Multichannel Magic

It is your job to know all there is to know about your business. Your livelihood depends on it. Your customers and prospects are different. Most don’t know the intimate details about your company, products, services, processes, and policies. They do know when they have a problem that needs solving. It’s up to you to provide the education they need in the right language at the right time.

Doing this sounds easy because you know your company’s service and products well. All that you have to do is share it. And that’s when the problems start. When people ask, “How does this work?” what they really mean is “How will this work for me?” or “Does this solve my problem?” Asking a few questions before answering saves time and reduces frustration. The first step in good communication is starting on the same page.

The ability to ask questions is limited in the self-service marketplace we call “Internet.” Your answers have to be readily accessible to the people seeking guidance. If you do it well, you’ll receive some search engine benefits as well. Sears Parts department is a good example of how to provide answers before the questions are asked.

Our dishwasher stopped working a few months ago. There were two issues. The first one was that the cut-off switch didn’t work intermittently and flooded the kitchen. The second was a broken piece on the tray. People who know me well understand that a broken dishwasher is a huge problem in my house. My theory is that dishwashers were invented so I don’t have to wash dishes. With very few exceptions, if something can’t be washed in the dishwasher, I don’t want it in my kitchen.

There are two wonderful features about dishwashers: they wash dishes and are relatively simple in their design. A Google search for schematics took me to Sears Parts Direct. They have everything you can imagine including drawings. After reviewing the information available, I unassembled the water intake valve and found that the filter was clogged. (Note to engineers: When designing products all filters should always be easily accessible. Having to dismantle the intake valve is ridiculous.)

Cleaning the filter resolved the overflow issue. The next step was to replace the broken part. A few keystrokes and a credit card took care of it. In the future, I’ll start with Sears when there are appliance repairs needed in my house.

The knowledge and experience you have with your company can interfere with more than customer communications. It can also cause you to drop profitable products, services, and promotions because you are bored with them and presume your customers feel the same way.

Before making changes to your offerings, review the data to insure that they are warranted. You see these things every day. What looks stale and dated to you may be fresh and new to your customers and prospects.

To attract and convert prospects:

• Always make sure that you understand what your customers and prospects mean before answering questions. They may not ask the right question.
• Educate your customers and prospects about your products, services, processes, and policies. The more they know, the easier it is to communicate.
• Use technology to improve your communications. Anticipate questions and provide answers throughout the shopping process.
• Confirm conversations and provide additional answers with follow-up emails. It opens the door to a relationship while serving well.
• Use analytics to guide marketing, merchandising, and service decisions. Your opinion doesn’t matter if your customers don’t agree.
• Don’t presume that your customers and prospects know how things work at your company. Ask them what they need so you can provide the right answers.
• Remember that your website is an excellent place to share information. Create pages for distributing information. They will improve your natural search rankings and serve your visitors.
• The more you know, the better you serve. Always seek to learn more about your business, products, and customers.

To improve your content management, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

Google is striving to give a better search experience by adding a feature that highlights detailed articles for people who need more than an overview. The new functionality is rolling out over the next few days. It appears in search results like this:

The official blog post mentions that approximately “10% of people’s daily information needs fit this category.” It could have added that that people who want detailed information are highly likely to buy solutions that fill their needs.

The algorithm that selects the content is secret but one can expect that Google will look for high quality definitive information. Promotional posts won’t be included. All of this is good news for companies willing to create content that helps people solve problems. Detailed “how to” posts attract traffic, increase credibility, and work even if they don’t make it to the in-depth article block.

Creating great content is the first step to getting highlighted. It is also the first step in converting prospects to customers. When people find answers at your website, they trust your company. This makes your business their first stop when they are ready to buy.

The second step is to follow Google’s technical recommendations:

• Implement schema.org article markup – Your metadata may be enough but using schema.org clearly identifies the key components of the post.
• Use Authorship markup – This helps Google recognize the writer’s expertise.
• Install proper pagination and canonicalization – If your articles spread across multiple pages this is needed to insure that Google’s bots see all of the content.
• Make it easy to Google to choose your logo – Your logo shows readers to source of the information and improves brand awareness.
• Implement First Click Free if your content requires a subscription – First Click Free opens the gates keep bots from accessing content on your site.

Capturing data is relatively easy. Converting data into actionable information that improves sales, profitability, and loyalty is not. Filtering through bits and bytes for nuggets that can affect people’s behavior can be overwhelming especially when the data isn’t centralized. According to a recent study by Yesmail/Gleanster, only two out of ten of the marketers surveyed include channel preference, household composition, propensity scores, and behavioral data to create targeted customer communications. Limitations with existing tools and fragmented marketing systems were cited as the top two challenges that prevented personalized communication.

