NetworkedBlogs
Archive for July, 2011
Engagement is the Key to Great Marketing Results
Engagement is the Key
For me, marketing is the very front end of sales, in most cases, every sale. In fact, consider this serious question; how many businesses can operate effectively with a sales team but no marketing (whatsoever) and how many can operate with good marketing and no sales team?
“But you always need a salesperson to close the deal… don’t you Nial?!”
No, not always. How many sales people does Amazon hire, how many do facebook… eBay, etc. etc…?! Apple’s App Store has supplied over three billion applications to customers making millions of dollars in revenue every month … and not one single salesperson is involved!
And it’s not just the big boys who play this strategy; there are hundreds of thousands of small businesses (mostly online) that generate regular profits every day, week and month by using simple digital marketing tactics.
Sure, knowing how to sell is vital and essential to know when it comes to crafting your marketing. For many businesses, having people who can sell is crucial but it’s only one part of the bigger picture. All too often I come across new business start-ups who have considered what they want to sell, know (or think) who their customers will be, go ahead, set up and open the doors but have no plan (or budget!) to do anything at all with their marketing!
My point is this, good marketing is all about effective communication and the key here is engagement. Engagement on both sides.
Engagement is Key to Great Marketing
At the very core of good marketing is a deep and thorough understanding of human psychology and how this affects the way people react and respond to stimuli through various media; the written word, images, audio and other channels. It’s all about communication and the ‘Click – Whirr’ effect that Dr Robert Cialdini talks about in his seminal work on Influence and Persuasion.
So why is engagement important? Well, just like in the classic form of sales-based operations, if you want your marketing to find new customers and win you profits, then you need be prepared to get involved with your customers. Thankfully, with the growth and expansion of various forms of digital marketing you can now systemise and automate a lot of this but you can still engage with new-found customers and that requires time, effort and focus.
Engagement has THREE GOLDEN RULES:
1. Find out as much about your new or prospective customers as you can. Don’t apply a one-size-fits-all approach. Even if you use data capture in the form of subscriber forms on your website, make sure that everyone has the option to add some free text and encourage them to express what’s important to them and why they want YOU to help them.
2. Spend time making a proper introduction; don’t bore your new-found friend (yes, you should treat customers like friends!) with long monologues about how nice you are and what a great business you run… but do give time to expressing what makes you different and what your Essential Sale Argument (ESA) is all about.
[Editor’s note: if you want to know more about ESA click here -http://www.nial-adams.com/news/whats-the-deal/ ]
3. Get your new customers to engage; make it fun, interactive and rewarding for them to engage with you. You’ve no hope of finding out what they want or what will ‘push their buttons’ if you don’t give them an encouragement to actually do something. Passive leads and prospects are very hard to turn into buying customers. So think of ways in which you can get them involved. Ask them to complete questionnaires, polls, ‘Like’ your page and share your news with others they know.
If all this has given you cause to stop and think, great, now you need to actually DO SOMETHING about it!
Step back and take a look at your current routes to market and what you’re doing to invite people to engage with you. Consider how you could make it:
- More Simple – don’t beat about the bush, tell them what to do and why
- More Fun – don’t take it too seriously, customers want to enjoy the experience
- More Flexible – accept that different people have different motives, give options
- More Rewarding – use simple tactic to reward them for being engaged with you
…and if you’re still lost to know what to do next, then simply engage – drop me a personal email via mail@nialadams.com and let’s start a dialogue.
Nial Adams
PS. And if you’ve read this far then I’m going to give you this valuable tip – if you really want to see what engagement looks like in action then login on facebook and take a look at ‘Frank Kern’… this guy is a genius at creating engagement.. 
Social Media – What a load of rubbish!
I can’t keep quiet any longer! What an absolute load of rubbish most people talk about Social Media & Networking and, more importantly, how to harness it for business use. There seems to be a whole industry growing up around myths and stories that have no basis in fact, so be warned.
Perhaps you’re still left wondering how best use it, or even if you should at all? Maybe you’ve already dived in but not finding it particularly productive or stimulating?
Let’s work backwards for a moment. Social networking is exactly about that, networking. Creating a profile, adding lots of ‘friends’ and then broadcasting your news to the world is a bit like walking into a room at a networking event standing in the middle and shouting sales messages to anyone who might care to listen. Meanwhile there are lots of people, all huddled in little groups, having interesting conversations between each other and getting to know each other.
Standing on your own spieling to the room simply doesn’t work – and you’d look ridiculous! As you might imagine, your efforts may seem a little strange and eccentric to others. Of course someone might come over and try to help you out, strike up a two-way conversation and help you get started but it’s not very likely.
You need to approach Social Networking in the same way you would a physical networking opportunity. Once you enter the space your first job is to wander about, get close to the conversations that are going on already, find the ones that interest you (and you feel you can contribute to) and then listen. Listening is the key to good Social Networking skills. It’s where it all starts. Once you’ve found a conversation you like, you can find an appropriate way to engage with it and add something of value.
This is how you can start to build a credible profile…
… which is vital if you want recognition in the Social Media space.
The Social Network across facebook
People who endlessly post comments about what they have to sell will find the Social Media landscape a very harsh and barren environment. If you’re a mega-brand and your positioning is already established then yes, you may be able to attract lots of fans and keep them entertained with the next product offering you’ve got coming up. If not, you’ll want to use Social Media to start to create that profile and help people to get to know you.
Avoid inane comments and drivel and certainly stay well away from the keyboard late at night when you’ve had one glass of wine too many but do let your tribe know what you’re enjoying right now. Be that a new product or service that you’re consuming, books, music, arts, comedy, etc., etc. Engage and comment on a range of issues that not only affect you but the people you want to connect with.
So the other golden rule is to engage… to be Sociable. It’s interesting to see people who pop into the space for just a few moments, stand there and shout about how great their product is and then promptly leave again. What would you think of a person who did this in the ‘real world’? Take time to read what others are talking about, contribute, comment, challenge if you like but above all be social. The same good communication skills are needed in this virtual environment.
Apply these simple and hopefully obvious rules and you’ll not only find the Social Media space an interesting place to be, you’ll make new connections and become recognised. Who knows… you might even find it brings you new business opportunities too.