Tag Archives: evangelism

The Five Fundamentals of Customer Evangelism

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Every start-up needs customer evangelists! In a recent blog post, Michael Holmes describes the five fundamentals of customer evangelism.  So how can you get these individuals to support your product? One way to gain die-hard fans is to make them feel included. Holmes advises business to set up forums “where users can answer each others questions, ask what items you should carry in your store” and “create a round table discussion group.” This allows users to feel like they are a part of something bigger and gives them an opportunity to have a say in the direction of your company.  Additionally, making customers feel special is another way to turn a customer into an evangelist.  Provide loyal customers with exclusive offers or inviting them to special events informs them that you value their support and it is a great privilege to be an evangelist.

Read more of Michael Holmes post, The Five Fundamentals of Customer Evangelism, via RodKirby.com.

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity

6 Sales Lessons From the Election

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What better way to examine effective sales practices than to take a look the startegies utilized by Obama and Romney in the recent election? According to Geoffrey James of Inc Magazine, “all elections are sales and marketing campaigns, from their big spends on airtime to their word-of-mouth networking on the ground. Because of this, elections always provide sales and marketing lessons that are applicable to the wider business world.” So what did Obama and Romney teach us about how to run effective sales campaigns? One of the most importance elements from election season is the notion that spamming your brand is not enough.  This campaign season, both candidates spent billions on broadcast advertising to little effect.  People often find repetitive messaging annoying. James emphasizes targeting individuals as a more effective strategy.  Another lesson we can learn from this election cycle is that “product evangelism doesn’t create new customers.”  This was demonstrated by the religious right’s ineffective approach to the election. While this demographic was obviously incredibly passionate about the issues, their ability to convert people to their product was devastating low.

Read more of Geoffrey James’ blog bost, 6 Sales Lessons from the Election via Inc.com

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity

How To Turn ‘Likes’ Into Loyal Customers

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So, you’ve gotten people to follow you on Twitter, friend you on Facebook and subscribe to your blog, but how do you convert these “likes” into loyal customers?  In a recent blog post for Business Insider, Cindy Ratzlaff describes how to convert on these positive exchanges. According to Ratzlaff, “a conversion focused social media strategy should bring a lead into the marketing funnel, capture the lead, create the opportunity and incentives to convert the lead (through either a sale or a partnership or a request for further information), engage that new partner/client and motivate the partner/client to transform into a brand evangelizer by providing them with the tools and incentives to recreate the cycle.” In the piece, Ratzlaff expands on this conversion theory and gives advice on how to utilize the language spoken on each social platform to develop a more effective brand messaging strategy.  Additionally, she provides a “social media funnel map strategy” to target ideal clients and frequent buyers.

Read more of Cindy Ratzlaff’s blog post, How To Turn ‘Likes’ Into Loyal Customers via BusinessInsider.com

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity 

 

Creating Online Evangelists

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Online evangelists can help spread the word about your company and are literally walking advertisements for your brand. In a recent blog post, Social Media Performance Group outlines key steps to recruit potential evangelists. According to the post, “one great source of potential evangelists are your best customers. They’re generally easy to find, and they are likely to be motivated to help you spread the word.” By interviewing these satisfied participants, you are able to get an idea of who could potentially act as an unofficial spokesperson for your company.  Also, setting up Google and Twitter Alerts allows you to remain at the forefront of the discussion on your brand to scout out any evangelists who are already roaming the internet!

Read more of the blog post, Creating Online Evangelists, via smperformance.wordpress.org

-Julia LaSalvia, Lexity

Building Your Business One Tweet at a Time: Twitter Marketing 101

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How can tweeting about what you do every day help you generate leads and promote your business? Ruth M. Shipley writes in her review and recommendation for the book Twitter for Dummies that “The whole point of social media — of which Twitter is part — is to find your satisfied customers and encourage them to recommend you to their friends and relatives. In social media terminology, this is called finding product evangelists.“Use this book to get an introduction to Twitter, plan your strategy, start searching for relevant tweets and more. Thinking of putting together a Twitter marketing plan? Start with this great article!

