Envisioning Success

Build Customer Loyalty-Utilizing Your Website – Part III

Posted by Chris Shockley under Marketing, Web Design

Review

Ok, so you’ve started giving your customers little nuggets, maybe some insider information or extra articles that you don’t just give away to everyone. Perfect.

Getting More Meaningful

Your customers are just like you; They have opinions they’ll happily share with others.  They might even want to get involved with various charitable causes.

While this next suggestion is not intended to be a direct selling tool (meaning that you do this for the purpose of selling in some artificial way) it may increase sales.

This is more about showing your company to be honestly interested in your customers and the community.

Get them Engaged

The internet is a great place to connect with your customers and to offer information about what you’re doing. Right now the two places to do this that are getting lot so media coverage are Facebook and Twitter (these links are to my pages so you can see what I’m talking about). NOTE: Feel free to become a fan (Facebook) and Follow Me (on Twitter).

You may have heard the term “Social Media” and these are it.

In the end it is simply a way to build relationships with people. The fact that you are using a non personal computer to do it seems a little contradictory, but the words (posts and comments) aren’t written by the computer. You and your customers will be engaging in conversations ranging from products reviews to where you went sailing. Take it as far as you like, but be sure to find out the best way to utilize the social media opportunities.

Facebook on Steroids

Keiran Murray of Extreme Networking 101 teaches the best Facebook Webinar around (if you live in the Tacoma area they have in person classes as well I believe). If you want to use Facebook to it’s fullest potential, get in that class. Oh, and be committed to actually putting into practice the things you learn. They make it fun and easy and you can even build your Facebook page during the class!

Using Facebook will give you a predesigned platform to connect with your customers. There is no subscription free and it’s all there already. You can start with just having your photo and a company logo. Facebook has everything else built into it. Of course, the more effort you put into it, the better it will be and the greater the potential benefit.

Twitter

Twitter is a bit less interactive. It’s more of a way to get information out quickly for people to access. While they can respond it just isn’t quite as nice of way to build relationships in my opinion. However, before you write it off, consider that it might be the way to get a customer to take a next step to visit your website or Facebook page. You can send out tips, tricks and offers, all the while continually pointing them to your website. If you consider that as it’s purpose you may find value in it. And remember, it costs nothing but  a little bit of time to write little posts regularly.

Causes

Beyond day to day communication, using your website, Facebook, etc to draw customers to charitable causes is a great way to do three things very efficiently

1. Get people involved with the event/cause
2. Develop a stronger bond with your customers
3. Long term profits (This is residue benefit that comes to companies that honestly give back)

Getting involved

You help the cause, your customers feel good about helping. How great is that? And if you sponsor the cause/event you get to be face (driving force of the cause) that your customers will associate.

Develop a Bond

Does the idea of developing actual deeper relationships with your customers seem weird to you? Why, because you feel strange charging them at that point? Having close/strong connections with your customer is good for both you and the customer. They get to know you and that way they don’t have to go out and “take a chance” with the next guy. They can relax because they know you’ll take care of them.

Long Term View

By becoming involved in the community you are setting yourself up to experience long term profits. It does take time and you should find a cause that you are truly interested in. Something you might support regardless. Over time, people will respond to your commitment and you will gain credibility all around. Unfortunately sometimes we feel funny tooting our own horn. We want to donate with the “christian ideal” of not letting anyone know about it. There is not contradiction here. Don’t tell how much you’re giving, but by being an advocate for the cause you are merely drawing others to it.

Conclusion

By having these things hooked into your website you can quickly make updates/changes with very little cost. Let your website get to work for you. By investing a little creativity, and yes a little money too, you can turn your website into a revenue/referral source.

Of course you’ll want to start tracking these things, but that is another article….