One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is knowing your customers and being able to meet their wants and needs while reducing barriers to entry.
One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is knowing your customers and being able to meet their wants and needs while reducing barriers to entry.
In a perfect world, marketers and consumers would have an open conversation about which strategies work best for them and which ones don’t, and marketers would always listen to them. Alas, we don't live in that perfect world, but with the right strategy, we can get a little closer. Building relationships with consumers requires you to gain their trust. Without trust, the few consumer responses you collect may indicate that they don't want to be contacted - ever. However, catalogs, coupons and contests will never stand out as they do if consumers never want to connect with a brand. So why do consumers shy away from being asked direct questions about marketing? Because it ruins the experience. Rather than enjoying shopping, feeling indulgent and powerful, rather than offering an experience that can, at best, feel disruptive and, at worst, intrusive. But it doesn't have to be like that!
Here are some strategies for communicating with customers that resonate with them and enhance their experience, not destroy them:
Learn from Buzzfeed: Use fun, interactive, shareable surveys. Buzzfeed is one of the most successful marketing sites of all time, if not the most. As a "virus lab," founders Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson set out in 2006 to find out how to attract and monetize today's Internet users. In fact, the entertaining, high-quality content the two co-created trigger strong emotions, while there are plenty of sponsored posts so good that users barely notice them. The main product of the site? That's right data. Combine the answers to all of these quizzes with the information they provide; keep track of how posts are shared; you'll obviously have a billion-dollar company.
So how can you steal some Buzzfeed magic? Take their own quizzes and consumers can react to them and share with their friends. The best tip we've heard: don't try to cater to everyone. Please be explicit; cater to a niche. Is this a good example? Hairfinity's quiz, "Is one of these stars your double hair?" When you land on the page, you'll notice that it's attracting a certain demographic -- women of color who are interested in celebrities. As you take the quiz, you will notice some specific rules:
A. Reserve possible answers in six words.
B. Write the answer in the first person.
C. Keep the entire quiz short - no more than 10 questions.
These strategies cater to audiences who are taking the quiz. They don't want to think about difficult problems or read lengthy descriptions. The final rule is supreme: don't push your product! Remember, the main goal of these quizzes is to increase the customer's user experience. Gathering information is important, but it is secondary. If you kick a user away, you won't get the job done either. Keep detailed customer service notes. If a customer calls, he or she will give you the expected information, such as contact information and financials. However, more is possible! Encourage your customer service reps to do some chatting with callers and accept inefficient conversations. Friendly reps will be able to discover attributes such as what the caller thinks of the company, what they would like to be different, what content they are currently interested in, or even their favorite movies. By saving and analyzing this data, you will be able to understand common trends, stressors and motivators of the most loyal bases. Master social media - and listen!
Related Reading: 4 Ways You Can Use AI to Mine and Attract Customers
I know, you've heard it's an era of Mass: social media matters. But it's not just about scheduling posts and follow-ups. Social media is essentially the restroom of the world, where everyone is talking. Most people feel more honest about their level of anonymity than they are in private ; where you can be sure that most people are going to be well together on a day when they're supposed to work.
Focus on building relationships in a meaningful way. That means learning how to create powerful hashtags and keep chatting with people by asking socially. Ask the public questions about your industry ; post those quizzes we mentioned earlier to your Facebook; and discuss trends you see on LinkedIn. By creating truly social content and subjecting yourself to feedback, you will learn about your current and potential audience. This information will come in handy.
For more artificial intelligence, please pay attention to the WeChat public account: Zhide IoT Technology or Weibo @zhide IoT Technology.
Parts of this article are compiled from Aj Agrawal 's article on the Entrepreneur website .