Build Online Visibility – Contributed by Vijay Pullur, President, SocialTwist
If a good business idea, sound technology and a well thought business plan are the life and blood of a start-up, PR and Marketing are its survival kit. There is no point in creating a great state of art product if you cannot market it effectively. Reach out to your end consumers and make them believe, how great and state of art your product or service is.
Today the explosion of information over the Internet has resulted in more informed and social media savvy customers; customers who have slowly become marketers in their own right.
The concept of word of mouth marketing or WOMM is the art of reaching out to these customers and converting them into your brand’s advocates. Ensuring they lend the force of their own personality and experience when promoting your brand to a third person.
WOMM has emerged as the simplest and fastest way of promoting your brand among your target audience with the necessary recommendations. In this post, I share five tips with you on how you can build WOMM into your overall Marketing Strategy.
WOMMA defines Word of Mouth Marketing as giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. It is the art and science of building active, mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications.
1. Give your brand a distinct character and personality
It is important that your company and its personality give people the reason to talk. It is important that you create a distinct personality for your brand or product. It could be very similar to other existing solutions in the market yet it should have its own distinct character something that would make it different from the rest. It could be the technology, the approach or the target segment. Be very clear on how you will ensure that your end customer is able to differentiate between your brand and a 100 others. Your distinct personality will become the reason for people to talk.
2. Make your website user friendly
Your website is the display window of your brand. Make it as attractive and simple as possible. When building your website, visualize your end consumer, what information would s/he look for? How best can I convince her? What would appeal to her and make her come back for more? What would be the easiest way for her to navigate my site? How will she share any information she likes on my site with others in her circle of trust? Your website should clearly take care of these queries.
3. Grab the attention of people who can spread the word
In his book named WOMM, Andy Sernivitz states, “Everyone who walks into your site is a prospect for spreading your content. It is not necessary that this person be a subject expert, an evangelist, or even a blogger. It is simply enough, if the visitor thinks that your content is of relevance, need or entertaining for someone known to him/her.” In other words, good content, interesting visuals, and relevant information are critical to the success of your business, your website and to your WOMM strategy.
4. Make it easy for them
Now that you have a nice looking customer friendly website which has lots of relevant information which people can talk about, it is important to empower your site or blog visitor with the right tools which help him spread the word. When a user has to remember his friend (contact) or go somewhere else to find that, it reduces the chances of word of mouth happening. Helping him find contacts of friends on various channels on your website itself will make it easy. Today there are many widgets available which enable this, like AddThis, ShareThis etc. The social media sharing widget from SocialTwist, Tell-a-Friend also enables sharing of content across channels, however it also gives you measurable information on your WOMM activities like referral traffic data, how many people shared the information, the channels used for sharing etc. which can help you strategize your next move better.
5. Be everywhere your customers expect you to be
In a white paper recently released by Charlene Li (Altimeter Group) and Ben Elowitz (Wetpaint) the authors linked financial success with social media engagement. Their findings reveal, “… the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.”
To a great extent, this statement is true; today social media enables companies to know the pulse of their customers. They have a direct medium to communicate with their customers, act upon their grievances, understand and meet their needs.
In his blog, All Things WOM John Moore states, “The more a company knows about the likes, dislikes, etc. of customers, the better they can develop products and services to meet their needs to drive business success. It’s basic but true. If your customers are heavy users of Twitter, your company should be heavy users of Twitter. If your customers are heavy users of Facebook, your company should be heavy users of Facebook. If your customers are active users of Yelp, your company should actively use Yelp.
Word of mouth can only happen if a conversation happens. And the more places where conversations happen, the more opportunities for word of mouth to happen. And thus, it pays to be social.”
Whether you are a big time marketer or small business owner or simply a blogger, Word of Mouth Marketing must be on your mind. There is no better way of marketing your product or service than empowering those who believe in them. Who will market it in their own words, among those who they know would appreciate the same qualities they liked about your brand.
