It’s Your Message that Matters!
Have we reached an information saturation point? Has AI, fake videos, spam calls, and digital marketing overload clogged our media arteries to the point of audience heart (trust) failure?
Trust Test
When you open an unfamiliar website or email, are you occasionally afraid to click a link because you know you’ll open a malicious file, be tagged, followed, and sold to? Are you tired of getting irrelevant and annoying notifications, calls and emails on your “smart” phone?
You are not alone if you’ve lost some of your trust in some large brands. It seems they have decided to digitally bombard you for their own sakes instead of speaking directly with you as a valued customer. For example, try getting a Kohls card and see how much digital love you get every day…
Who Walks the Talk?
C-suite executives talk a great game about caring for their customers and building a community while breathlessly chasing AI technology to replace human interaction and real customer service. As a customer of any large corporation, your choices keep narrowing. Try finding Facebook’s or Google’s phone number. You can use a customer service chat feature, but they rarely understand your questions! They serve up keyword-based FAQ answers and hope you’re savvy enough to solve the problem yourself.
Getting Through
You can still find excellent customer service in some companies from individuals if you can get a live connection, but we are generally deterred or blocked from getting that far. AI service agents can only go so far because there’s no sentient fellow listening to your individual concerns.
Customer Service is Marketing!
Successful small businesses who excel at direct customer service get the best reviews and word-of-mouth promotion. Think of the several businesses you’ve chosen to use for home and business services. In my case, I know I can have a conversation at any time with a person, which can sometimes lead to more business for them. If the giant brand marketers could deliver customer service experiences as well as they do the hyped marketing overload to consumers, they might save combined billions in advertising costs.
When to Shout from Rooftops
The most frustrating thing to hear from a customer or business prospect is, “I didn’t know you do that!” after they hired a competitor for something you want to be known for. Hearing that would be a clear signal to steer your messages more strategically.
A lot of small businesses know they could be bigger if they could get enough “qualified leads.” That really means easy selling opportunities, and who doesn’t need that?
Our most successful clients produce and promote consistently high-quality images and videos to surround their brands. We deliver consistently across a few select channels, and importantly, these clients deliver quality results that draw testimonials, referrals, and word-of-mouth buzz. It doesn’t hurt that they are also great salespeople!
Cookie Cutter Digital Marketing – Does it fit you?
Customer-centric advertising messages such as finished projects or product displays, customer videos, and testimonials need presence in the market! Not every business will find success with the standard digital marketing mashup commonly pushed to small businesses. It may sound familiar:
- Custom Website
- SEO
- Social Media
- Google & Meta Ads
- Retargeting
- Email Marketing
What Works?
Effectively delivering those high-quality images and stories to your target audience may need more than a blip or ping on an already noisy phone. Your messages may need to be seen in public places, land on desks, be heard on radio, watched on YouTube, placed in subscribed media, seen in a sponsorship, heard on podcasts, seen and read in magazines… Having a top-notch website to land on is your brand’s central station. But no worries! You don’t have to do it all, but you do need to select several of the best media and stay consistent.
Customer Focus Works
When you really and truly focus on your best audience, the better customers, marketing becomes more natural and less stressful, especially when you and your own team earn a great reputation in the market.
People search for validating information today like never before. Start with your branding and your website. The better the quality of your website content and structure, the better your SEO results. Sorry to burst any bubbles in the profession, but on-page organic SEO is that simple, and simple works.
