November 15, 2011
OPEN Forum Message
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The key to communicating with your customers online is to engage them in a two-way conversation. Promoting your brand is no longer like radio or magazine ads, where you broadcast your message to a passive audience. Instead, you are empowering your customers by making it easy for them to let you know what they think.
You'd think that companies would be falling all over themselves to engage customers in this effective and personal way, but most pay no attention whatsoever to the feedback being received from their e-mail marketing campaign subscribers, social media followers and fans. If your business is doing this, you are alienating the very same customers you're supposed to be engaging.
Brands that reply quickly and consistently have an edge
One of the basics of online marketing is that responsive companies that listen to their customers and reply quickly and consistently gain an edge over the slackers who direct their feedback e-mails to a dead inbox or a "noreply@" address. No one likes to be ignored, so use common sense: Keep your customers happy and willing to buy from you by encouraging conversation and answering their questions!
Widely promote your feedback e-mail address
First of all, make sure that the e-mail address you are setting up to get your customers' feedback actually works and that there is a real live person who will receive the e-mails. That person will be responsible for getting a clear and prompt answer from someone in your company (if they aren't sure of how to answer themselves), and then sending that response to the customer right away.
Once you have this process mastered, you should promote that e-mail address as much as you can. Give it a prominent position in all your e-mail newsletters, on your website and on your social networks.
Keep your ear to the social media ground
People out there in cyberspace are discussing your company right now, so why aren't you listening? The social networking universe has countless places where your business can be celebrated or trashed, so it's important to keep monitoring the top social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter. But don't neglect other sites that host consumer reviews, blogs, forums and communities where your company may the topic of discussion right now. You can use Google as a tool to search for recent mentions of your company.
Never ignore any comment, good or bad.
Don't worry—opening up the channels of communication will not get you buried in an avalanche of irrelevant e-mail. Usually only a very tiny percentage of your overall e-mail subscription list or follower throng will ever contact you directly.
But a word to the wise: The people who do contact you tend to be the ones who are most vocal online, so if you don't treat them right you can count on them to broadcast all over the Internet how insensitive and indifferent your company is towards its customers. So make sure you respond.
Marketing is no longer a broadcast, but a conversation. The age of buying media time and reaching an audience with a 30-second message or a display ad triggering a stampede to your brick-and-mortar location has gone the way of disco and vinyl roofs on cars.
This is an era of customer engagement where you must encourage feedback from your customers, subscribers and social media followers, at the same time providing complete and quick replies that build trust and confidence in your company. Communicate with your customers like you were chatting with them at a get-together instead of from a lecture stage, and your engagement metrics and profits will reward you!
OPEN Cardmember Denise Keller is COO and co-founder of Benchmark Email, a web-based, global email marketing service designed for small and mid-sized businesses.
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