1. Most don’t want a relationship with you. They want easy shopping, good value (different from cheap prices), and to be treated with respect. Make everything as simple and quick as possible so it is easy to be your customer.
2. The few who do want a relationship with you, don’t want to be managed. They want a real connection with a real person. If you are afraid to empower your team to be personable and approachable, stay away from social media.
3. Every time you change your website to make it fresh, they have to relearn how to use it. If you keep making changes because you’re bored with the look, they’ll stop visiting
4. You can reach out to them more often if the information is timely and targeted. Bombarding them with the same old marketing may generate short-term revenue gains, but it doesn’t build loyalty.
5. They don’t expect perfection in every transaction. They do expect quick resolution to all issues. This means only one contact is needed to get a satisfactory solution.
6. Most prefer self-service to direct contact (57% according to a survey by Customer Contact Council). Make sure that you have tools available for them to use.
7. They don’t care how your systems work. They do care about how it affects them. If your system issues keep you from providing the right service, design manual work-arounds to fix it.
8. The only difference between you and your competition is the service that goes along with the sale. If your focus is on price, someone will come along with a lower one.

Related posts:

1. When Customers Behave Badly – 3 Reasons to Fire Your Customers
2. How to Show Your Customers You Care (Even When You Don’t Have to!)
3. Direct Marketing & Blogging: Engaging Customers One Post at a Time

The combination of laryngitis and integrated marketing expertise led to an interesting doctor visit this week. I’d been battling a cold for a week when my voice disappeared overnight. The only thing I could do was whisper softly. Two days later, it wasn’t back so I had my sister call for a same day appointment. (How do people make doctor appointments when they don’t have a voice, online scheduling, or handy friend?)

It was my doctor’s first day back from vacation, so I was surprised he had time to see me. After an exam, instructions to rest my voice (as in NO talking), and a prescription for antibiotics, my doctor said that he needed to ask me something. I presumed that it was something to do with my health or one of my family members, so when he asked, “has capturing information replaced service?” I was surprised.

He told me that they traveled to the northeast to visit a park for their vacation. When they tried to check in, the process was exhausting. He commented that the attendant didn’t seem to know the process very well, but that was only a small part of the problem. She had to use two different computers and a separate payment processing system to complete the transaction. Once the check-in challenges were resolved, his family enjoyed their stay so much that they decided to spend an extra night. Extending the stay was worse than the original check-in.

When does the value of capturing information exceed the value of the customer experience?

The real question he wanted me to answer was “when does the value of capturing information exceed the value of the customer experience?” The obvious answer, “NEVER”, sounds good (and is easy when you don’t have a voice), but it isn’t that simple. Some information is required before the customer experience begins. Payment is needed for the company to stay in business. And, there are the security identification requirements for overnight housing. After capturing these items, the rest is for future data mining efforts.

The problem is that there won’t be any reason to mine data if the experience is so bad that customers don’t want to return. My doctor said that even though he loved the park experience, the check-in process would keep him from visiting again.

The tragedy is that most of the information captured today by our super computers isn’t being used to benefit company or customer. The idea, “we may need it someday”, sacrifices the customer experience for the hope of future gains. Is that investing wisely?

It’s easy to be caught up in the “capture everything, something will be valuable” mentality.

I’ve even been known to say it, but I didn’t mean to do it at the expense of service. If we don’t step back and look at our practices from the customer’s viewpoint, then our information gathering won’t help our businesses grow. It’ll destroy them.

We need to take steps now to find the balance between data acquisition and customer service. Here are four warning signs that capturing data has replaced customer care as a top priority:

1. There is a high abandonment rate when people reach the “more” information page when subscribing to your emails or joining your loyalty program. The objective is to connect with your customers and prospects. Requiring them to provide detailed information about themselves and their interests increases resistance. Ask nicely, but don’t require it.
2. It takes more time to capture information than it does to complete the transaction. It is very frustrating for customers when they have to provide extensive information for a simple transaction. Capture the minimum amount of information needed to process the order. Once it is complete, ask if they would like to share more information. Offer a discount on their next order in exchange.
3. Your management team spends more time on analytics than customer care. Knowing the numbers that drive your business is important, but knowing your customers is even better. Use your numbers to improve your service, not to replace it. Keep your focus on your customers to insure that they have an exceptional customer experience.
4. Training sessions for your customer care team are on how to use the system instead of how to connect with customers. When you invest your time in teaching your frontline how to please your customers, you’ll have multiple opportunities to capture the data. Your customers will keep coming back.

