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Online Contests for Social Medias Marketing – FREE

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The new science of online Advertising: Friendcasting

The social media revolution is unstoppable, and it is touching, and changing everything. For Advertising, we are moving from “one to many” marketing to “many to many” marketing, which also means for marketers moving from “broadcasting” to “friendcasting”. Friendcasting is a new way to make your message delivered by the people who are the closest and most intimate to your target market. It’s a deep trend that has started some years ago but only now we are seeing its full expression. It Requires new way of thinking and new tools. During the presentation, you’ll learn the basic principles to understand about friendcasting, and some tools and tactics to use successfully.

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How The Law of Reciprocity Could Help You.

The law of reciprocity states that we repay, in kind, what another person has provided us. It’s a common mantra in our culture.

Here are 2 powerful ways to put the Law of Reciprocity into action:

1. To recruit advocates for your business:

  • To recruit customers as advocates, become advocate for your customers,
  • To recruit peers as advocates, become advocate for your peers,
  • To recruit friends as advocates, become advocate for your friends,
  • To recruit strangers as advocates, become advocate for strangers

Start by asking yourself how you could become advocate for these people in a consistent way.

2.  To make new friends and attract people to you:

  • To make friends, start treating people like friends,
  • Treat strangers the same way you’ll treat a friend. It’s a replication of attitude that works very well to make new friends and attract people to you.

Start by making a list of the ways you treat your friends that makes them feel special, and replicate these attitudes with people you’d like to befriend.

Trust in the law of reciprocity, and you’ll see the miraculous results.

“The highest form of public relations is human relations. People buy from friends, so it’s crucial to make the human bond before you can make a lasting business bond.  Always Develop The Human Bond Before The Business Bond”. Jay Conrad Levinson

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I need help to choose, to find relevant information … Please Help.

The end of the scarcity age in developed countries resulted in consumers being overwhelmed by a huge number and variety of goods and services.

“Am I buying the right digital camera? Am I getting the best treatment for my chronic ulcer? Am I signing up for the right service?” becomes the inner voice of each consumer when he faces this “hell of choice.”

There are, in fact, vast amounts of information available to respond to these questions, and there are several channels, “But who has the leisure and the proficiency needed to sort through and evaluate all these products and services? [And] the burgeoning complexity of offerings, as well as the associated risks and reward, confounds and frustrates most time-starved consumers. Product variety has not necessarily resulted in better consumer experiences.” - C. K. Prahalad

As a result, consumers are lost. Information comes to them as noise. When consumers need answers, they may end up sifting through contradicting advice, opinionated content and a lot of pretty crappy material. They’ll waste plenty of time.

The unheard voice of the consumer behind all this data could sound something like this: “I want less data, not more data. I need to know what’s important, and I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know. …Can someone please do this for me? Please? I need help.” – Erick Schonfeld

Netflix, like Amazon, has figured out that helping people make choices is the key to market success. People won’t buy things if they can’t make fundamental choices, and most people won’t make as many choices if they don’t get a little help — without being barraged with too many questions.
That’s the trick. We don’t want to answer too many questions about what we’re looking for. Half the time we don’t know what we’re looking for (just browsing) and the other half of the time we are incapable of describing it ‚ or maybe that’s just me. Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert details people’s inability to understand or describe what makes them happy in his book, « Stumbling on Happiness ». We think that many of those same mental barriers exist for people shopping or searching online, and we believe a good recommendation platform is essential to overcome them.” Rob Rustad, From Collarity.com.

How to transform helping your customers to choose and find relevant information in a marketing strategy that built loyalty and growth for your business?

Send “Information as a Gift” your customers.

According to a 2004 Forum Corporation study on cross selling, 88 percent of customers with spending power welcomed product and service suggestions that help them. The same is true in the B2B world—clients prize sales professionals who empathetically understand their business and make suggestions on how to improve it.

What is information as a Gift?

