GoodBuzz Blog

Play Marketing – Advertising that Respects People

Jul
24

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They don’t know what to do with their customers!

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, customer relationship, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

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, like:

“We’re having a huge sale! There’s tons of stuff we want you to buy! Come in now! Drop everything you’re doing! We don’t know what you’re doing, but it surely not as important as BUYING STUFF FROM US!”

These companies understand that it’s necessary to keep in touch with customers, but do it in a very bad way.

Spaming customers with selfish advertising, new offers and sales is not meaningful ways to keep in contact with your customers. Customers don’t want to hear pitches anymore. They don’t want to know how great your company is, how fantastic your product is, or what you’re selling this week at 10% off.

There is a second group of companies who understands the need to keep in touch with customers but don’t know what to tell them after the transaction. The usual question they will ask me is “What to tell them? I don’t know what to tell them.”

Keep in touch with consumers is the most critical function of marketing in the new economy. It helps you stay in front of clients and new prospects on a regular basis. For example, a contact in your database with whom you don’t keep in touch in meaningful way during the las t 3 or 6 months is a dead contact. Your database is becoming slowly a debris.

Survival of any business today depends on its continual advertising capability. Continual advertising is about your capacity to keep your business in your present customers mind and attract enough new customers to fill customers turnover.

Continual advertising is like the constant oxygenation we all need to survive. Without continual visibility on the marketplace, business survival is problematic.

If you keep in touch with your Customers in way that add value to their life, they will keep in touch with you in a way that create value for you.

So how to keep in touch in a meaningful way?

Adopt IRaaS marketing approach. IRaaS baseline is: “Send your customers to other businesses for free and See your business flourish”

Professionals and Companies that adopt IRaaS commit to actively paying attention to their customers’ needs and interests for products and services other than their own.  They also commit to actively seeking the necessary information and connections to help their customers achieve personal and professional goals.

For each member company, joining an IRaaS network is an opportunity to gain influence by becoming a trusted source of information and connection for customers and clients.

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.

The IRaaS network is a technology-powered group of companies and professionals that collaboratively filter vast amount of information, verify it, put their “stamp of approval” on it, and deliver it to consumers based on their stated or unstated needs. Through IRaaS, you can fulfill your customers’ needs for contextual, relevant, trustworthy, and timely information.

We call it “Information as a Gift ™”. It’s delivered with the clear intention to please, help and create a meaningful experience for the receiver, the customer. It’s the best incentive and loyalty system, hugely loved by customers.

“The businesses that understand this stay in touch, They call, they write, they ask for your input. They are in communication when you’re not at the register or don’t have your credit card in hand. For that level of communication and loyalty the relationship will last. In addition, customers will sing their praises to others and that beats any marketing plan hands down.

Great business relationships happen in between the transaction.” Tim Andren

Jun
21

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How The Law of Reciprocity Could Help You.

Category: Business Strategy, customer relationship, leadership, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

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

Jun
21

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20 Ways to Express Gratitude and Attract Love.

Category: Conversation, leadership, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Wikiepdia defines gratitude as “a positive emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.”

The Best way to express Gratitude is to Give Thanks, Send Thank-you notes, or Say “Thank you”  abundantly.

  1. Thank your wife after she cooked a nice meal.
  2. Thank your friend for lending you that Stargate DVD.
  3. Thank you college for the tuition. Send a thank you note.
  4. Thank You friend for spending time with you.
  5. Thank your friends for calling you.
  6. Thank your friends for visiting you.
  7. Thank your boss for praising you. Let him know how you feel when he gives you praises.
  8. Thank people who encourage you. Let them know how you feel when they encourage you.
  9. Thank God for  everything you can’t directly attribute to a person or an institution. Thank God for Good health. Thank God for Peace in your country. Thank God for All the good things happening in your Life.
  10. Send, annually, Thank you note to your Boss for the opportunity offered to you to contribute and serve.
  11. Thank your Neighbors to be so kind neighbors and how you appreciate to a neighbor to them.
  12. Send Thank you note to you local politicians for what they are doing for the community.
  13. Send, annually, Thank you note to the local Fire Fighters and Police departments for their dedication to keep the community a safe and secure place to live.
  14. Thank your Kids for bringing so much joy in your life and let them know how their arrival in your life brought so marvelous things to you.
  15. Thank your husband or your wife for caring and providing help and taking care of you. Let him or her know how special he or she is. Give Thanks abundantly here. It’s a privilege to have a good partner for life.
  16. Send Thank you note to your doctor for his dedication to your health and for his support to you family.
  17. Send Thank you note to your suppliers to let them know how you appreciate their support for your business.
  18. Send Thank note to your Local public transportation office to praise them for heir dedication to the community.
  19. Send annual thank you note to your customers for doing business with you.
  20. Send thank you note to the teachers of your kids.