Related posts:

1. What Warning Signs are Hidden in Your Customer File?
2. Multichannel Service, Social Media, and A Shopping Experience to Write About
3. How Are Your Company’s Vital Signs?

Launching an ebook is a scary process.

When you finish spilling your blood across the pages, sharing your expertise and experiences, there is a unique product ready for public consumption. The work that went into your manuscript is only the beginning. The next step, marketing your guide, is the hardest part. At least, it was for me until I discovered the best kept secret in social media.

Please bear with me a minute while I share a little history. I promise to tell you the secret and how to use it in a bit. It’ll be worth the wait. I’ll even include the results from my tests.

“Social Media 4 Direct Marketers” (SM4DM) is not my first venture into the world of ebooks, but it is my most successful. Each of the guides I created has the elements required for a successful information product. They are written for a specific market. They provide actionable information for growing companies, improving service, and increasing profits. The people who bought them became active participants in my community. But, none of them came close to the success of SM4DM.

There were two differences – participation and promotion.

Previous efforts were created and released with limited views prior to the launch. Perhaps it was the fear of criticism or theft that kept me from reaching out. Maybe it was just lack of time. Whatever the reason, the guides were written and released without external review.

When SM4DM was finished (or so I thought), I reached out to a select group of people for feedback. A few didn’t respond to the request. The ones who provided assistance were invaluable. Here’s a quick shout-out to the people who gave their time to improve my guide:

Amy Africa’s encouragement and wisdom improved my focus, content, and marketing.

Ernie Schell provided detailed notes on things that needed improving and promotion.

Jay Baer reminded me that some people aren’t fluent in direct marketing terminology.

Lisa Petrilli provided the title, emotional support, and promotion.

Mack Collier offered suggestions and promoted it on twitter.

Nathan Hangen said that I needed to make my PDF “pop” and provided referrals to amazing graphic artists.

Sharon Mostyn helped me edit the manuscript, review the graphics, and promote the guide.

After a rewrite and graphic redesign, SM4DM was ready for a soft introduction. I chose to start slow instead of having a major launch because I wanted to test my marketing strategy. You can take the girl out of direct marketing, but it’s impossible to get the direct marketer out of the girl! If there is a way to test something, I’m going to find it.

A guide written to help people improve social media’s effectiveness and efficiency needs effective and efficient marketing. My tool of choice was Objective Marketer (OM) because of the scheduling and landing page features. My travel and work schedules don’t allow me to maintain a constant online presence. OM allows me to schedule my informational tweets so my available online time is spent on one-to-one interaction.

It was through the use and testing of this software that I discovered the secret.

I’ve been a fan of OM since first testing it last year. My only issue with the software was that it was in beta testing mode. Normally I avoid beta products because of the challenges that randomly appear. I rarely have time to test software. The feature rich tool reduced that resistance with scheduling options, analytics, and page frames. Sometimes during the testing process, it seemed that there were as many bugs as there were features. This always happens with new software. Problems appear when users push functionality beyond the programming limits. I’m very good at pushing limits so I found several challenges.

Beta users expect issues. They report them and wait for a response. It often comes with excuses or notification that the bugs won’t be fixed any time soon. OM was different. Amita Paul, the CEO, is extremely responsive. Most problems were corrected within hours.

My investment in testing OM was rewarded when I discovered the landing page functionality. Quite frankly, the other issues didn’t matter anymore because this one feature is a game changer. OM allows you to share content without sending people away from your site.

Did you get that? It is the best kept secret in social media.

It is so simple, it almost sneaks by without being noticed. Instead of sending your customers and prospects unaccompanied into the World Wide Web jungle, OM allows you to be their escort! They can go where you take them and find their way back to you with a click.

Navigating people away from my site (or my clients’) has always been a point of frustration for me. It contradicts everything I know about marketing. If the goal is to engage people in your community, how do you do it when you send them away?

I know all of the theories about how they’ll find their way back and be grateful for the detour. Some of them do come back, but how many get lost along the way? Why not make it easy? The landing page frames in OM allow you to simultaneously share content and guide people to your site and/or products.

The concept to frame the page is brilliant. You create a header that appears over the content you’re sharing. It can be simple with a link and a logo. Objective Marketer provides a form that allows you to add basic information. Or, with a little html, you can create a sophisticated header that features banners, imbedded videos, and subscription forms.

My first effort at framing was almost subliminal. I was very nervous about including anything remotely promotional. The frame included the Wilson & Ellis Consulting butterfly logo and links to our website, blog, and sales page for SM4DM (See red arrow on image of Yahoo! with my header):

Click on the image to see it live!

