It might seem strange to consider customer service as part of marketing, but it absolutely is. After all, where would you be without your customers?
If you have profiles on review sites like Yelp, be sure to encourage customers to review you there (while staying within guidelines about how you can and cannot solicit reviews).
Make sure your customers have multiple channels to reach you. Calling customer service lines is all but archaic these days, as technologies like chatbots are rapidly replacing them. Social media,too, is a great way to connect with customers where they’re already spending time.
Whatever channels you use to connect with customers, make sure you’re prompt at responding to them, and that you do your very best to remedy a bad experience they’ve had with your brand. How a customer feels after walking away from this interaction will determine whether she buys from you again or refers new business to you.
Do you really know who your target audience is? Please don’t say “everyone.” It’s important to drill down and determine exactly who buys your products and how they like to be marketed to. Today’s how-to will help you do just that.
Make a list of all the attributes of your ideal client. Make her/him into a character, if that helps. If it’s important to understanding your target, describe the kind of clothes she wears, what she enjoys doing, what she eats, where she lives. Also how old she is and how much money she makes are key. If you sell high end jewelry, you are probably not selling to broke college kids.
So Wendy Piersall and I were strolling through an outlet mall in Orlando last week, and the mall sharks were circling. You know, the people who stand at the kiosks in the middle of the mall that squirt you with perfume, take your picture, massage your head or otherwise molest you in the vain hope that you will buy their product?
“Look away, Wendy, look away. Do NOT make eye contact,” I hissed.
I didn’t check to see if she obeyed, but at least three vendors aggressively tried to stop us as we sprinted away. I said to Wendy, “Boy, how do they expect to sell with that technique?”
She looked at me knowingly and said, “Blog post!” So here we are.