How to create conversations with your customers.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who is having a conversation at you and not with you? You know, the conversation were all you hear is about their job, their family, their pets, them, them, them, them, them. Here you are sitting there looking attentive while wondering ‘when they will shut the hell up?’  Well consider your advertising, are you only talking about you, you, you? If so, please realize that your customers and leads can and will tune this out. Here are some pointers on breaking out of the monologue and developing a dialogue with your audience.

Realize it’s all about them not about you. You’ve got to face it – no one cares about your products or services. Sounds odd I know, but what I’m saying is people will care about what your product or service is going to do for them. With that being said, try to make sure your all copy has the word “you” more than it has the words “I” or “we”.

Refrain from spamming other people’s social media. This goes along with tip #1 but needs to be pointed out separately. Once in a while, when you have a great achievement sure it’s fine to point it out. Placing your business all over your friends and your business pages you follow however is just plain tacky and annoying. Taking a picture
of your product and then tagging everyone you can think of will easily get you defriended!

Use your social media to ask questions. Questions are great conversation starters. Boston television show Phantom Gourmet does an excellent job using their Facebook page to ask their ‘Phans’ fun, yet relevant questions to create conversation. Bonus: When you ask relevant questions to your fans you get valuable marketing information.

Use your Internet marketing to show your customers love. If you’re a B2B company, using your customers as case studies is a great way to showcase how your product/service made their company more efficient and also it allows you to cross promote your customer and who doesn’t love a little free promotion! If you’re a B2C company, social media is a great place to run contests and thank your loyal customers.

Negative feedback is a great way to show your customer service skills. As hard as it is to see a bad review, view it as an opportunity. In fact, use it to your advantage! How you respond to a bad review can really speak volumes about your company. For example, if you’re a restaurant that received a bad review on Yelp or Google, post a reply apologizing for the reason behind a bad review and offer a solution. First off your acknowledging and taking responsibility for what happened publicly and secondly you didn’t just say “So sorry, too bad.” - you offered a solution. It shows you care about your customers and your public image. Yelp’s Support Center offers further reading.

When it comes to lead nurturing, building relationships with your customers will be the key to a successful long lasting relationship is to show you care by creating an open dialogue.