Six Steps to Break Through the Marketing Noise and Create Customers For Life
Growing up, we had one TV in the house until I was 10. That year, we got a new TV for the living room and had the old TV moved to the master bedroom. I can remember spending evenings watching shows like the news and the channel 8 soap drama at 7pm, all of us gathered around the set in the living room. Sometimes I would be banished to the smaller second TV to watch shows like “Charmed”
At my house now, we have three TVs and one movie theater room. We also have two iPads, three desktop, five cell phones, and two MacBook Airs. As a family of three, all of us could literally be on two separate devices, and we would still have an emergency device in case a friend came by and was in need of their technology fix. It is becoming more and more difficult to break through the noise.
Breaking through all the potential distractions is no easy task.
Getting noticed enough for someone to build a relationship or have a connection with you and your business in today’s world of infinite choice is not easy, but it’s now more important than ever if you want to thrive in this new economy.
Here is the simple formula my company, Night & Day, uses to build relationships with our customers and for our customers.
1. Frequency of Communication: You don’t have relationships with people you don’t talk to at least once per month (better yet, once per week). You also don’t have a relationship with people who, when you talk with them, are always asking for something. For example, only sending offers, coupons, bills, etc.
2. Consistency: You can’t be hot and then cold with your communication. You either care about the relationship or you don’t. When you are inconsistent, you send the message you don’t care, or at a minimum, you and your business are disorganized. This is not the message you want to send to your customers or prospects.
3. Creativity in Your Communication: Don’t be boring, and don’t be the same as everyone else. There are so many “me too” business owners and companies. With 15 shiny gadgets in my house, you need to be interesting and entertaining to break through the first line of defense and get me to look up and start paying attention to you. Step one in this process is to show up consistently, step two is to be creative in what you’re presenting. Boring and generic isn’t going to cut it.
4. Variety of Styles: You need to vary the types of communication you are using (print, email, phone, FedEx, awards/ trophies, online, postcards). A winning annual content strategy would look like this: 12 print newsletters, 104 emails, 26 postcards, 12 letters, online retargeting of existing customers, six CD/DVD interviews, three FedEx packages, three gifts, and two awards/trophies.
5. Personality and/or Celebrity: No one wants a relationship with a corporation; they want a relationship with a person, or better yet, a celebrity. You have to open up and let people take a peek behind the curtain, or you are doomed to mediocrity.
6. Quality: Looks matter and content matters: You can’t distribute garbage and expect it to work simply because you sent it. You need to find and walk that fine line that says “personal but professional.” Not garbage, not too flashy. You also need to be interesting, and your content can’t suck. It doesn’t have to necessarily be content you want to read, as you may not be the target demographic, but sending out content that is generic isn’t going to help you build a relationship with your target audience.
As you may know, we also create print newsletters for our customers. I had someone recently complain to me that their newsletter wasn’t working. When I looked into it, I noticed they had not been working with our ghost writers to create personalized page-one cover stories.
They had been providing a few short sentences about their personal lives and then jumping straight back into business, asking clients to buy their services. To boot, they were being inconsistent in their mailings, because they were too busy. I could have simply read the newsletter and told them it wasn’t working, no other data needed.
There is a time and place for promotion but every piece of communication can’t be “buy my stuff” if you want long-term customers. How many editions of this newsletter would you read if every article ended with a product pitch?
The above six steps aren’t hard, but they also aren’t optional if you care about building lasting relationships with customers who put food on your table and provide you with referrals.
PS: If you want to see how I can help you grow your traffic and revenue, Schedule a Business Strategy Session today with me