Information as a gift ™” means to pay attention to your customers’ and contacts needs and interests for products and services other than your own, and give them relevant and trustful information to help them reach good services providers.

Since one company alone can no longer autonomously create consumer experience, Linkcrafter members pay attention to their customers’ and contacts needs and interests for products and services other than their own, and send their customers to other business for Free as a powerful way to build loyalty and Growth.

Linkcrafter solution helps you send your customers safely and securely to other businesses as a powerful way to build Loyalty and grow your business. Yes, It’s about Sending your Customers to other businesses for FREE as a way to build Loyalty and Grow. And It works.

You become known as a powerful resource for others—and when you have the reputation for being a strong resource, people start turning to you for suggestions, ideas, names of other people, connections, etc. This keeps you visible and your business top-of-mind when people need your products and services. This, in turn, will greatly increase the number of referrals your customers will send to your business.

You don’t need Money to start. Information, Recommendation are intangible things you can give again, again and again without being left broke.

“Information as a gift ™” has a tremendous power to induce positive emotional connections to customers and contacts. The positive emotional connections in turn has the power to turn customers and contacts into voluntary advocates for your organization, generating a consistent word-of-mouth referrals and a Nonstop Viral Buzz for your business.

How it works?

“Simply go to that address book and list out the 20 percent of your contacts who matter most. Do you know their interests? Their biggest dreams and goals (professional and personal)? If you don’t then that is a place to begin. Once you do, mark down next to each name what specific actions you can take that will help that person realize those goals. What connections can you make for them? What knowledge can you transfer to them? Call them up. No agenda. No ‘asking for the business.’ Just deliver value relevant to them and keep doing it.”

Howard Mann

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Are You a Leader? We need You. We Want YOU to Lead US.

What are doing right now?

So, you are a leader and the world is in trouble and you seat there, just repeating your life like one year ago?

Do you think this is a reaction for a leader when our world faces such a Tough time, When Millions have lost their jobs or are leaving in the fear to lose their jobs; when Hundreds of thousands lost their houses, and Millions other are living in the fear to lose their houses; when Millions of Businesses, small and large, are struggling; when Millions are petrified with fear, and Neighbors, friends and contacts are now constantly worrying about their finances and having panic attacks. Even people who are not suffering significant economic losses are  worrying they will or simply are reacting with sleeplessness to pervasive uncertainty;

What are you doing?
Are you waiting for the bad news to get down by their own, so you could enjoy again good life like earlier, two or three years ago?

So, you think this is not your responsibility. You think this is such a big mess and you are just too humble a person for the situation. You are wrong.

We have a call for you :The World needs you as a Leader in this troubled time.

We need you as a leader and you can do something for a better world tomorrow.
Start anything you can that could make difference, contribute, help.

YES YOU CAN.

We need You as leader.
if You have no idea about what to do or how to start, I have a list of 20 things that could inspire you and that you could start today.  I made this list with inputs from Seth Godin and Robert Midleton, two authors I admire.

Please Read and start something today. 
Tom Peters
, the business guru, offers a very useful “How to” tip that I put at the end of this post.

Start today, ….