Most successful entrepreneurs have a list of mentors and books that they have on hand acting as mantra for how we conduct and innovate our businesses. By being lucky enough to be one of those crazy work from home guys I find the discussions that I get going in my head from a good article or a book is needed to keep me sharp and often takes on the role of those old debates I used to get into with co-workers (Well that is the crazy shit I tell myself so I don’t attract attention to when I wander around my house in my robe yelling at myself).
Here is Part 1 of the books that always keep me challenged and pushing forward in my life and business even while wandering in my robe.
Trust your gut, the research is done and proven!
The Kolbe Concept and Kathy Kolbe’s work are both mind bending and life altering. These three books are a bit older now but they make no less of an impact now then they did when they were released.
When I was still working in a corporate environment doing marketing for a recruiting and coaching company I was introduced to the Kolbe A index. A test that validates our instincts and studies the Conative part of our brain. Kolbe Wisdom says that if we are free to be ourselves and faced with a task each of us will use a path of least resistance perfectly matched for ourselves to get to an outcome.
When I took the Kolbe A index and got my results it was one of the most liberating days of my entire life and gave permission to be who I am. I have long been branded on the ADD and ADHD scale but I and many other entrepreneurs will be happy to know that Kathy’s work attacks that the whole notion of this head on.
The impact of this work has been so great that I headed to Phoenix a few years ago to become a Kolbe Certified Consultant so I would be able to share this knowledge and coach people and businesses about it’s impact. So shameless plug time, if you have any questions about Kolbe don’t hesitate to contact me.
I have a lot more to say on the subject but I will do it in an upcoming series of articles, in the mean time if your are on twitter you need to be following @kathykolbe. At our growth seminar we were bugging Kolbe Corp that they need to be doing more in social media and now we have Kathy addicted to Twitter. Her tweets are always informative and will help to shed light on the tool.
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts is a simple read done much like a conversation between two people. It might be to informal and lacking a bit of meat for some readers but it can be consumed in a few stress free hours.
The Conative Connection: Uncovering the Link Between Who You Are and How You Perform is Kathy’s first book and goes into a lot of the research, It was written in the 90’s so some of the research has changed but it is still very valuable information.
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource This book goes into a lot of detail for how the Kolbe tools are used in a business group setting. I would suggest that you leave this one until you have a better understanding of the concept or if you like to read deep into a subject.
The “Secret” but built for Business without all the “When I wish Upon a Star” and still sit on my ass all this free money will come to me.
When I was on the road to getting the hell out of the corporate world and was looking for guidance for how I could take my small side evening business and make it more then just a hobby I got caught up in the whole “The Secret” movie explosion.
Do I regret it, not a chance. I credit myself with taking the time to study and listen to what the teachers from the movie were actually saying. In my opinion that 90 min movie will go down as one of the best pieces of marketing ever. Most of all it opened a dialogue to make it acceptable to say things like you are a business person who meditates.
If you take the time to look at the other coaching the teachers do you will understand that the Law of Attraction is only one law and a starting point. During the movie John Assaraf was the person in the movie that resonated most with me, I think because he came to it from a business perspective. I was on a conference call with him and his OneCoach partner Murray Smith when he said we all need to remember the next most important universal law, The Law of “GOYA” or GET OFF YOUR ASS. If you just sit on your couch and ask the universe to give you everything eventually they will come and take your house from around you and your seat out from under you.
From that I joined the OneCoach’s Business Mastery Program that taught me how to put the right things in the right order to create a successful business.
John and Murray took the process they were teaching clients with great success and published The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life It is a great read and provides a very good framework to help make sure as a business owner you doing the highest income producing activities that are right for your specific business.
I will be back with part two of my book list very soon. I also want to hear about your great reads and resources. I am an avid business, marketing and personal development reader so I am always on the look out for new concepts.
