONLINE ONLY!

Everyone loves a good discount.  But clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper is quickly falling out of fashion.  What is the fad now? Online coupons!  Discount websites, such as Groupon, are exploding in popularity.  People just cannot get enough, and have come to not only love, but expect a certain percent off.

Now What?

Well, if you are looking to drive traffic onto your website, this is a wonderful way to do that.  Offer things that are only available online, and people will not be able to resist.

There are many different ways to go about this, so use your creativity.  You could print codes out on receipts, send out a newsletter with discounts or reach out through social media; sign up with Groupon or other sites that offer similar services.

There are many ways to reach your customer base when offering discounts online.  Just be sure to remember, as with everything online, you must be able to reach your audience the way that they want to be reached, so do not just use one avenue. 

Make it Into a Game.

We all play games, every last one of us-- especially games we can win. So give your fans and followers something to go for!

Sites such as Gowalla, GetGlue and Foursquare, they entice users by making “checking-in” a game.  They will reward you every time you “check-in” by giving you a badge or medal of sorts.  Foursquare has a leader board which shows how many points you have collected compared to your friends and other connections.  So every time you log on, you will see where you rank, and will probably do what you can to make sure you rank at least in the top three.

Now What?

Easy!  Start your own competition! 

How you design the game is up to you, depending on your particular business and customer base.  But give the people who visit your page or site a reason to come back—offer stickers or stamps (preferably branded) to reward your loyal visitors.  Put some creative thought into this so you can make it as interesting as possible.

This method works very well for businesses that survive on their customers making frequent purchases.  I am sure you have all experienced going to a place of business, typically restaurants and the like, and they hand you a card and say that if you get a certain amount of stamps your next burger is free.  It is a similar concept, and it works very well.

For smaller companies, it may be easier to associate with a large brand with an established reputation for this type of reward system, like Foursquare.

Always keep in mind that the end goal is to creative a positive experience for customers, or potential customers.  Be creative and engaging to stand out in their mind as the website that is the most fun, and rewarding, to visit.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

This is a really fun way to promote your brand: include your customers in your advertising!

I know, the idea sounds a little wacky, but it really does work.  Doritos did it by creating a campaign called Make an Ad, Make a Fortune, where customers made commercials for Doritos.  The most popular commercial was broadcast on prime-time television! 

Now What?

Regardless of what form of advertising you use, offering people their moment in the limelight is always going to work.

Give clear instructions so everyone knows what is expected, and encourage everyone to get involved!  That way you are not only promoting the brand, but building a customer base.  Also, if you are still looking for ways to build your online traffic, have the vote take place on your website or social media site.

And the Grand Prize Goes To…

Contests, specifically content-creation contests, are an incredible way of promoting your brand. It’s a method that digitally involves customers, or potential customers, and gets businesses free publicity.  Nothing bad about that!

A recent demonstration of this came in the form of Microsoft’s Cannes 2011 competition, which asked students to create a film showing the usefulness of a Windows 7 PC in a student’s life. 

Now What?

First you have to come up with a great incentive—a prize.  Many people are very creative, but it takes a lot to bring that creativity out.  So what you offer must be very tempting.  For example, the Microsoft Cannes competition offered $8,000, a trip to Cannes for two, parties, and the works.  Needless to say it got people off their couches and behind their cameras.

Granted, very few companies can compete with Microsoft as far as cash prizes go, but giving away free products or services will work well also.  Get your team together and brainstorm!  What do you want to ask people to create, what is the content, and what is their reward?

Areas for Improvement

What is the first brand that comes to mind when it comes to listening to customer feedback?  Starbucks.

Starbucks designed a campaign to make the voices of the customers heard, called “My Starbucks Idea”.  They do this by collecting ideas from their existing customers and allow others to vote on which they would most like to see implemented, and the most popular suggestions are.

Dell also has a similar campaign going called Dell’s Idea Storm, where, like Starbucks, they encourage customer input and actually use their ideas.

 

It’s So Simple

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we get going so fast, that every once and a while we forget about the niceties?  Well, that should simply no longer be overlooked!  One of the best customer rewards systems is to simply say, “Thank you!”

This reward system is meant to go, not only on its own, but with every other method of rewarding your customers we have discussed here today.  The person who films the winning commercial should get a thank-you, as should the one who had the winning idea that brought more business into your establishment, and so on.  A thank-you can even be as modest as sending a thank-you note.  You want to leave the customer feeling as if they are appreciated—and they most certainly are.

Now what?

After using one, or all, of these methods to drive your online customer base, what is next?

Get feedback.  Feedback forms work very well.  A great way to get the feedback and gathering more online followers at the same time is to put those feedback forms on your website or social media sites.  But, whatever you do, do not forget to listen to these comments—they are no use to anyone as just air.

