For years now, companies have been vying for attention on social
streams controlled by the likes of Facebook and Twitter. Hundreds of
millions of people flocked to those streams, and corporations figured
they had to follow. But now businesses are realizing something has been
lost in the transition, that there’s nothing like being able to control
exactly how they speak to customers, and the humble website seems to be
surging back.
The comeback is bolstered by new interlinks that make it increasingly
easy for websites to suck in and selectively repurpose some of the very
social content that diminished the open web in the first place. These
tools are typically used to highlight particularly interesting online
conversations, to aggregate responses to a question posed by a consumer
goods seller or media organization, or to facilitate question and answer
sessions. So while the content comes from social streams controlled by
outside companies like Facebook, it’s reshuffled and re-prioritized in a
way that makes sense to the owner of the website.
This allows companies with products to sell to pull off a neat trick:
Captivating potential customers by talking about those potential
customers, rather than about the product. Everyone likes to hear about
themselves. This means that, as cheesy as it might sound, Twitter and
Facebook users get an ego boost on seeing their opinions, words, and
even faces reflected on a corporate website, even if it’s through a
silly contest, poll, or roundup.
“What we do is what I call marketing with a mirror – we hold the
mirror up to the audience and they respond to it,” says Sam Decker,
whose company Mass Relevance helps companies like Patagonia and HBO sift
and repurpose social streams on their own websites. “You know when the
camera in the football stadium shines on some people, and they stand up
and say, ‘look at me, look at me?’ You just got engagement and
participation. And that’s exactly what we’re doing, we’re playing back
their own participation in the brand experience. That’s what you can do
with owned media, with a website.
Decker says Mass Relevance has grown to 100 employees and 300
clients, doubling its business in the past year. It is riding the same
wave as RebelMouse, a New York startup that helps media companies like
Time Inc. and Fox and retail partners like Shopify repurpose social data
on their own websites. CEO Paul Berry, formerly the Huffington Post’s
chief technical officer, says he started the company last year because
friends in the media business were constantly asking him to help better
showcase fast breaking news from social streams on the websites that
generated their advertising revenue.
Now the company is launching an ad product that does the same thing
for advertisers, helping them place their Facebook and Twitter posts on
other people’s websites, for a price. Those advertisers have been
pouring effort into their Twitter and Facebook streams, only to realize
it’s not been earning them much return, driving neither traffic nor
sales.
“Company blogs and websites are missing their own best stuff,” Berry
says. “The people who actually care about you are the ones who come to
your site.”
And with the right content, as fresh as a status update but polished
like a magazine ad, those hard-core customers might return again and
again.
RebelMouse CEO Paul Berry. Photo: RebelMouse
By: Tom Swanson
Do you own a traditional business with a physical location? Do you have
an online presence to go along with it? If so, your website can serve
dual purposes for your business: it can be an additional source for your
customers to shop and buy your products and services, or it can simply
act as a supporting branch of your brick-and-mortar location. Either is
a valid use for your online presence, but many traditional businesses
use theirs for the latter - to drive traffic to their business' physical
location(s). So how can you use your website to drive customers to
your store?
Use Your Website to Encourage Repeat Business from Current Customers
One of the biggest mistakes that most businesses make is constantly
pursuing new customers and forgetting about existing customers. Avoid
this at all cost. Your current customers have purchased from you in the
past and they know your business. You simply cannot find a more
qualified pool of people to market to, so take advantage of your
relationship with them. Not only will your current customers be more
likely to buy from you, but they'll be more likely to recommend new
customers to you, so keep them close by treating them well.
First
you'll have to collect their information so you can stay in touch with
them and alert them about news and specials, etc., but once you've got
that out of the way, there are several ways to encourage repeat
business. Since an active customer base is the quickest and easiest way
to boost sales, I'm going to focus on that aspect of using your online
presence to drive offline sales in this article, but most of these ideas
will work with new customers as well.
Use Your Website to Build Credibility
One of the simplest ways to use your online presence to drive offline
sales is to build credibility with site visitors. There are many, many
ways to do this - here are a few.
Become a member of a reputable service organization - and make sure both
your current and potential customers are well aware of that you are a
member. Once you become a member of an organization like the Better
Business Bureau, for example, you can put their logo on your site. This
will give you a lot of credibility. Every chance you have to let your
customers know about what a stand-up business you run, do it. You can
do this with professional organizations, industry organizations, and
chambers of commerce as well.
Use customer testimonials wisely. Most savvy business owners already
know how valuable testimonials can be to establishing credibility.
Well, what if you take a slightly different approach? Try using
customer testimonials that focus on the benefits of your brick and
mortar store. You obviously have customers who already shop at your
physical location - ask the ones that love your products and services to
help you with some testimonials about the virtues of your store.
With any testimonial, it's best if you write it and then ask your
customer to approve it. That way, you'll get the testimonial you want
when you want it without hassling your customer. All they have to do is
sign off on it - not spend time writing it for you. Make it easy for
them to help you out, and reward them when they do.
Testimonials that extol the great qualities of your store might include
details about how personable your staff is, what great customer service
you have, and the convenience of your location. You can probably think
of fifty reasons why people shop at your store. Start making a list and
then compose ten testimonials based on the list.
Pick one at a time and ask a loyal customer to sign off on it. Keep
doing this until you have endorsers for all of them, and then rotate
three or so every couple of months on your site. As you get more
customers, revisit your list and write new testimonials to be approved.
Your loyal customers will love helping you out, and their testimonials
will help you solidify your relationships with new customers.
Remind
website visitors about the benefits of shopping in your store. If your
business derives most or all of its profits from in-store sales, remind
your customers about the benefits of shopping there. When customers
visit your store, they don't have to pay shipping, they can take the
product home right away instead of waiting for it to be delivered, they
get hands-on customer service, etc.
As with any of these promotional ideas, there's surely a long list of
benefits to visiting your store. These things might seem obvious to
you, but posting these facts on your website will remind your customers
that there are many benefits of shopping in your store and increase
visits from new customers who might otherwise purchase products online.
Start implementing ideas like this into your marketing strategy, and
you're sure to see an increase in in-store traffic. Next time I'll
include even more great tips for driving customers into your store from
your online presence.
Author Bio
Author: Tom Swanson
Web Site: www.lowhangingfruit.com
You have probably just built a new website, submitted it
to search engines and are now waiting wondering where all the visitors
are that are going to put hundreds of dollars into your bank account. A
few weeks pass by and you are still left wondering where all your website traffic is. Your website is open for business but no-one seems to know about it.
If this situation sounds familiar to you then you have probably
thought about giving up and thowing the whole thing away. This is NOT
what you should do and this is not how your website is going to rank
high in the search engines.....
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