Again here are the books I talked about in this post:
Powered by Instinct: 5 Rules for Trusting Your Guts by Kathy Kolbe
The Conative Connection: by Kathy Kolbe
Pure Instinct: Business’ Untapped Resource by Kathy Kolbe
and The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith
So, you’ve sat down with your annual finances, stayed up until the early hours of the morning and drank the local coffee shop dry, and now your finished company budget is staring you in the face, challenging you to stick to it. It’s not easy—creating a feasible budget is hard enough, but sticking to it can be an absolute nightmare. However, with a little dedication and a bit of advice, making the company dollar stretch as far as you want it to is not such a daunting prospect.
Always, always, always have a slush fund—a portion of your budget unallocated to deal with major problems or expenses as they come up. No matter how well-planned the budget, if John from accounts somehow loses $50,000, or Mary the receptionist gets pregnant and requires maternity cover, or a virus crashes and wipes your server and causes all your computers to start displaying the lyrics to REM’s Bad Day, you’re going to be very, very thankful for every cent not allocated. Always plan for the worst, and if nothing goes catastrophically wrong then anything not spent from the slush fund can either go towards next year’s budget or a damn good Christmas party.
Learn to trim expenses wherever possible. Keep a weather eye on stock levels, employee overtime, charged expenses and company credit cards. Try and negotiate deals on rent every time the contract is up for renewal. Remember that if you can lower the expenses on the budget, you’ll have much more of a safety net inside your slush fund for that inevitable server meltdown.
Keep a close eye on the inflow of income, as this can also affect the slush fund and expenses. If you start to make more than you budgeted for, don’t clap your hands with glee and laugh all the way to the bank—put some of it into the slush fund or any other strained area of the budget.
Similarly, never let a month go by where you do not keep an eye on your budget, comparing it to monthly income and expenditures. Make it the same date every month, preferably some time around the 25th to give yourself enough time to start making changes before the next calendar month comes in. Check your cash flow, costs and potential liabilities with a fine-tooth comb, and when you’re done get somebody else to look at it for you. If you can snag an accountant to help out, even better.
Lastly, do not get downhearted if, at some point in the year, you realize your budget is completely messed up and you’re going to overspend this month. You need to remember that budget projections are a best guess only and nothing more—overspend is practically unavoidable in today’s uncertain economic climate. Face one simple truth—chances are that you will miss your estimates. Of course you try to avoid it, but if (when) it doesn’t make you the worst businessman ever or a dunce with no financial acumen. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and look for ways that you can get the budget back on track next month—firing John from accounts for losing that $50,000 may be a good place to start.
Other Articles that will be of interest:
Whether it’s a matter of making the most out of your marketing campaign and improving your ROI or capitalizing on word-of-mouth referrals, never let a lead slip through the crack—they could be your next diamond in the rough. Every single lead you receive through your business should be considered that one magic client who can help you elevate your business, taking it from where it is now to where you want it to be. The power of follow-up is immense and should be considered one of the best friends of bootstrapped budgeters.
First, it should be noted that trends indicate positive results when business owners verbalize their follow-up efforts with their prospective clients as “reconnecting” instead of “following up;” it’s much more personal and will help you achieve a better business relationship. For example, “Hello, this is Derek Heck from Bootstrapping Blog and I’m reconnecting with you in regards to our last conversation.” Pretty simple right? Yet countless business owners fail to do this on a daily basis. It’s similar to neglecting to insulate your pipes or letting a leaky faucet go unchecked—it seems minor at the time, but you eventually end up losing a lot of money through this type of negligence.
Or perhaps you do have good intentions and plan to follow up, but just haven’t had the time. Well, I’m sincerely asking you to burn your Procrastinator’s Creed contract and jump into action. If not, then your lead goes from blazing hot, to lukewarm, to somebody else’s client! Plus, by following up promptly, you will be telling your prospect volumes about how you’ll treat them as a client, meeting deadlines on time and providing a close watch over their account. Remember, clients don’t just want to know that they’ll get the service or product they’re buying, they want to know that they will be comprehensively taken care of.
