There are about six recognized stages to creating Customer loyalty.
These are: Suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, client and advocate.
Today I am only talking about two: creating suspects and prospects.
Here is one major way to create suspects: Give them information, after all this is the information age. You can do this with Talkcasts or Podcasts, or Free Webinars, done properly they are all really the same thing.
This is how I use them to educate my suspects, fans, listeners, followers, whatever you want to call them. They are people just like you and they are important to me. Do they make me money? No not directly, but what they, you do is increase my credibility in my field and you, they who are not reading this, spread the information I provide by word of mouth, which, “hello” is hard to get but “FREE.”
So on my Techno Granny Show, I operate as a Talkcast similar to a Talk Show and I find someone who uses the technology that I want people to be more conversant with. My guest gets to advertise their business at the end of the show by giving out their contact information. Here are two people who have used helpful information to get the word out about their business—Techno Granny, me and also my guest for the day.
Now the second type of show or training is a webinar, which is also a community call. That’s what Monday Morning Marketeer is. I talk for fifteen minutes about inexpensive ways to market your business, I try to keep the tips either free to implement or under $100.00. Now when I advertise, “Big Business Marketing for Small Businesses.” Do you think people listen? Of course, by showing that I care about the little things that you can do to market your business all by yourself, I have increased my visibility and created a platform for selling marketing that costs a little more than a hundred dollars. I have given away marketing tips but I have gained two things: visibility and an on-line audio portfolio. If you want to know what I know or think about a particular topic, it is probably on my Monday Morning Marketeer, hosed at www.Talk Shoe.com.
By the way, did I mention that you can do this to, and to record, advertise and host your webinar or talkcast at www.talkshoe.com , it is free, but hurry because I fear that someday soon, it will become so popular that they might start to charge. I have increased my listeners to my shows to 1,000 per week in live and downloaded format because all of my shows are archived at www.talkshoe.com and you can listen to them—whenever, possibly forever, at least as long as the internet lasts.
Now let’s talk about blogs, let’s talk about you and me sharing information and getting reactions. How cool is this. Blog about what you know is of importance to your target audience, blog regularly and post your blog to sites like Technorati and Digg and other blogposting and hosting sites and guess what if you use E-Blogger, which is owned by Google, it really “Gets Your Google On!”
Post tips of the week, post other bloggers that blog on the same subject but please educate your suspects, prospects, friends, fans and followers with useful and entertaining information. Sometimes a little levity goes a long way.
One of my protégé’s on TalkShoe has a show called Gourmet Eater; his business is Smells Like French Fries. Gregg Matthis recycles restaurant cooking oil. His idea was to introduce Pittsburgh Restaurants to the public and he likes to eat. Each week he interviews one of his current customers or finds new restaurants to hi-light. Everyone wants extra exposure, especially on the internet where Talkcasts and podcast are hosted. Now which call as a busy restaurant owner would you rather get a call to be interviewed on the Gourmet Eater or a call to be prospected by Mr. Greg Matthis of Smells Like French Fries? And I know from his results that it is easier for him to get that appointment after he has interviewed them on his show.
Now let’s talk about You-Tube.
You-Tube
Remember that when you are attracting suspects, fans, friends and followers to drive ideas in this information highway world with a microwave mentality, to create “Buzz,” it must be simple, word of mouth friendly and supported by tools to facilitate customer conversation.
Well Talkcasts, Webinars, podcasts, blogs, they all do that easily and so does U-Tube.
This three-step success formula worked exceptionally well for Blendtec, a small, Utah-based maker of high-end home and commercial blenders.
The fledging company needed more business, so executives brainstormed: How do we earn more market awareness on a shoe-string budget? Their answer? Online videos with a simple, word-of-mouth friendly premise: CEO Tom Dickson, dressed in white lab coat and goggles, blending up a host of everyday objects (baseballs, a Tiki Torch, Transformers, an iPod, a video camera) in a light-hearted, don't-try-this-at home presentation schtick.
‘By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget.’
How did Blendtec facilitate online awareness and conversation? By posting the video on YouTube! Within a week, the Will It Blend? Videos became a YouTube hit. Uploads followed on such other sites as Revver.com and Digg.com. At the end of the first seven days, the Will It Blend? Video campaign had six million views. But that's not all. Other product makers, anxious to leverage the campaign's popularity, began paying Blendtec on average $5,000 to film promotions for their firms using the Will It Blend? format. Bottom line, the videos became a revenue producer in their own right. Awareness went way up, along with sales. Blendtec reported a 43 percent sales increase for 2006.
Listen to the archived version of Monday Morning Marketeer at:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33960
Next week: Episode 39: 9 AM EST: EPISODE39 - How Important is Your Web Logo Style
Listen Live or listen Later.
This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:
© Joanne Quinn-Smith, Monday Morning Marketeer 412-628-5048
Listen at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/33960
Blog: www.marketingmondaymorning.blogspot.com
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