Give Thanks Notes to heal the world, help friends, support your community. Thanks are intangible assets you can give again and again without being left broke.

“PEOPLE DON’T CARE HOW MUCH YOU KNOW… UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE.” John Maxwell

If you need inspiration to start, here is a GReat site with lot of Thank you notes samples : http://www.thank-you-note-samples.com/sample-thank-you-note-wording.html

Referral Thank You Note Samples
Sample business referral thank you notes.

Jun
20

By

Your Brand is a Shortcut to Emotions.

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, customer relationship, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

People buy emotionally, and Harvard professor, Gerald Zaltman, found that 95% of how we think is unconscious and emotional.

To succeed in business you need to associate your product with one or several positive emotions. Once you’ve succeeded to to tie your products to a specific emotion, your brand will act like a trigger of this emotion.

Every time customers see your brand or your products,  they will feel this emotions or recall the memory of this emotion. And, when they will be seeking this specific emotion, your brand or your products will pop-up automatically in their mind.

Your Brand acts  as a Shortcut to Emotions.

To start you need to select intentionally the kind of emotion or senses perception you would like your business to be associated with. it could be:

  • Beauty,
  • Friendship,
  • Kindness,
  • Sexy,
  • Glamor,
  • Empathy,
  • Enthusiasm,
  • Simplicity,
  • Joy,
  • Hope,
  • Cool,
  • Happiness,
  • Belonging,
  • Acceptance,
  • Desire,
  • Fun,
  • Warm,
  • Euphoria,
  • Smell Good, …

The selected emotion or senses perception become your Sensual signature.

Your purpose is: every time a customer, a prospect or a stranger enters in contact with your business you want him or her to carry away this emotion or senses perception in his or her memory and share it with other people. This emotional connection makes you memorable.

You need to get memorable. Only memorable business will thrive in the new market conditions.

Once you have selected your sensual signature, you need to commit to it for years, 10 years, 20 years, and built it so strong and so unbreakable. If want an aroma-smell like sensual signature  for your business, elect one that express the best your business service and commit to it what ever the changes and comments in your environment.

You win with a consistent Sensual signature, not something that changes from one executive to another.

- Apple uses visual seduction to get into its customers mind. Beauty is a powerful emotional trigger. They dedicate all their engineering and design power to their God : BEAUTY.
- Craiglist use authentic ugliness to seduce customers. Craig Newmark, the founder of the site in 1995, call it “unbranding”. UGLINESS could be a Brand you stand for and use successfully.
- Procter & Gamble,  Nestlé , Las Vegas Casinos use aroma-smell-marketing to boost sales and create memories. Human beings are able to distinguish about 4000 different smell or perfume.
- Intel build a brand recognition with a very unpleasant music : the “Intel inside” jingle. Pain in the ears as their price.

We can go on mentioning several emotional marketing examples, but the most important thing to understand here is that you need to create your sensual signature:

  • it could be “frustration mixed with a great service”: long queue in the cold before entering a good restaurant or long time waiting before a star will arrive or before being accepted in a great club.
  • it could “arrogance mixed with dedication for a great service”: The IBM arrogance, we know what we are doing, just pay the big check and wait for the great result.
  • it could be “huggings and kisses”: Clothing Store used to welcome loyal clients by yelling their name once they enter the shop and are met with hugs.
  • it even could be “Indifference to client”, Luxury shop do that for their shop visitors till the moment they pick something to buy. it’s very powerful.

