Make People Fall in Love With Your Business
Partnered Content.
When it comes to doing well in business, 90% of that is going to be excellent customer services. If you can charm and cater to your customer, they will rarely go somewhere else for advice or to purchase anything. Your job is to help consumers fall in love with your business, and that doesn’t matter if you are selling rocks from your garden or you need people to click that ‘submit your bid’ online for online auctions. What matters is that you are continually thinking about your audience in everything you do.
If you are surrounded by competitors or know that you need to stand out from the crowd, there isn’t anything else that is going to have a more significant or more last impact. It is especially important to small business owners and freelancers – bigger companies were once small too and often can appear to have lost that art of connecting with their customers. Here is some food for thought, it costs up to 7 times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.
So what can you do now that can make your clients, customers or intended market fall in love with you?
Manage Expectations
Imagine you are selling something called unicorn oil, this oil, on the photos at least, give a spectacular highlight, it smooths and softens skin and leaves you with an enviable glow. You sell out in days, the oil is a must-have item. Only, it appears that you’re getting a lot of comments and returns. The item didn’t live up to the expectations of your customers. The images that you have used, and no doubt tuned up have given people unrealistic expectations of your brand, and they are very unlikely to ever buy from you again. In fact, they’re also very likely to tell others not to buy from you too. Nightmare.
All of that could’ve been avoided by managing the expectations of your intended customers. You need to be clear and honest. Your product might be spectacular, but if you are overselling and under delivering it’s not going to go well.
Use Your Real Voice
Be authentic is a term that many people throw around, but the truth of the matter is it really works in your favor to be real. People use the internet as often as they breathe, meaning they are more than a little wise to any marketing tricks you are going to try to use. So ditch the idea that you will mimic a bigger brand, and be you and your brand. After all, that is what in the long run is going to give you staying power. In business, when it comes to getting people to buy from you, you need to get them to like you, trust you and feel like they know you. Being able to relate to you, and other people that they see buy from you will be what hooks them in. You can only keep them from that point if you walk the walk after you talk the talk. If you scroll through any social media site, you will see a one-person business talking directly to their followers and customers about what is going on in the company, and in their lives. No one is saying that you need to share what you had for breakfast, but it probably wouldn’t hurt either.
Use Your Eyes and Ears
We have two ears and only one mouth. Apply that principle to your marketing. You should indeed be using all of your social media streams to update people on new products, offers, and launches – but you should also be reading the feedback. People on the internet don’t hold back like they might if they were face to face. Making this an invaluable tool when it comes to getting the truth. If you want to see growth, and support and loyalty then you are going to have to listen to whatever input your customers have. And, yeah, you might get the odd hate filled smattering of comments, but for the most part, you will get information that you can use to improve your product. You can gather information in the following ways:
- Newsletters / Emails
- Webforms
- Social Media
- Point of Sale
- Focus Group
- Observation
- Surveys
You will probably need to use a combination of these, because not each platform will reach the same people. Always respond where possible to comments, complaints, and suggestions – so that people don’t feel like they are wasting their time with your brand. By answering you will be working on that trust that was mentioned above.
Drop The Bull
No one is ever going to stay in love with something that they don’t feel like they understand. Using your authenticity is one thing, the second is to be transparent in as much as possible. You should be ethical, trustworthy and forthcoming with details when it comes to things like ingredients, or maybe just how much of your income you donate to a charity.
This is about being honest. Honesty can often feel like it is hard to come by, and there are more options for every product and service than there ever has been before. It matters now what you say and what you do.
You can show, and practice transparency by employing a couple of the following things:
Your real life personal and your brand personal are as one – sell vegan food? Be vegan. Selling yoga retreats? Be a yoga enthusiast.
Talk to your customers and show that you have taken their comments on board. Demonstrate you care.
Answer the questions. When people engage you, they want to know more about your brand, if you ignore that you’ve missed a chance to share, and the opportunity to display your honesty.
So there you have it, simple to manage 4 steps to growing your customer base the right way. With honesty, using customer feedback, communicating and being true to you and your brand.