Your customers will know when you have listened, and feel more valued as a result.  And that is what it is all about after all, is it not?  Customer service! 

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

1.  Exposure.

In the MarketingProfs Brands Undervalue Social  Media for Customer Service post, they point out that when social CRM is done well, it provides added benefits of increased exposure for your brand and helps acquire new customers, retain existing customers, and drive brand awareness.

2.  Guerilla Marketing Techniques.

Here are five guerilla marketing techniques offered by Ann Evanston to improve customer experiences in the social sphere.

• Set up strategic search phrases key problems your target market faces such as “slow internet” or “internet connection.”
• Set up search phrases for your business name. These types of searches are easy to set up in Twitter, Market Me Suite, Hootsuite,  and Social Mention and will search blog posts as well.
• Watch the mentions and respond to them! Offer empathy, help, and respond with a suggestion. Show them that you listened.
• When people use your business name positively, saying “thank you” creates a way to “keep in touch” as they are becoming fans and also referral sources (or potential customers).
• If something negative happens, deal with integrity and provide good communication. Don’t delete the negative feedback as this would be like putting your head in the sand. This can show others how gracious you really are in the way you respond.

3.  Interface Across Functions.

In the Community Roundtable’s 2011 State of Community Management Report, they state that community management is increasingly a distinct and separate role with explicit responsibilities for interfacing across many functions to ensure its continuity of care for their community members.

4.  Structural Hole.

This can be seen as the person between two groups who has been taken away. This creates a disconnect between the two groups. According to Community Roundtable, they suggest that recognition may cause companies to rethink about outsourcing their Twitter accounts to their Public Relations Company.

5.  Hub and Spoke

In Jeremiah Owyang’s  hub-and-spoke model,  he illustrates how the model provides a centralized resource to companies. Also, Drew McLellan, in his blog post dated April 20, 2011, recommends that companies should build the web of content creation in a hub-and-spoke model as shown below. He says you need to have a core or hub for all for your social media activity. This means having one place set up as a repository for your core content.

                Image Source:  Altimeter Group.

6.  Variety of Functions.
According to Heidi Cohen of ClickZ Marketing News & Expert Advice, she states that social media has changed how both consumers and companies view customer service. Customer service now fulfills a variety of different functions in addition to enhancing your marketing opportunities. See below 12 ways you can use social media to enhance customer service.

• Give business a human face. Become more personable and build customer trust.
• Listen to what customers are saying. Listen to what consumers are asking, provide a timely response and determine early the warning signs for PR and other issues.
• Proactively engage with prospects and customers. This shows that you are a real company that cares. Accomplish this through tweets, Facebook postings, or eve blogs.
• Provide additional product-related content. Try using other formats such as online videos to blogs showing how to use your products or services.
• Answer product-related questions. This allows your customers to respond to a confused customer with a direct answer and may even turn out to have more authority than coming from your customer service dept.
• Supplies as an alternative contact channel. Remember many companies have not yet started to really embrace suing social media for customer service. This can translate to better service for your customers.
• Gives customers a channel to talk to each other. This is where customers have an environment to have customer-to-customer conversations.
• Share customer feedback. Reviews can help qualify and endorse your products in ways that your team members can’t.  Customers trust other customers.

7.  Questions.

Often answering a consumer’s question takes a back seat to responding to customer complaints. However, providing a timely response to a question will make a customer feel heard and potentially can alleviate customer dissatisfaction.  Be sure to apologize for any missed communications as shown below by L.L. Bean.

8.  Key Stakeholders.

It is important to keep in mind that key stakeholders will care about different parts of your social media and will need access to different types of social media metrics.  In reading Forrester’s white paper titled “Social media Marketing Metrics that Matter: Communicating the Right Data to Internal Stakeholders,” the author points out that the focus of the company was to various internal stakeholders and how each one differed in their company.  Be sure to create frequent reporting of digital metrics to community managers within your company and identify the social media strategists. Reporting metrics are key for annual reporting of branding and reviewing the financial metrics for a return on investment of both time and money spent in social media efforts.

9.  Why Measure.

To have a successful community management, you need to regularly measure your efforts.  According to Dion Hinchcliffe, he points out that if you are not looking at your overall levels of participation, in addition to growth rate of new likes and new members, and making a list of recently disengaged and following up on them, then you are not managing your social media environment at all. There needs to be an understanding of your overall health and momentum in the social media arena and how you directly respond to issues and how you do it every day to be vital for long term success for your efforts.

10. Processes and Policies.

Having a marketing department in place to address customer service and social media needs is essential, but much more is needed in today’s marketplace. Companies are encouraged to put in place a thorough process and policy system for handling customer interactions through social media and technology efforts. According to Drew Kraus in his Gartner paper Emerging Technology Analysis: Social CRM for Customer Service, he stresses that one of the inhibitors for the adoption of a social CRM customer service technology is the lack of having defined processes and policies. Many companies hold off on bringing the new technology into their business practices until optimized processes and policies have been adopted. Instead, many companies are allowing their marketing departments to handle their customer service.  