  1. Teach someone how to sell their services on Craigslist, or how to use the web to find a job.
  2. Start a blog and profile one worthy non-profit every single day.
  3. Go through your house and find beloved books that you’re glad you read… and give them to the library.
  4. Find an artisan and redesign their website or help them figure out how to promote their work.
  5. Create and promote an online petition for a cause you care about.
  6. Make a video that teaches people how to do better in a job interview or balance a checkbook or spot consumer fraud.
  7. Start a Facebook group for like-minded people who support the same non-profit you do. Commit to spending time to promote it, organize the people there and actually create outcomes of value.
  8. Seek out a religion that isn’t yours and volunteer to help build a bridge between your circle and theirs.
  9. Write ten letters a day to corporations seeking donations for a local homeless shelter.
  10. Find a tool that non-profits need online, and then organize some brilliant people to build it as an opensource utility.
  11. Find a cause that supports soldiers or diplomats or other public servants that are on the road, and make it easier for them to connect with people back home.
  12. Use Copilot to diagnose and fix computer problems for people or causes that can’t afford fancy IT support. It’s free on weekends.
  13. Find an entrepreneur in the developing world and become her email penpal. Daily advice and encouragement might save hundreds of lives.
  14. Lobby politicians with letters and blog posts to make a change to a law that doesn’t benefit you at all, but helps the community in the long run.
  15. Write a great wikipedia article every day about a person who is changing the world for the better.
  16. Find video and remix it into an insanely viral video that promotes a cause that you believe in.
  17. Call a past client and see how they’re doing. Don’t ask for anything; but offer an idea, a resource, or even encouragement.
  18. Call someone you met through networking and invite them to coffee to learn about their business.
  19. Do a favor for someone who you know would appreciate it. Don’t worry about what you’ll get back.
  20. Write a thank-you note to someone who did you a favor or who took the time to speak or meet with you.

For doing so,

“Consider …

  • Get up earlier.
  • Go to bed later.
  • Work harder.
  • Finish what you start.
  • Learn one new thing.
  • Renew one contact.
  • Ask, “How can I help you?” at least once.
  • Make yourself visible.
  • Be of good cheer.


Catch a break.
Or not.

Repeat tomorrow.

Tom Peters

As Barack Obama remembered it to us all in his inaugural message on 20th January 2009: “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations. “

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Send Your Customers to Other Businesses for FREE to Build Loyalty.

“What you Say? Send My Customers to Other Businesses for Free as a way to Build Loyalty and grow my business!?”
It sounds like complete folly.
Why would I send my customers away?
It’s very unconventional, but terribly powerful.
And, It’s in this way that Linkcrafter is transforming the marketing landscape, changing the lives of small business owners, freeing millions of entrepreneurs from marketing stress and uncertainty.

Here we go, Instead of giving Planners, calendars, T-shirts, Mugs, coupons, or other material or monetary gifts to customers to build relationship, what in most cases fail to build loyalty, Linkcrafter helps you send your customers safely and securely to other businesses as a powerful way to build Loyalty and grow your business.

Yes, It’s about Sending your Customers to other businesses for FREE as a way to build Loyalty and Growth. And It works.

The old era of egocentric sales pitches never entertained the idea of sending customers to other companies, for any reason. They held on to their customers tooth and nail, even if they didn’t have anything the customer needed at the time.

Companies wanted customers to pay attention to their company, and no one else.

Apparently, no one ever mentioned to those companies that no business is an island.

Customers need more than one company to satisfy their everyday needs and desires. “No company owns enough resources – or can possibly own enough – to furnish unique experiences for every customer,” said C.K.Pralahad in The New Age of Innovation. “Companies must organize a constantly shifting global web of suppliers and partners to do the job.”

A customer experience includes satisfaction in all the customer’s needs for their everyday life. It isn’t enough to sell your customer the microwave oven that person needs. The customer also needs clothes, baby food, music, a good carpet cleaner, a certified massage therapist, and an antique hood ornament.

No company in the world could possibly give a customer every single thing he or she desires.

In short: it takes a village to create a customer experience.

You’ll be recommending companies to your customers that you personally have selected as the best for their needs. You won’t be giving them referrals to professional service and product providers simply because you’ve agreed to – you’ll be giving them the companies that you sincerely believe are the most qualified professionals to meet your customers’ needs.

And your customers will love you for it.

That reputation will buy you customer loyalty and enthusiasm that is impossible to get through any other means.

Linkcrafter marketing solution often sounds too idealistic to companies who have been in the era of the sales pitch too long. Many companies will be thinking, “Spending extra time and resources to help customers with their problems without any request for a sale, without any pitch at all? What’s in it for me?”

The more successful your company is at recommending other companies’ products and services that are relevant to its customer’s lifestyle and needs, the more likely it is that customers will extol the virtues of your company.