Receiving the first click was quite exciting. Unfortunately, the excitement faded quickly. The first click was also the last one. Hundreds of impressions yielded only one click for a 0.05% click through rate.

The next step was to increase the prominence of the links and improve the SEO. Notice that the title is “Content shared by Wilson & Ellis Consulting”. This is text indexed by search engines.

Click on the image to see it live!

It provided a better click through rate of 0.37% . The improvement was encouraging, but it wasn’t enough to celebrate.

It was time to get more aggressive. The boxed links were replaced with a promotional banner.

Click on the image to see it live!

The response shot up to 4.54%. But, I wasn’t finished. The gloves were coming off. I added a blue background, social media links to the frame, and keywords to the title. “Content shared by Wilson & Ellis Consulting” became “Mobile Marketing Article shared by Wilson & Ellis Consulting.” Keywords were chosen based on the content being shared. “Mobile Marketing” is changed to “Email Marketing” or “Integrated Marketing” depending on the featured article.

Click on the image to see it live!

Click through rates skyrocketed. They consistently range from 26.67% to 55.17%!

Sales of the SM4DM guide begin to increase, driven by the traffic generated from framed links. It was a heady experience that is sustainable because the story doesn’t end there. In true direct marketing form:

“But, wait! There’s more!”

Adding the title to the frame with specific keywords improves your search engine optimization. There’s been an increase to the natural search traffic to our website. Sales of the other guides are increasing. And there haven’t been any complaints about the header. It’s a winning strategy.

Whether you’re launching an ebook, promoting a product, or offering a service, adding a header is a great way to guide people to your website when you share links. Here are some tips to help you do it well:

• Create multiple headers to coordinate with the content you are sharing. The better they match, the higher the click through rate.
• Don’t make your header too big. People clicked your link to see the content. If the header is all they see when they land, you’ll lose their confidence.
• Test, document, compare, retest. Testing helps you improve with every link.
• If a printable version of the article or post is available, use it. This provides more visibility for your header.
• Add appropriate keywords (yes, OM has a place for that) with each header. Limit the list to six and don’t place a header on content where the keywords don’t match. (We don’t want to confuse the search engines.)
• Don’t be afraid to be creative, but keep it consistent with your brand.

UPDATE: Objective Marketer 3.0 has been released. It is out of beta and fully loaded to make your social media efforts efficient and effective!

Now get out there and start guiding your community. How do you think it will help your business?

Click here for more information about our best selling guide:

Check out Objective Marketer for yourself by clicking here:

Related posts:

1. Why Social Media Matters to Direct Marketers
2. How to Measure the Unknown for Social Media Initiatives
3. How to Move Beyond the Cluetrain Manifesto to Get Results from Social Media

When “The Cluetrain Manifesto” appeared in the spring of 1999, early adopters embraced it as the marketing guide for the new millennium. Web 2.0 started to change the way people interact online. Social networks began to appear and be embraced by people seeking connections with others without boundaries.

The first thesis in the manifesto, “markets are conversations” morphed into the mantra “it’s all about the conversation.” Advocates of the new social media marketing world cried for the elimination of direct marketing, calling it obsolete and archaic.

They got it half-right. Conversations are invaluable to building relationships between your company and customers. Social media provides unprecedented access to people with needs and wants that your organization can fulfill.

The new gurus missed one key point when they redefined marketing. Tools change, but human nature remains the same. There is a reason that the promotions created decades ago still work. They use the emotional triggers hard wired within our DNA.

Social media enhances direct marketing.

It doesn’t replace it. It makes it more effective. The combination of an interactive social media presence with proven direct marketing techniques improves customer loyalty, expands the marketing reach, and reduces costs.

When I started my social media experience several years ago, I began by studying the activity in the web 2.0 world. I found that there were continuous cries for keeping direct marketing out of the conversations. How-to articles said that if you provided good content in your blogs and conversations, it would naturally progress into sales.

But when I studied the leaders, I found that their behavior didn’t match accepted social media guidelines.

While the steps varied, every one had a systematic approach that moved people from conversations to sales. They also had an established infrastructure that supported their marketing efforts.

My move from observation to participation began with the creation of the Multichannel Magic blog. It was designed to provide tips and tactics to help people grow their businesses. After three months of writing posts with few readers, I joined Twitter. I tweeted and posted for another three months with very little effect on my traffic and no lead generation.

The purpose of business is to serve customers at a profit.

This is when I went back to the basics. The purpose of business is to serve customers at a profit. My social media efforts weren’t serving or profiting. Conversations don’t motivate people unless they include a call to action.