See Ruth Shipley’s review in it’s entirety on Building Your Business One Tweet at a Time via www.socialmediaexaminer.com.

-Michelle Crawford, Lexity

How To Get Your Customers To Talk About Your Business

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Would you like to get more word-of-mouth referrals from happy customers of your small business? Of course! This article by Aaron Hoos defines the types of promotions that customers generally give as both implicit—quiet, implied and general—and explicit—exuberant, specific and clearly stated. While Hoos doesn’t argue with the fact that “every business wants every Customer to turn into an explicit Evangelist”, he does say that a more realistic approach would be to “give your Customers tools to become the kind of Evangelist they are most comfortable being”. Find out all of the ways Hoos lists to provide opportunities for your customers to evangelize your products and services, both explicitly and implicitly.

Read the whole article by Aaron Hoos here: How to get your Customers to talk about your business via aaronhoos.com

-Michelle Crawford, Lexity

5 Tips for Adding Humor to Your Social Media Strategy

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“Earlier this year, Forbes published a piece advancing the notion that funny people may actually have an edge in business.” By adding humor to your content, you increase your chances of being shared — and when you’re shared, customers begin to evangelize your content. Jason Boies recommends, “Your social media team should stay on top of what’s happening in the world of current events and pop culture.  What’s popular right now? What are people buzzing about?” Yet, more than that, you should be taking some time to make your content entertaining. It’s important not to overdo it and force the humor. But, when something witty pops into your head, chances are others will enjoy it too.

For 5 tips on adding humor to your social media strategy, check out Jason’s article for Salesforce’s Radian6, 5 Tips for Adding Humor to Your Social Media Strategy.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

Social Media Marketing Tips for Easy Content Sharing

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One of the easiest ways to lighten the load of your content sharing and improve customer evangelism is to set up a Buffer account. Okay, so we’re not explicitly endorsing the application. But, in order to launch an effective evangelist strategy, your small business needs to maintain a cohesive schedule of posts, tweets and updates. It’ll free up the time you devote to managing your social media accounts, and give you some leg room to run other aspects of your business. “By sharing content via Twitterfeed or Buffer ensure that you have clear goals in mind like driving revelvant traffic to your website and setup applicable campaigns to track key metrics that matter for your business.”

For more tips on easy content sharing, check out TrendSlide’s article, Social Media Marketing Tips for Easy Content Sharing.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

How to Develop Customer Evangelists

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The first few steps for creating customer evangelists are 1) knowing who your customers are, 2) knowing what they want, and 3) understanding how they respond to your company. Lucky for us, all three steps can be accomplished with one goal— “acquiring customer insights.” Going out and literally asking your customers, prospective customers, and customers within the industry, what they want most, what they expect and what they like and dislike about your company is crucial to your business’s success. More to the point, interview your customers. Collect customer reviews. As Alex Goldfayn (Mashable) says, ”This activity is so critical because your most effective messaging comes from your market. If you do this right, your will gather language that you know resonates strongly with your customers because it comes from your customers.”

Learn more about developing customer evangelism by reading Alex Goldfayn’s article for Mashable, How to Develop Customer Evangelists.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity

10,000 Likes or 10 Brand Evangelists?

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Instead of deciding between either getting 10,000 Facebook likes or 10 brand evangelists, why not choose both? As you aim to grow your network of customer evangelists (i.e. all those customers who “rave” about your company to their own networks), don’t get bogged down in the specifics—and this is especially important for small businesses who are already stretched for time and effort. What do we mean? Ryan Connors, for Bussiness2Community, says, “There’s no set formula for the value of a like, a follow, a share or a retweet, or even a brand evangelist for that matter. It’s understood that engagement is important for building brand awareness, but only a fraction of social activities per person results in website hits, store visits, sales and repeat customers.” A customer evangelist strategy should embrace a more expansive approach, from a general sense and specifically for a small to medium sized business. The object is simply to produce content that people want to “share.” And remember, when someone “likes” a piece of content, they’re effectively sharing that “like” with their own networks.

To learn more, check out Ryan Connors’ article, Quickly: 10,000 Likes or 10 Brand Evangelists.

-Christopher Lin, Lexity