Your company gets a reputation for caring about people through this free exchange of information. When a person benefits from information you give them, they become an advocate for you. And the next time they hear someone looking for a service that your company provides, they’ll recommend you – in glowing phrases.

You can’t buy that kind of advertising.

Linkcrafter web based relationship management solution helps you to engage with other qualified companies to co-create customer experiences. You’ll work within a network of partners, all of whom can provide your customers with products and services that are outside of your area of expertise but that are essential to making sure the customer is completely satisfied.

Learn to Co-Create

Through Linkcrafter, you’ll be able to co-create complete experiences for your customers with other companies. You’ll collaborate with these companies to understand exactly what your customers need and how to get it to them.

Your customers will look to you as a resource, a guide, and a trusted ally.

Is Your Company Still in the Dark Ages?

Most companies aren’t prepared for this new approach to marketing. Companies who co-create customers experiences with other qualified companies will keep themselves far ahead of the competition.

How do you accomplish all of this? We’re not going to lie. It takes a change in mindset.

Business people become super-connectors, people who know a lot of people, and know their interests, skills, and needs of everyone in their social or business circle and connect them together.

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What is the most valuable source of leads?

Recently, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has conducted  a study with channel executives, distributors, resellers, and other channel representatives, asking the question: “What is the most valuable source of leads?”

Customers referrals came at the top: four times more powerful and valuable than E-Mail or Direct Marketing campaigns, and nearly seven times more likely to result in sales and new business than leads from the Internet.

Here is how the results look like:

  • 54% Customer Referrals
  • 14% E-Mail or Direct Marketing
  • 8% Internet
  • 7% Events
  • 7% Leads from Vendors
  • 3% Third Party Lead Generation Organizations
  • 8% Other

Why Customers referrals is so powerful and valuable?
Simply because they command instant credibility, and when customers talk about your business, they have personal stories to share, and could illustrate with real world examples how your solution worked and served them.

Customers are your Natural Advocates.

If your business is struggling to attract clients, it’s simple because you don’t have enough advocates.

Your advocates are customers, prospects and even strangers who like you and your business. They can’t help but singing your praises to the world.

Your business flourishes when more than 10% of your customers become advocates; You thrive when 30% turn advocates and you become irresistible when like Apple 78% of customers are your fans, and go beyond advocacy to create Ads for your brand with their own money and resources.

Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal found that an increase of 5% of your advocates will yield your profits 25 to 95%.

In average a person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts, 150 social contacts and from 500 to 1500 weak ties. Look what will happen to your business if you succeed in the next 12 months to turn 12 to 15  customers into your business advocates:

Number of Intimate Friends

Intimate friends of your Friends(x12)

Social contacts of your Friends (x150)

Weak ties of your Friends (x1500)

Potential reach through your Friends network

1

12

150

1 500

1 663

2

24

300

3 000

3 326

3

36

450

4 500

4 989

4

48

600

6 000

6 652

5

60

750

7 500

8 315

6

72

900

9 000

9 978

7

84

1 050

10 500

11 641

8

96

1 200

12 000

13 304

9

108

1 350

13 500

14 967

10

120

1 500

15 000

16 630

11

132

1 650

16 500

18 293

12

144

1 800

18 000

19 956

13

156

1 950

19 500

21 619

14

168

2 100

21 000

23 282

15

180

2 250

22 500

24 945

If you succeed to have 15 customers as advocates, you could reach up to 24 945 contacts, without measuring the cascading effect of their referrals. Your marketing will automatically go on autopilot: with the social medias, Blogs, E-mail, twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. customers today has an increased ability to share personal experience and sing your praises to the world.

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Who are Your Company's Evangelists on Social Medias? And Why?

Two kind of people are actively talking about you on the social medias (blogs, twitter, social networks, consumers forums, buyers forums, etc.): Your detractors and Your Promoters.