Clients started asking me about social media. They wanted to know if there was any value in it. My instinct told me that there was, but I didn’t have proof to support it. Actively testing it as a viable marketing tool was the only way to know for certain. If I could use it to grow my business, then we could adapt the process for our clients.

It’s always best to start with what you know. Being a diehard direct marketer, I started a free gift campaign. My gift was a series of marketing and operations tips. The product was newsletter subscriptions. It was a systematic approach designed to introduce my consulting firm to a broader market and provide lead generation.

The experiment has been successful. It has created speaking and writing opportunities and attracted new clients. There have been missteps along the way, but the experience has made me a passionate social media advocate.

Integrating social media into your marketing mix remains a trial and error process.

What works for one company will fail another. There are ways to minimize the time and resources required to find the right mix for your organization. Start by learning from others who have gone ahead. Then create your own strategy.

The best strategy will not work without execution. Finding the right balance between conversation and conversion is the key to a successful integration of social media and traditional marketing. It is different for every organization. Testing and measuring the effect is the only way to find your perfect balance.

Note: This post is an excerpt from “Social Media 4 Direct Marketers“. In it, you’ll find information about platforms and tools to minimize your learning curve. There are examples of companies doing it well and steps for creating the best strategy for your organization including how to measure the unknown. I’ve done the heavy lifting so you can move quickly into a successful implementation.

Related posts:

1. Finding the Best Social Media & Direct Marketing Strategy for Your Company
2. Why it’s Hard to Sell Social Media to Direct Marketing Management
3. Why Social Media Matters to Direct Marketers

You used to value our relationship. When I lived in Atlanta, you sent me flyers before every sale. I loved flipping through the pages to see the treasures you had found for me. Are you mad because I moved? If so, would you please explain why?

I tried to let you know by submitting a change of address at one of your stores. When I didn’t receive your flyers, I filled out a form in the Asheville store. Months went by, but no flyers. I asked one of your sales associates to check on it, but she didn’t have access to the information. She suggested that I add my address to the form again.

I did because I want your flyers. I didn’t like it because I was second person to add my contact information. This meant that my personal information was in full view of everyone who visited your store until the page was full. It seems invasive and cavalier in an age where identity theft is prevalent.

Of course, you are only asking for contact information, but I want to control who has access to my email and home addresses. If that seems odd, so be it. In case you didn’t know, you need people like me more than we need you.

Your success is dependant on loyal customers. I am one. Surprisingly, it took completing your form five times (yes, you read that right), to receive your flyers. I shop at your store often. My mom goes once or twice a year, mostly when I drag her there. When you decided to move from North Asheville to Tunnel Road, you sent her an invitation to visit the new store and offered a $5 discount. I got nothing. Nada.

I stopped by your store yesterday. The old one that is being gutted at this time. There was a sign to tell me that you had moved. It was a little hurtful because I notified you in advance when I moved several years ago. After all, we live in an era of relationship marketing, email, and social media. One might think that telling the people who help you keep the lights on you are moving would be a good idea.

The real pain came from finding out that several neighbors who rarely (in some cases NEVER) visit your store received the postcard too. It was definitely an added insult to a serious injury. Maybe it hurts me more because I know how easy it is to segment a customer file. And, that mailing a $5 discount postcard usually generates a good return on investment.

I wonder if I’m the only one. Or, are there thousands of other good customers out there who are lost to poor database housekeeping? Because, you see, that’s the problem. Your process is outdated and broken. Having a signup sheet at the checkout for customers to leave their name and address was a good idea in 1960. Today, computers work much better. I understand that your point of sale system may not allow that and you’re trying to be fiscally responsible, but you’re losing money by not staying in touch with your customers. Why not test an electronic system at a few stores and then measure the return?

You’ll save on data entry time, improve the turnaround between signup and delivery, and generate more sales. I promise.

Or, you could capture telephone numbers instead of zip codes. When I check out, the cashiers always ask for my zip code. It’s useful information if you’re planning newspaper inserts or resident mailings. If you really want to target your customers, capture their telephone numbers. You can use it to get their addresses and capture activity data.

So many things allow you to stay in touch with your customers today. Some are easy and economical. I’m hoping you try some of them so it will help your business. But if you’re not willing to take a big step, please set me up to receive all of your marketing. It would be a start.

Sincerely,

Debra

PS: If you aren’t with Tuesday Morning and you’re reading this, make sure that your customers don’t feel the same way. Invest your time and resources in making your processes and databases clean and efficient.

Related posts:

1. Five Ways to Respond to Natural Disasters that Your Customers Will Love
2. Dear Jane Customer, It has been nice knowing you.
3. Dear Customer, You are Cordially Invited to Complain