At the end of the day you need to select carefully your sensual signature and be consistent with this signature.

What is your Sensual Signature? Do you have one?

Jun
19

By

Employees are not Assets, Resources, or Inventory, But Humans with Dreams.

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, leadership, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Today, we heard employees referred to as “resources” or “assets” by corporate executives, business press and management thought leaders. Michael Eisner, ex Chairman and CEO of Disney, has been recorded as saying “our inventory goes home at night.”

Bullshit!

Employees are people. Employees are not assets, resources, or inventory, but Humans with dreams and aspirations.

Did you call your friends, your kids, your wife, your mother, your father, … your greatest assets, resources, or inventory?

There is a Chinese Proverb that teaches the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

This is not just an economic decision, it is a psychological and emotional decision; because how you relate to a person, an animal or an object depends a lot on how you name or label it.

People are not resources to be mined nor inventory to be turned over. Time is a resource. Office furniture is an asset. People are people.

In the past, we have seen how before putting into slavery, slaughtering, killing, depriving from freedom, invading, colonizing some populations or countries, their names have been altered; instead of calling them by their real name, they became barbarian, primitives, damned, uncivilized, human without soul, insects, etc.

Employees are not assets, resources, or inventory, but human beings with dreams, aspirations, and personal goals.

The new economy is in need of a new type of leadership—a service leadership. This is the kind of leadership that starts Not from wondering How someone could help you achieve your goals, but from a very basic, active generosity of asking how you can help your people achieve their goals, personal or professional.

From this standpoint, the role of any leader in the new economy is to get to know their people individually. All it takes is to start with some basic questions you ask yourself about your people:

  • Why are they here?
  • What do they want to achieve working for our organization (or buying our product)?
  • What are their goals in life, both personal and professional?
  • Where are they in their life’s journey?
  • What barriers are they facing now in life?
  • And lastly, how can I, as the people leader, genuinely help them get where they want to be, be what they want to be, and contribute what they want to contribute?

The new leadership role is active generosity, based on carefully and intentionally collected information about the people agenda, apart from their contextual status as customers or employees.

Start looking at people not from the perspective of how they can help you, but how you can help them. Master this single law and your success is assured.

No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
W A Nance

Jun
17

By

How to Start Conversation with customers, partners or Strangers?

Category: Conversation, customer relationship, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Everyone is talking today about the need for companies to start conversation with customers, partners or strangers to boost their marketing. But Conversation is not a Self Starter.

Many marketers have been misled by what is called “buzz techniques” or Buzz marketing: funny videos, shocking stories, statements or movies. These buzz techniques are good to “get attention“; they could start small talk, but in many cases they are too short-lived to build momentum for good a long lasting conversation to start. They rarely convert into business result.

Not all conversation are equal. The kind of conversation companies want is the one that help them to Be Wanted and Welcomed in their Customers’ and Prospects’ Mind … to quit from chasing customers to Customers coming to them … to  receive faster, more enthusiastic and more qualified responses to their promotion, and turn more customers and contacts into friends and voluntary advocates, generating a consistent word-of-mouth referrals and a non-stop viral buzz.

Yes, Starting this kind of powerful and irresistible conversation is possible. But How?

The answer comes simple: Befriend your customers and contacts One at a time. It’s a One to One to Millions marketing strategy, or the power of Befriending One Customer at a time.

The strategy is to change strangers into friends, friends into advocates, and advocates into customers. It works by offering Information as a Gift ™ to strangers, friends, customers and contacts.

For established companies, it means sending their customers to other businesses for FREE, as a powerful way to build loyalty and growth.

For start-up companies, it means finding or creating great content that would be helpful for their target population, and packaging this content in personal and attractive way, and send it to their target with the purpose to befriend, then convert them into customers. It works.

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. They’ll reward you for it, too.

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, and it’s the most powerful positive conversation Starter.

Remember, we said “to befriend one person at a time!”.