11.  Template for Social CRM. 

With emergency technology and social media growing at a rapid pace, putting into place a Social CRM for customer service is becoming a best practice format for many companies. Drew Kraus offers actions for technology and service providers with his developed “template” for social CRM using a customer-service delivery process for your customers. This process template allows your business team members to deliver the same quality of standard for customer service through the same services and messages throughout your company.

  12. Wisdom.

Social CRM is about moving your fans and followers to becoming customers and advocates. This is a wise practice as it starts off first as a strategy and then moves to a back-end process and system for managing customer relationships and data within your company in an efficient and process-centric way. The key is being able to understand the business challenges you are looking to solve and then finding a way to solve them. Social CRM is one single component to developing a social or collaborative business that is both internal and external.

13. Zealous.

All of the 13 tips from last week and these 13 tips from this week require constant dedication and devotion. Becoming zealous about maintaining good customer relationships requires forethought and a quick response time from listening in your social media community.

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

We could all learn from the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign there President Barack Obama faced Hilary Clinton and knew he could not compete with Hillary Clinton financially. Instead of the traditional telemarketing and direct mail campaigns or TV and radio advertising, he made new rules. President Obama had a team to help with blogging and he created profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. 

Another smart thing he did was hire co-founder of Facebook Chris Hughes to be his internet strategist. This is how he won the Democratic presidential nomination without spending as much money as his opponent. 

At the time of the election, President Obama had five million fans on Facebook, which was over four million more than Hillary Clinton. On Twitter, he had well over 100,000 followers with his opponent having had about 5,000. On MySpace, the numbers ranged around 800,000 to Hillary Clinton’s 200,000. 

While I am not trying to turn this blog into a political preference, but am saying that we could all learn in our own businesses how to become successful marketers through this successful campaign strategy. 

All this was done just by following the principles of inbound marketing. If you are marketing your business the old-fashioned way, you’re using Outbound Marketing strategies and techniques. Outbound Marketing is the method of throwing your business into the public arena and hoping the “right people” see it and listen to it. Inbound marketing on the other hand is creating a message that only the right target audience would be interested in, and then helping them stumble upon it. 

If you are having trouble seeing and relating to the difference, consider this: 

Outbound marketing - A great example is the 2012 Lexus LFA commercial during the Super Bowl. They probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl when only a tiny fraction of that audience would qualify financially for their vehicles. 

Inbound marketing – The 2012 Lexus LFA could help people who have the income and desire for their vehicles by blogging, posting a video on YouTube and direct to their website through lead generation channels for qualified future customers. 

Both Consumers and Existing Customers are Revolting against In-Your-Face Marketing. 

Did you wake up today and want to have someone just “drop in” your office while you are busy at work to sell to you? Many consumers are fed up with traditional marketing techniques and want to avoid so much interruption throughout the day. They have turned their collective backs on traditional advertising and are looking to friends and family members for advice instead. Consumers know any ad they see is just a sales pitch and probably don’t even need whatever is being advertised. 

However, when they do need a product and/or service, they know their friends and families can help provide them with unbiased testimonials about the products and/or services they like. Tapping into those conversations is one of the new rules of marketing for businesses today. 

With all the spam-blockers for emails, TiVo and Mute buttons, getting found doesn’t mean spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a prime-time commercial that many viewers will mute or fast forward to avoid. Just like putting on an online banner ad for a product that is targeted for an audience of 40+ will not work if put in front of a 21 year old. 

Getting found online means writing extensively how your solution to someone else’s problem will work for that target audience. Write to help people with a problem find your online documents. When moving from outbound to inbound marketing, you need to stop interrupting people within your target market and instead “get found” by them. 

Market in a Way that People Search for Information. 

Do your due diligence research and read and really listen to the way others are shopping for similar products. According to Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, authors of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, “To be successful and grow your business and revenues, you must match the way you market your products with the way your products learn about and shop for your products.” Interruption based marketing is coming to an end due to people becoming much more efficient at blocking out traditional methods of marketing and they are becoming equally efficient at finding trusted information online. 

You no longer need to spend a lot of money interrupting potential customers and instead you need to create remarkable content, optimize the content, publish the content, market that content, and measure what is working and what is not working. Becoming a savvy inbound marketer is half traditional marketer and half content creation marketer. 

According to Halligan and Shah, “On average, inbound marketing leads are 61 percent less expensive than Outbound Marketing leads.” So take a tip from the Democratic election campaign of Barack Obama and cut your marketing bill in half and start a conversation with your customers!