The Internet show about small business marketing.
Podcast Episode #56 – How to earn word of mouth by making the customer better.
One way to earn word of mouth is treat your current customers to a remarkable experience, inspiring them to talk about you with friends and family. But there is also a way for you to earn word of mouth from people who have never spent a dime with you, and maybe never will. The way to recruit these vicarious customer evangelists is to cultivate them.
What we’re talking about here is growing the customer, in the sense that you are making the customer better, developing and improving them. But here’s the kicker…You do it for free. In this episode of Power to the Small Business I discuss one of the key tactics from my Word-of-Mouth Playbook: Cultivate the Customer.
Guest: Host Jay Ehret, The Marketing Spot, Waco, TX
Length: 17 minutes
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Show Notes:
FEEDING FUTURE CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS
The idea is to get people who have not yet even purchased from you to spread the word about you, because you made them better, you cultivated them. This leads to a more widespread knowledge about you, but it also leads to a widespread acceptance of you as a potential provider. How do you start cultivating? What will you offer?
I. Solving Problems – What simple problems can you solve for customers? If you could make your customer better by solving one of their simple problems, how would you do that?
II. Answering Questions – Every day customers ask you questions. What are the most common? Use those questions for ideas to cultivate potential customers.
CULTIVATION TIPS
– Don’t get outside your area of expertise. Stick to what you know best and can speak on, or deliver authoritatively.
· Give people something that’s valuable. Don’t give me 10 reasons why your product or service makes me better, give me 10 things I can do to make myself look better.
– Give people something that’s spreadable. Make it something that people want to pass along to others. If you make people smarter, make them look better, save them money, make them money, that’s stuff they’ll want to tell others about.
Show Links:
Jay Ehret’s Company – The Marketing Spot
How I Cultivate Customers: Build Your Marketing Plan
Recommended Reading: Creating Customer Evangelists
Events:
Opimization Summit, September 16-17, 2010 – Dallas, Texas (referral link)
Brainstorming Sessions for the Multifamily Industry, September 16-17, 2010 – Dallas, Texas
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