There is in fact a third kind of people who are just spectators: your passive satisfied customers. They won’t move their fingers to defend you or write a testimonial about you.

Social medias are the conversation engine of  today. Most consumers take their buying decision based on the opinion of your Promoters and your Detractors. You need to care about this, because The new economy is based on advocacy. For example, a Mckinsey marketing study found that 2/3 of US economy is now based on advocacy:  Friends telling friends what is hot and what is not.

Only 14% of people trust advertising, 69% are interested in advertising blocking technologies, and 78% of consumers trust one to one recommendation from friends.

That’s the reason why the Law of the few in marketing states that 90% of your present customers are brought to you by 10% of your contacts (customers, prospects, friends or strangers) who like you. These people are your  Natural advocates. They are your Friends, your Evangelists.

Your Detractors and Promoters have one thing in common: they are emotionally engaged in, express appreciation based on personal experience. Ones say “I love them”, Others say “I hate them”.

Your Promoters are customers, prospects and even strangers who like you and your business. They can’t help but singing to the world nice songs about how great, how magnificent, how terrific you are. They are your advocates.

Your business flourishes when more than 10% of your customers become advocates; You thrive when 30% turn advocates and you become irresistible when like Apple 78% of customers are your fans, and go beyond advocacy to create Ads for your brand with their own money and resources.

Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal found that an increase of 5% of your promoters will yield your profits 25 to 95%.

You detractors are customers who don’t like you and your business. Contrary to a popular belief, Your detractors are not customers who are not satisfied with your product or service. Marketing research revealed that 68% of customers who defect and become your detractors do because of the way they have been treated by your employees during a transaction or customer service operation.

They are unhappy because of they way you’ve treated them, and they want the whole world to know how bad you are with your customers.

You business is stagnant because your Promoters are less than 10% of your customers base. Your business suffers from mixed image and faces marketing struggle because the percentage of your detractors are over the percentage of  your promoters.

All businesses have detractors, but you need to be careful, and actively take action to limit their number and address their complaints.

I strongly recommend the following two articles for reading:

  1. The One Number You Need to Grow
  2. Customer Satisfaction and the Success of Your Organization

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No Man is an Island: You Don't Have to Face Life Alone.

Are you feeling lonely?
Do feel like you need a helping hand but just can’t ask for it?
Do you feel like no one outside there could understand who you are and your inner value?

You are not Alone. You just feel alone, because we are all connected to each other. There are thousands of people out there ready to listen to you, ready to support you, ready to care about you, ready to give you a chance.

No Man is an Island: You Don’t Have to Face Life Alone.

To succeed in business as in life you need to make Friends. Your success depends on the number of friends you made. For businesses owners it means you need to Turn more strangers, prospects and customers into Friends.

What you need to succeed is Friends.

  • If you don’t have enough customers, it’s simply because you don’t have enough friends,
  • If your advertising is not delivering good results, it’s simply because you don’t have enough advocates to confirm your message to their friends. When a friend asked about your advertising, he is told: ” be careful, I don’t know these people and this is  advertising, the reality may be different. You know … Ads are Ads”,
  • If you customers don’t recommend their friends to you, it’s simply because they still think you are a risky business to recommend. They can personally take the risk to do business with you, but they are not ready to recommend you,
  • If your customers evaporate after the first transactions, it’s simply because  nothing make you memorable and you don’t remind yourself to them in a memorable way.
  • If people don’t listen to you, it’s simply because you don’t have a strong opinion about your business solution and express this opinion with enthusiasm and passion.
  • If  everyone forget about you, it’s simply because you forget about everyone.
  • If no one remind you, it’s because you don’t remind anybody.

To make friends, start treating people like friends.

Treat your customers the same way you’ll treat a friend. Lit you eyes when you see them, recall their name, remember what they said last time to you, ask about their news based on previous conversations, and share what is hot and what is not hot list, and ultimately  invite for a beer or any other entertainment.

