No Time to Browse?
Download A Marketing Kit
IPG Search Marketing
P.O. Box 1157
Little Elm, TX 75068
(a
suburb of the
Dallas - Ft. Worth Metroplex)
1-877-334-8022
or 214-295-1059
Email
Ken!
Building Client and Referral Communities
By John Jantsch
Connecting clients and prospects to each other is a powerful way to
build a super loyal customer and referral base.
Two of the most important
words in the marketing world are Content and Contact. I think the
best lead generation is done by providing tons of great content -
the best lead conversion is done by providing the right kind of
contact. Put content and contact together and you not only have a
powerful business building strategy, you have a customer loyalty and
referral generating machine.
In my opinion, the best way for small business owners to take
advantage of the craving for content and contact is to form
communities around products, services and ideas. I think this idea
is really at the heart of the unreal growth of social communities
like mySpace and YouTube. People are desperately looking to connect.
Helping people connect in business terms may not be exactly the same
as helping teenagers connect online, but the principles bare a
striking similarity. The following examples illustrate some easy
ways to help prospects and clients gain a deeper connection with
your organization.
The primary skill needed build community is any size network and a
willingness to share openly.
It's just lunch
I have experienced some pretty fascinating results every time I have
brought groups of clients together, even to share lunch. Business
owners are starved for contact with their
Peers - the daily grind just makes this too hard to find.
Facilitating this is a great service that any business can offer.
Peer to peer education
Current clients are probably more prepared to explain the value of
your service to a prospect, including the limitations. Hold "focus
groups" made up of several existing clients and several prospects.
Let the current clients explain, in a non selling environment, what
your service has meant to them, what could be better, how to get
more from it. Sit back and learn.
Natural word of mouth marketing
When you deepen a relationship with a client by opening up your
contacts and clients to them, you will find that they will begin to
naturally (not sales motivated) talk about what you do that matters
to them. You cannot purchase that kind of conversation.
Resource director
Bringing client or other resources together and allowing your
clients and prospects to take advantage of those resources is a
great way to build community and loyalty. Hosting lunches or even
teleseminars with other leading experts is a great example of this
type of community building.
Referral communities
What if you put together a group of like minded businesses, all
focused on the same target audience, and you created a local online
community, including a blog that each member of the referral group
contributed to. This group could easily generate and educate leads
in a way that would allow everyone to win. A semi-formal referral
and co-marketing strategy is what you would need to make this take
off locally.
Creating client and referral communities is a very satisfying way to
build a business. The pressure that some business owners feel from
the need to sell is virtually eliminated. Any business or
independent professional that takes community building on as a
primary marketing strategy and then sticks with it, can dominate an
industry.
~ ~ ~
John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and
author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small
Business Marketing Guide published by Thomas Nelson - due out
in the fall of 2006
He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business
marketing system. You can find more information by visiting
http://www.ducttapemarketing