Archive for February, 2012
iPriorities. A {growtoon}.
Feb 3rd
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Kacy Maxwell is a guy who loves his work, family and a good challenge. See more of his cartoons at EverythingIsMedia.com.
Six ways to turn Yelp into your most effective marketing channel
Feb 2nd
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
-Jeff Bezos, Founder/CEO Amazon
Guest post by {grow} community member Kathi Kruse
How important is it for your to look your best to a potential customer? Today many companies are still ignoring what’s said about them online, both positive and negative. Some want to put their heads in the sand and wait until the Internet “just blows over.” Folks, your customer is online most of their day and night. They’re talking about you. Pretending they aren’t is a risky proposition.
Your customer loves the consumer review site Yelp. Why? It’s local and it’s easy to use. They look forward to sharing their experiences because it allows them to invest in the community … and in turn get value from the experiences of others.
For many consumer businesses, online reviews are becoming a critical component of decision-making. Car shoppers, for example, are increasingly relying on Yelp and other ratings sites. 84% of people say that online reviews influence their buying decision (Nielsen). Reviewers can also gain influence. Many of these reviews and consumer experiences also reverberate through Twitter and Facebook.
Make no mistake, Yelp can make or break many businesses. For many B2C and service businesses, Yelp may be the most important marketing channel!
What’s the best way to make sure you’re getting some customer love on Yelp?
The key is to have a rock-solid internal process for capturing and maintaining a steady stream customers who are willing to write reviews. Understandably, many of your frontline sales personnel may feel awkward about asking for a review, but you can put it in a way that makes the customer comfortable: “Our business is based on referrals. Would you take a moment to visit Yelp and refer us to your friends and family?” This is a great start to your internal process but it’s only the beginning.
I’ve developed a proactive system of capturing reviews and maintaining a consistent stream of “referrals” from your customers. Here are six ways to get your Yelp groove on:
1. Designate an Online Reputation go-to person who’ll take ownership of your implementation plan. They will be responsible for getting grassroots participation from your staff, as well as monitor and respond to the community.
2. Signage. Create awareness with your customers and your staff. Display “Love Us on Yelp!” signs throughout the store. Entryways, sales offices, customer waiting area, customer service and the cashier area. Give customers a card to take with them that reminds them you’re on Yelp. Put memos on paychecks, repair orders and invoices to create awareness too!
3. Reach out to your Raving Fans. Every salesperson has them, especially those that’ve been with you a long time. These customers go out of their way to do business with you. Ask them to share an honest review – don’t push for positive – just their honest opinion.
4. Hold a monthly contest with the staff. Nothing motivates like a cash prize! Example: if the store gets 20 reviews by the end of the month, you’ll draw a name and that person wins the cash. Have the drawing open to all employees so you’ve got everyone motivated to achieve the same goal.
5. Recognize staff members who get 5-star reviews. A gift or a nice mention during the weekly sales or service meeting goes a long way. When the other employees see it, they’ll be eager to be next.
6. Email marketing. Do a “Love Drip” campaign with a catchy subject line and a nice call to action. Provide a link to your Yelp profile so it’s as effortless for your customer as possible.
Stellar online reputations do not happen without grassroots participation from your staff. Leverage the power of your employees and institute an internal process to be proactive about your online reputation. Get your groove on and let your customers feel it, baby!
How is Yelp affecting your business? Any more ideas you can share?
Kathi Kruse specializes in automotive social media and online reputation coaching for the automotive industry. Connect with her at her Kruse Control Blog and on Twitter: @kathikruse
The Six Stages of Emotional Branding
Feb 1st
By Contributing {grow} Columnist “Social Steve” Goldner
Creating an emotional connection between customers and a brand is probably the Holy Grail of marketing. Most often, brands strive for this by being the pinnacle of something and then reinforcing that position at every touchpoint.
Maybe the easiest brand to think of in this sense is Apple. Apple is cool, the hipster of technology. And they have achieved a level of fanatiscm with their customers by being the pinnacle of innovation and design and then continually reinforcing this message.
Emotional branding goes beyond loyalty and almost creates this “I-am-with-<brand-name>-no-matter-what” mentality. Recently I was reminded of the awesome power and massive strength of emotional branding. And this story has nothing to do with a brand you might find in a store. It involves well-educated, smart people acting in what I consider to be an irrational manner … all for the their love of a brand. The people I am talking about are my friends (hopefully still my friends after this article) and family.
The brand I am referring to is Joe Paterno, the beloved, long-time head coach of Penn State University’s football team – up until the time he was fired under a cloud of child sexual abuse scandals. No, Paterno was not charged with sex abuse. But after a long career of being an icon of integrity, he was ultimately vilified because he had not alerted law enforcement officers about the horrific events when he knew of them.
Joe Paterno was the Penn State University brand. The passion and emotion of alumni toward Paterno is unbelievable. Many of these alumni are people from my own network – tons of friends and family that are so emotionally tied to PSU and Paterno, that they refuse to let the scandal tarnish the brand. This is the acme of emotional branding — a bond so strong that even the most heinous blunder cannot deter the support, love, and admiration for the brand. I am not emotionally tied to the Paterno or PSU brand and I cannot fathom how bright, intelligent people refuse to move from this irrational, emotional connection. But there it is.
And while the example I highlighted above consists of repulsive allegations, it does represent a situation brands would legitimately want to aspire to – establishing such a bond with your audience that they will stand by you, and defend you, no matter what.
So are there any positive lessons about emotional marketing that we can learn from the Paterno case? Create brands where winning is a shared experience and then reinforce it. How does your ideal customer win with your brand? Incorporate this ideal into every aspect of your product or service. When building emotion into your brand, think about leading your customer through a continuum:
Emotional Stage 1 – How you get someone interested?
Emotional Stage 2 – How do you get someone to consider a purchase?
Emotional Stage 3 – How do you continually reinforce that their purchase decision was absolutely the right decision, the “winning” decision?
Emotional Stage 4 – How do you create a loyal customer such that they want to continue to buy your product and/or are most receptive to cross selling and value add purchases?
Emotional Stage 5 – How do you create a brand ritual (www.brandrituals.net) so that your brand becomes part of your customer’s life?
Emotional Stage 6 – How do you get your audience to be your cheerleader?
You could literally create a blog post on every single one of these steps and it would certainly be a fascinating concept to explore. But on the social web, where consumer emotions can turn on a dime, doesn’t it make sense to start building loyalty in a truly emotional way?
Steve Goldner is the Senior Director at MediaWhiz where he leads the social media practice. Steve has been a marketing executive for the past 20+ years and engaged in social media for the last 4 years. You can follow him on Twitter @SocialSteve and visit his own blog at http://socialsteve.wordpress.com .
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