In average a person has 11 to 12 intimate contacts, 150 social contacts and from 500 to 1500 weak ties. Look what will happen to your business if you succeed in the next 12 months to have 12 to 15 intimate friends in the business category you are playing or in your ideal clients list :

Number of Intimate Friends

Intimate friends of your Friends(x12)

Social contacts of your Friends (x150)

Weak ties of your Friends (x1500)

Potential reach through your Friends network

1

12

150

1 500

1 663

2

24

300

3 000

3 326

3

36

450

4 500

4 989

4

48

600

6 000

6 652

5

60

750

7 500

8 315

6

72

900

9 000

9 978

7

84

1 050

10 500

11 641

8

96

1 200

12 000

13 304

9

108

1 350

13 500

14 967

10

120

1 500

15 000

16 630

11

132

1 650

16 500

18 293

12

144

1 800

18 000

19 956

13

156

1 950

19 500

21 619

14

168

2 100

21 000

23 282

15

180

2 250

22 500

24 945

If you succeed to have 15 intimate Friends inside your business industry or from your ideal clients list, you could reach up to 24 945 contacts, without measuring the cascading effect. Your marketing will automatically go on autopilot:

  • You”ll be Wanted and Welcomed in Your Customers’ and Prospects’ Mind,
  • You’ll quit  From chasing customers to Customers coming to you,
  • You’ll Receive faster, more enthusiastic and more qualified responses to any promotion, Turning more prospects into good paying clients,
  • You’ll turn your customers and contacts into an army of free sales people and voluntary advocates for your organization, Generating a consistent word-of-mouth referrals & a Nonstop Viral Buzz for your business,
  • You’ll have all these astounding results without spending money in advertising or wasting time and resources in countless networking websites, clubs or events.

Go ahead and make Friends and Succeed wildly. Good luck.

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The Only 5 Words that matter in Marketing Vocabulary.

1. Steal consumers: We live in a “world no longer marked by a shortage of goods but by a shortage of customers”. To have new customers for your product you have to steal them from your direct competition, or you take the money they would have spend with other businesses (indirect competition for the household available money).

We use steal, because you need to use some advertising tricks or marketing persuasion to induce new customers to switch from competition to you, or to alter their spending habits to include a new product in their portfolio.

Anytime you’ve attracted a new customer, you’ve taken it from competition. It should not be called “stealing”, but it’s hard for the competition.

2. Rent consumers: There are 3 ways to rent customers:

  • Huge discount to alter consumers reaction  or Trial products, or trial period,
  • Over promising advertising to motivate new unsavvy customers to try
  • New and short lived products: it’s a customers-rent-based-business strategy that thrive on introducing intentionally short lived products and play on the attractiveness of new product to make small or huge profit.

Rent-customers-marketing strategy is usually motivated by quick earnings scenarios. Many businesses use it to push their products in order to close some financial gap in their business plan.

Not all your rent customers will become loyal nor will be satisfied with your product or service, but rent customers is a marketing  strategy worth consideration, for example when you have to go out of business and close the shop.


3. Keep consumers: it’s the most critical function of marketing in the new economy. It’s not easy. To keep customers you need to keep in touch with them in a meaningful way. It’s this “meaningful way” that’s the most difficult for marketers.

Most companies don’t know what to do with their customers once the transaction is done. The only thing they know to keep in touch with their customers  is to spam them with selfish advertising, new offers, sales, etc. These are not meaningful ways to keep in contact with your customers. Linkcrafter relationship marketing solutions are dedicated to helping you build long lasting customers loyalty.

4. Befriend customers: 5% increase in the number of your business friends or advocates will increase 25% to 95% your profits.  And, the Law of the few in marketing states that 90% of your present customers are brought to you by 10% of your contacts (customers, prospects, friends or strangers) who like you. These people are your  Natural advocates. They are your Friends.

Befriending customers and strangers is the only competitive advantage you could build over competition in the new economy, because the new economy is based on advocacy.