There will always be limitations with existing tools. The turnkey system that always provides the right information at the right time would be extremely expensive if it existed. This is good news for marketers because having a perfect marketing system would significantly reduce the need for people to compile and interpret data. Time would be better spent figuring out how to make fragmented marketing systems work together rather than lamenting the lack of a centralized unit.

There is another challenge that keeps companies from optimizing their use of data. The quest to be great keeps them from achieving good. Creating a great marketing strategy that utilizes data to engage customer is a worthy goal. The process starts with finding good tactics that work for specific channels and platforms. Good becomes great when successful tactics are integrated into a comprehensive marketing strategy focused on providing an excellent customer experience. To get started:

• Improve interdepartmental communication – Systems that provide the data needed to improve marketing are often managed by different departments. Improving interdepartmental communication makes it easier to work together to find the best strategy for your company.
• Compile data – Knowing what information is available is the first step to finding the best way to use it. Rate each metric for credibility keeping in mind that the accuracy of any compiled number coming from a third party is questionable without verification.
• Homogenize information – While every channel and platform has unique metrics, some are similar. Make all of the information as consistent as possible so differences can be used to identify trends instead of anomalies.
• Start small – Identify the tactics currently used that work best at motivating people to act for each channel and platform you use. Are there any tactics that work well in one area that aren’t being used in others? Can they be adapted for the other areas?
• Consolidate systems – Multiple systems are a part of marketing today. This will not change. Export data from individual systems to create consolidated reports. Viewing consolidated information inspires marketing ideas.
• Use the information – Utility is the only reason to compile data. If it isn’t going to be used, why waste resources accumulating it? Don’t wait until you have mounds of information before incorporating it in your marketing. Start testing as soon as actionable information is available.
• Document results – Successful data management builds on itself. Every test becomes part of the foundation that helps your business grow, improves service, and increases profitability.

For information on how you can improve your data management, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

Good customer relationships are the cornerstone of long-term corporate success. The quest to build relationships often proves elusive and expensive because what people want is rarely delivered by the companies that serve them. Instead of investing resources in studying behavior and listening to customer feedback, many management teams waste time and effort watching what other companies are doing and listening to people with little or no management experience.

If you want your company to grow, it’s time to get realistic about relationship marketing and use the lessons learned to improve the quality of the customer experience. This means that the information available about best practices, customer expectations, and case studies has to be viewed through your company’s customer behavior lens. Your relationship with your customers is unique. Their expectations when dealing with your business is different than those when dealing with your competitors. Relationships are strong when expectations are managed well.

Information shared about relationship building is always tainted by the knowledge and experience of the people sharing it. For example:

• Direct marketing advocates deny the need for a social strategy because they believe they are already connected with customers.
• ECommerce advocates extol their low cost sales solutions that allow virtual companies to generate revenue with minimal staffing.
• Brick-and-mortar advocates share their face-to-face customer connections as the ultimate relationship opportunity.
• Social media advocates promise that the channel reduces the need for all other marketing because conversations drive people to companies.

Successful relationship management needs a balanced approach that includes multiple channels, tools, and platforms. There isn’t a global best anything. Relationships are established one communication at a time. The communication may be a marketing message, transaction, service call, or any other connection between individual and company. The sum of the communications determines the quality of the relationship. Unfortunately, the social media movement has led many companies to replace improving customer relationships with a quest for global dominance through viral marketing. It’s time to stop dreaming and get realistic about relationship marketing.

Connecting with customers today is easier and less expensive than ever before. It is a shame to waste opportunities for real one-to-one relationships when technology to do so is readily available. To improve your customer relationships:

• Know what your customers expect from your company. Ask people to share what they like best and least about how you do business and then review behavior to insure that what they say matches what they do.
• Streamline everything to make experiences easy and efficient. Most people prefer easy to exceptional. This is great for companies because easy tends to be very cost effective.
• Personalize the experience. The combination of technology and information simplifies the process of delivering a personal experience. People need to feel valued. Personal connections show that you value your customers.
• Deliver on the promise and don’t promise what you can’t deliver. It is better to promise less and deliver because people remember failings more successes. If you clearly define the promises and deliver every time, people trust your business.
• Take good care of your employees. The people who represent your company need to believe in it to consistently provide high quality customer care. If you are seeking advocates for your business, start with the people you employee. Their feelings are highly contagious.

For information on how you can improve your customer relationships, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.