Marketing Matters: Managing Customer Channels and Relationships
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What is your favorite brand? How would you describe it? Did you just personify it (describe it with human characteristics)? It’s amazing how the marketing and voice behind brands can make everything feel so personable and make us feel so valued. That being said, you’ve also likely had the opposite experience, too. When you think about your business, which experience are you creating for your conscious consumers? It’s all about relationship building. By selecting channels to share your messages in the right ways and at the right times, you create positive impressions and develop connections between your brand and audience over time. Integrating a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to manage your customer information and interactions helps you make the relationship and journey experience even more meaningful.
Which Five Channels Should I Start With?
It can be challenging to manage multiple channels – especially with a small team – but fortunately, technologies like Hootsuite are making it easier to do so. Odds are, with your channels selected, you are going to be adapting content across platforms and not creating something unique for each one. This is a good thing! It creates a consistent customer experience, keeps your brand focused and makes your job a little simpler. When in doubt, keep it simple and straightforward. If you’re starting from scratch here’s what we’d recommend for your channel portfolio:
Website
When audience members Google you, give them somewhere to go! This channel is probably your first step as aside from being your online marketplace, you can drive to your site from other channels. Include helpful content that is relevant to your audience, incorporate keywords for your industry and services and optimize with SEO extensions. Design a mobile-friendly site and frequently check how effective your format is with analytics tools. Put on those consumer glasses and audit your user experience! You can also check your Alexa ranking to see how your site is performing and indexing.
Email
From your website, you should be able to set up a contact page or a newsletter sign-up pop-up form. Select an email provider that helps you to manage your audience list and allows for content personalization. There are many options available, but regular communication through this direct mail remains important. Share the wonderful improvements you are making in the world through business! Your email service should also connect to a CRM system in order to manage your lists. A few tips: keep your subject lines short, A/B test content performance and email timing. When in doubt, simplify – visual content is a must to make an impression!
Social Media
Likely your audience has a favorite social media channel but Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube remain prominent sources today. As we mentioned, it’s getting easier to share across these channels, too. Social channels provide an excellent opportunity to highlight audience members, encourage them to share content with friends and post your updates on a regular basis. Your voice should be consistent. Keep in mind that video content is highly engaging and that consumers are moving through these media sources fast. For more platform-specific content recommendations, check out these tips Disruptive Advertising.
Pay-Per-Click
If you have optimized your website and are providing something unique, pay-per-click is an excellent resource to gather attention from search engines. Try paid social ads or Google display ads to raise awareness with specific demographics and consumers the web crawlers believe are a good match for you. Drive traffic to your website, receive more phone calls and visits – all while paying when it benefits you. A little keyword research and even a small budget (which you set) will move you in the right direction.
Word of Mouth
Last but not least, remember word of mouth! By providing content your followers love and creating a positive customer journey in-store or online you are bound to generate fans. Encourage people to share about what you are doing online and in their communities. You want your customers to be brand and company ambassadors. No matter what you do, their reviews and advocacy will matter.
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How Do I Manage Customer Relationships?
As you are selecting and aligning your channels and content, you should be thinking about how you’ll keep track of how customers are interacting with you. This brings us to CRM: Customer Relationship Management. At every channel touch point, you want to track how customers are engaging with your messages. What have they purchased? What notifications or emails have they sent? Are they opening direct mail? A customer relationship management system like Hubspot provides a way to understand your customers and their relationships with your brand – your initial connection is just the start of the ongoing conversation with your lead.
Depending on the CRM system, there is a wide variety of information you can keep together in one place: client information, customer service interactions, sales opportunities, electronic messages, purchases and more. Some analytic tools will provide automatic data logging in CRM while other platforms require manual entry (which are still very helpful for leaving notes on prospects and leads as a small business owner).
Thinking about your conscious consumers, you are able to serve them through great content on the channels you have selected and you want that content to be authentic and meaningful. You’re doing so much more than selling a product or service – you’re working for social good! Is that message resonating? Looking at numbers and data alone will not tell the whole story, but when you match information with a particular message and notice it is changing the way customers perceive or engage with you, you have the power to do better (which is exciting)!
Use the information you uncover from your CRM to understand and improve your customer journeys and comprehensive brand experiences. Marketing today is about much more than a single interaction and when you can see how all touch points connect for your audience, you can anticipate their needs, find and resolve pain points in their purchase and repurchase processes and increase loyalty. With a mission as important as yours, you want everyone on board to help improve the world.
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What Resources Can Help Me With CRM?
There are many resources available about understanding CRM systems and their benefits, but as you know it all comes back to this: marketing is about providing value (and relationships make marketing far more than sales.) With a smile, we challenge you to keep innovating for your customers! Use CRM tools to get organized and become a champion of the channels you have selected. Here are tools for you to consider:
1) Hubspot CRM
2) Freshworks CRM
3) Vtiger
4) Salesforce Essentials
5) Less Annoying CRM
The more you record, the more you have to work with. Let’s make building relationships across channels meaningful.
What Now?
Like many things in the digital world, don’t be afraid if your best fit channels change over time. If you’re keeping your attention on the pulse of where your audience is, your message will reach them. Continue to monitor the content your core consumers enjoy – videos, photos, stories, user content – you’re bound to strike a chord. As we discuss in our channel selection blog, identify and select metrics to measure your effectiveness and make sure you are getting the return on your investment of time, effort and resources.
As your business grows consider how you will keep your fans in the know and also how you will reach new audiences. Make it easy for your tribe to find you. There are always new channels to explore. Check back next week for a deeper dive into selecting technologies!