Most marketers will exclaim to this statement with astonishment and signs meaning “that’s impractical”, “that’s impossible”, “that’s not possible in our industry”, “Our business is different”…

The mere truth is that most people in marketing and advertising positions today have been trained or formatted to think that “mass marketing is the King” and have sound expertise ONLY with the “big bang” approach: to reach thousands or millions with a single message at a time.

This approach has worked, and still works for many marketers, but its efficiency and effectiveness are losing ground. Customers acquired this way are lost the same way as they came, and to build loyalty you’ll need to invest vast amount of money, and slash your profit margin to keep them happy.

There is no ending to this approach.

Our previous post “Do you have the right to advertise?” explained very clearly the moment and situation in which You have the right to advertise and for what you have the right to spend your money.
I strongly advise you to read this post. It’s one of the Best articles you could find on this blog.

Jun
13

By

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

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, customer relationship, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

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

Jun
9

By

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

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, leadership, Linkcrafter, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

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. “

Jun
8

By

We need You. We Want YOU to Lead US.

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, customer relationship, leadership, Linkcrafter, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

When we’ve started Linkcrafter we’ve asked ourselves  “Why 90% of the Internet traffic goes to ONLY 5% of websites”. We’ve discovered that:

  • 7 of the top 10 web properties are search engines
  • 22 of the top 50 web properties are search engines and web directories.

Browse and search have become the most time-consuming and frustrating activity for consumers.

People are looking for trustful and relevant information to reach the best services, companies and products that could satisfy their needs. 90% of the traffic goes to these websites because they are trying hard to help people solve this problem.

What will happen if you become a resources center or a knowledgeable friend for your customers?

You become a Traffic magnet.You are a knowledgeable professional. You Know a lot and Now  We need You. We Want YOU to Lead US.

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.

Linkcrafter helps companies and businesses to become solution providers for their customers through real-time interaction and involvement in their customer’s solution-hunting process.

Instead of giving Planners, calendars, T-shirts, Mugs, Foie Gras,  coupons, or other material or monetary gifts to customers as incentive to build relationship – most of these incentives fail to build loyalty - Linkcrafter solution helps you provide Information as a gift ™ to your customers.

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.

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

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.

Jun
6

By

What is Good Information and How to Recognize it?

Category: Business Strategy, Conversation, customer relationship, Winner Choice Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Consumers are lost. Most the Information we, marketers, produce and broadcast, come to them as noise.  And every day this noise grows thicker and thicker, putting a lot of strain on them. No one believes the noise fatigue to be his problem, but everyone just adds his own noise.

Remember, We are now in the attention economy, in which the new scarcest resource isn’t ideas, capital or talent, but attention itself. Today’s businesses are headed for disaster-unless they learn to manage this critical yet finite resource, or fail!- Thomas H. Davenport, John C. Beck

Businesses which will succeed in this attention economy are the one that take customers attention as a loan or managed as an investment” NOT something they “paid for“. Companies that fully understand and appreciate those distinctions will be the winners in the future. – Michael Schrage

How will YOU manage YOUR consumers attention differently if you take it as a loan or as an investment into your company?

Marketers who win today and will continue to win in the future are those who understand what is a good information, and do their best to engage and keep in touch with their customers ONLY with Good information.

What is Good Information?

Good information for consumers has 3 characteristics:

  • It is relevant.
    You’ve listened to your customer’s needs, and you know exactly what they’re looking for. When you communicate with them, you have no fear they’ll dismiss your communication without looking at it.They know you provide something of value to them. Instead of egocentric company-focused information, they know your company sends them information that’s relevant to them and their needs.
  • It is timely.
    Do your best to send information to your customers (only or mostly) when they need it to act, or decide. Information should be based on their time of need, not based on your time to produce and broadcast it. Timing is important in any communication or conversation process.
  • It is trustworthy.
    Your information should Not be deceptive. Send to your customers the kind of information you’ll send to your friends or your family members. If you Can’t share with or send to your friends or your family members the kind of information you are sending to your customers, then think twice before pushing the Ok button. Your reputation could be damaged for a long time. The world is Watching you.

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