11 Ways To Score Customer Relationship Touchdowns

And one of the nine things every marketing leader should do to get the most from social media according to Forrester’s playbook of predictions for 2015 so read on…

First And Goal

Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIX, featuring the Patriots’ wild, down-to-the-wire 28-24 win over the Seahawks, scored a 49.7 household rating and a 72 share — besting the 48.1 rating set two years ago when Baltimore triumphed over San Francisco. The final viewer tally for that game was 108 million.

Last year’s Super Bowl of course stands as the most-watched U.S. television event of all-time, having averaged 112.2 million viewers.

The Patriots, who just happen to be my favorite team, became the sixth team with at least four Super Bowl wins. They are tied with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys for most Super Bowl appearances, with eight. Pretty impressive statistics.

If you imagine the Super Bowl as a website with people from all over the world clicking through to engaged a piece of quality content, online event or special offer it then becomes essential to find ways to keep them wanting to return.

One thing I am sure of is that the accomplishments of these teams and this event were achieved through hard work, experimentation and by constantly moving forward to find the right mixture of plays, players, coaches and marketing strategies to consistently drive their success.

Scoring Points With Your Audience

This is what you need to accomplish in marketing your website. Do you think that the Super Bowl or any major event would be as successful if they didn’t use every play in their playbook to engage their audience?

You need to give people a reason to want to visit and keep coming back to you website whether they are a lead (perspective customer) or an existing customer.

When events like this occur the social channels light up with a frenzy of activity including commenting, sharing and newsjacking which I am guilty of here but it is a common and can often be a beneficial tactic.

According to Hubspot, the article I linked to here, I am a little late to the party but I don’t do this full time so I guess I can be forgiven. But if it helps to get my point across, an important one- I think, and one that works and has been gaining traction plus a subject that I have been writing about for years.

Calling The Right Plays

If you have been following my articles you might have a good idea what my point is but if not it is creating an Onsite Social or branded community depending what the trending term may be and there are others.

In fact this strategy has been included in Forrester’s playbook of predictions for 2015 as one if the nine things every marketing leader should do to get the most from social media.

Nate Elliott’s favorite prediction , Nate Elliott is a quarterback of Marketing Leadership Professionals, and my favorite from the report is that as social media matures, branded communities will make a comeback. According to Nate, “It makes sense: Marketing leaders report they’re significantly less satisfied with Facebook and Twitter marketing than with branded forums. But nearly twice as many marketers run Twitter and Facebook accounts as host to their own communities.”

It’s time for marketers to focus their efforts on the social tactics that actually work, can play well over the long term and contribute to all your team strategies- meaning brand-hosted forums within communities can help you all the way across the customer life cycle:

• “They can drive greater brand reach. Many brands try to garner word of mouth by posting content on Facebook and hoping it goes viral. But this “post and pray” method rarely works. The right way to create word of mouth? Advocate communities. Invite a few hundred of your most satisfied customers into an exclusive forum, issue them word-of-mouth challenges, rank them on a leaderboard, and watch your reach multiply. It worked for B2B vendor Bomgar.”
• ” They can convert prospects into customers. When people are researching and considering their product options, they usually end up visiting your brand site. You already know that adding ratings and reviews to your site can drive more sales — and so can a branded community. Adding a Q&A feature or a forum to your site will both convert more prospects and lead to more satisfied customers. It worked for the Milwaukee School of Engineering.”
• ” They can cement existing customer relationships. Some marketers turn to Facebook and Twitter to engage existing customers. But US online adults who want to stay in touch with your brand are three times more likely to visit your site than to engage you on Facebook. Both B2B and B2C marketers have found branded communities create more loyalty and lifetime value than Facebook and Twitter marketing. It worked for semiconductor maker Analog Devices.”

“Onsite Communities are HERE, they are REAL, AVAILABLE and currently providing enormous BENEFITS to businesses across the Industry horizontal.”

Scoring Touchdowns through Great Customer Relationship Management

Get out in front and open up opportunities! Great Customer Relationship Management equals delighted customers, loyal customers, attracts influencers, fosters word of mouth advertising, testimonials and provides brand reach that together can turn your site into a virtual ecosystem of engagement that will drive traffic to your site and broadcast your message across the digital spectrum unlike any other form of paid, organic or earned media can offer. See Press Release

Social Community Playbook Strategies Include:

In addition to establishing a forum including an Onsite Social Community will anchor your customer centric culture by offering a permanent and centralized platform for communicating and engaging with your present and future customers and keep them coming back.

Benefits (permanent and specials/offers) and much more can be offered to existing and to sign up potential customers to gain important information to create buyer personas that can all be managed from one central location-Your website (Your owned real estate)

1. Discounts on purchases

2. Discounts on Warranties

3. Discounts on Maintenance Contracts

4. Discounts on Services

5. Discounts on financing

This includes permanent discounts for community members as well as special discounts offered on a timely basis. Put your marketing dollars where they will offer the highest ROI by directly benefiting your members the ones who are going to pay you back over and over through loyalty.

6.An Onsite Customer Care Center

With direct access to Customer Care representatives with knowledge and authority to answer questions, solve issues and make appointments

7.Drawings (To keep them coming back)

Have a monthly drawing for $$$ In free services and or product discounts that broadly cover individuals current needs that members can enter every month with their e-mail to keep members engaged and visiting your site.

8. Contests

There are countless ways to engage your audience by sponsoring contests within your onsite community and across your social channels and are only limited to your creative ideas.

9. Special Offers

Have special offers for community members and site visitors (who join) for doing something that will extend your brand.

10. Onsite community Testimonial Page

Take a picture of winners of contests, customers satisfied with service or at time of purchases that you, your employyes and customers can automatically and easily post to the Community Testimonial Page (See PhotoRep) and their Social Media channels.

11. Social casting for on and offline events in “real time”

Events anchor any business to their community. You can take advantage of and encourage your community members to participate in all your real-time event ‘live’ media marketing to help you broadcast it across every online digital and traditional marketing channel.

Imagine blog casting, social casting, and mobile applications all working together to engage and draw potential viewers and fans to the event both during and after it’s over.

Events marketing can also be used as a multichannel online sales or advertising event tool to enhance your inbound leads and including community members can add invaluable authenticity to all your campaigns.

I have listed 11 Plays here to put in your playbook of marketing strategies utilizing your onsite community and there are many more that you can add to keep driving down the field to keep scoring goals.

Onsite Communities are HERE, they are REAL, AVAILABLE and currently providing enormous BENEFITS to businesses across the Industry horizontal. Businesses are driving leads through Inbound and Digital Marketing strategies utilizing their onsite communities to broadcast their customer centric culture across their social channels and organically across the internet.

The upside potential of having and utilizing an onsite community to engage and interact with your audience and customers is enormous. Showing your existing and potential customers that you will be there before and after the sale to reward and take care of them will create a customer centric culture that will foster customer loyalty that will extend across all your earned, owned and social media to benefit you and your customers each and every day. This is customer care at its finest and what will drive your success for years to come.

Give me a call to show you how we can get you across the finish line time and time again.

William Cosgrove