For example, a Mckinsey marketing study found that 2/3 of US economy is now based on advocacy: Friends telling friends what is hot and what is not. Only 14% of people trust advertising, 69% are interesting in advertising blocking technologies, and 78% of consumers trust one to one recommendation from friends.


5. Loose consumers: On March 1996, Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal found that on average, U. S. corporations now lose half their customers in five years. With the powerful emergence of Internet these last 12 years, we can say with confidence that today, most companies lose half their customers in less than 2 years. Not because they don’t innovate, not because they don’t have great product or service, not because they didn’t try to keep their customers with sophisticated CRM systems or loyalty programs.

In most cases, Customers defection is not related to your company product or service quality. A company with a good product or service could see his customers defect in drove. Customers don’t defect because they are not satisfied with your service or product. So, Don’t take customers defection personally, because it is not related to you, but to the overwhelming fact that, today 98% of businesses are commodity businesses. There is not so much in product  characteristics or service innovation that really distinguish them from each other. They are all exchangeable without any loss in value proposition or value for money.

Business success or failure in the new economy Shoud be considered as a “relative success” or a “relative failure”.  You just need to try again.

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Turn Passive Satisfied Customers Into Your Business Advocates.

What would you do if  you knew that 5% increase in the number of your business advocates will increase 25% to 95% your profits?

You’ll certainly start looking for ways to increase this number. Customers advocacy is the growth engine for all great businesses.

Before you start your journey to recruit and nurture advocates for your business, let us share some marketing research findings with you.

You can’t build a business anymore  based on the single premise to “satisfy” customers needs. Everyone could do that. Today many companies offer similar products and use similar technology. You don’t differentiate with customers’ satisfaction.

Most of satisfied customers with your product or service are what Frederick Reichheld called “Passive Satisfied Customers“. They are satisfied, and that’s all. They won’t become loyal to you nor recommend your business to a friend or a colleague, simply because these customers could find hundreds of other companies or products that could equally or better satisfy their needs. Customer satisfaction is not enough anymore.

Most of loyal customers won’t recommend your business, simply because they won’t bother their friends recommending a company they think it’s a personal choice between hundreds of equally good choices around. They respect their friends choice, as they know that there are equally good choices outside there. Customer loyalty is not enough anymore.

Loyalty is considered as a personal choice, and most of customers won’t take the risk to put their reputation on the line recommending you pro-actively. They could list you to a friend to consider if asked for advice.

In most cases, Customers defection is not related to your company product or service quality. A company with a good product or service could see his customers defect in drove. Customers don’t defect because they are not satisfied with your service or product. So, Don’t take customers defection personally, because it is not related to you, but to the overwhelming fact that, today 98% of businesses are commodity businesses. There is not so much in product  characteristics or service innovation that really distinguish them from each other. They are all exchangeable without any loss in value proposition or value for money.

These reasons explain why even a business with a great product or service could fail to attract enough customers to succeed, or found itself in the situation of loosing customers. In his excellent book The halo effect, Phil Rosenzweig advised us to look at business success or failure in the new economy as a “relative success” or a “relative failure”.

The Only way to succeed in business today is to have friends, to make friends, and your friends will make your business. Friends are reliable, they put their reputation in the line to recommend you.

The new science of marketing is to befriend as much as possible strangers and customers and takes actions that induce them to love you.

Many companies assume that they can entice customers to refer their friends by offering rewards like free products and discounts. “Sign up a friend and get one month’s membership free!” Theoretically, the customer will be so delighted by the idea of a free month’s membership that she will immediately rush out, grab her friend off the street, and drag her in to sign up for the product.

This hardly ever happens.

At Linkcrafter, we advice companies to use “Information as a Gift” as a powerful incentive system to befriend strangers and customers, and build a network of advocates around their brand.

Linkcrafter marketing solution works by asking companies to send their customers to other businesses for FREE to build a stronger customer loyalty and advocacy.