So what’s a good timeframe for following up? Probably about a week later. You don’t want to come off as a telemarketer selling jewelry cleaner and calling back the next day. Let them breathe a little and have time to look over your proposal. And make sure you set a solid date and time, indicating when you’ll be reconnecting—call them exactly when you say you will! And make sure they actually write your appointment down when you plan it. Don’t be afraid to specifically ask them to get their planner out and write it down. If you don’t, you’ll end up getting more flakes than a bowl of Wheaties.
And how about a “blind” follow-up? You won’t always have the opportunity to speak with your prospect in the initial phase. For example, you may receive a lead through your website—if someone signs up for your newsletter. In this case, you should develop a standard follow-up template or autoresponder. Remember, the Web is faceless and without emotion—you need to constantly think of ways to reach out to people and remind them that there’s an actual human behind your website
Here’s an example a website lead follow-up:
I see that you visited my blog at www.bootstrappingblog.com recently. I hope you’ve been enjoying our content and have been able to apply some of what you’ve read to your own business.
Call-to-Action Paragraph.
And in case you missed it, I thought I’d pass this article along:
“It’s nothing personal.” Bullspit! There’s no such thing as nothing being personal in the business world. No matter who’s involved in a business equation, people are either spending money they worked hard to earn, or are looking to earn the other person’s money through hard work. Unless you’ve won the lottery, any blood, sweat and tears poured into your business makes the scenario very personal. Read Full Article
Please feel free to contact me and let me know how I can help you with your business. I eagerly welcome all inquiries.
Now go get ‘em tiger!
Unless you’re an uber famous Hollywood star, then chances are you ask this question almost every time you purchase something (unless it’s toilet paper): Why should I buy? For one thing, some Hollywood stars probably do use their money as toilet paper. But the point is money isn’t exactly an issue for them, so they don’t put much consideration into most price tags they come across. For us Average Joe Consumers though, we’re on a constant hunt for value. We’re like a real-life version of The Price Is Right; with every successful move hinged on the price of a product or service. Now, apply this mode of thinking to your prospect’s perspective.
Every time a potential client is presented with your product or service, they will ask themselves why they should buy from you. This is a natural reaction—people have a natural propensity for procrastination. However, when you multiply this by the effects of today’s economy and then multiply that by the thousands of new small businesses entering the marketplace on a daily basis, well, you sure have to give them a helluva good reason why they should buy from you.
Now, hopefully you’ve been following along and enjoying our articles, so perhaps you’ve heard us mention unique selling point (USP). Your USP is the answer to your prospect’s question as to why they should buy. Make it incredibly obvious what makes your business different from the masses. These are the one or two gems that make your business a necessity in your prospect’s life. Take note of an important element in that preceding sentence. You need to make sure you keep your focus on just a couple distinguished aspects of your business. Include more than that in your marketing and branding efforts and you’re going to sound like a recent graduate’s resume, listing everything from “habitat improvement” for mowing lawns to “sales experience” because they buy groceries on a regular basis.
Spread your apparent specialties too thin and throw fluff at your prospects and they will see through you. And remember, Newton’s Third Law here: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This can go two ways for word of mouth (WOM) marketing. Most people only talk about getting clients through WOM, but if you come off as the recent graduate in your business pitch, then you may lose clients through WOM. Just think about all the countless blogs and online forums here on the Web today. An obvious trend is people’s absolute love of discussing hate. People are just tickled pink that they now have the opportunity to complain about anything at all that bothers them. Whether it’s the fact that one of their feet is bigger than the other so they have to buy two pairs of shoes or that they visited some person’s website and thought it was nothing more than a cheap ploy, word will spread about your business.
Your specialty could be the fact that you’ve never once been late or missed a deadline or possibly your stunning customer service which never allows the phone to ring more than three times and the promise that they’ll get a live person on the phone every time. Write down your business’ top 10 attributes, and then narrow that last to your top one or two. Now, make sure you’re striving for attributes that are not only top-notch, but are also distinct from other competing businesses.
Just be ethical, present your business in an honest manner, keep your USP simple and laser-beam focused, and prospective clients will then know why they should buy from you, and only you.
Check out these other articles for more information: Well I Should Hope So and People Buy Benefits, not Features