Welcome to 2017 and another edition of 3 Digital Things. Since we all focus on time as the year turns over, I thought I’d use timing as the theme in looking at a few local and digital marketing ideas and examples.
Capitalize On The Timing Of Events
Many businesses can benefit by tying their marketing and promotions into other events. It’s hard to single out an event much larger than the Super Bowl, but even small business can score a touchdown on the ultimate Sunday. I recently ran across a tweet from Dan & John’s Wings in New York, marketing their Super Bowl pick up orders.
The big game is obviously a huge day of sales for their chicken wings and I have to say these guy’s have their act together. I rarely see a restaurant savvy enough to create a landing page for a special event.
Dan & John’s has their Super Bowl ordering page with all of the details you need to set your party up with all the wings you need. Options, pricing and the ordering form is all right there and easy for the customer.
After looking at their review profile, I wish they delivered to Minnesota for the big game. These guys seem to run a great business with fabulous wings.
Live Chat To Maximize Time Winning Customers
I think most small businesses completely fear or avoid live chat for one reason, the word “live”. They envision they need to be online to chat 24-7. Not even close.
What they fail to understand is that you are able to control and manage when you have your chat feature turned on and the rest of the time it’s just a contact form.
At GetFiveStars, we’ve used Olark for the last year and it’s a fabulous way for us to communicate with prospects and customers. While it’s a no-brainer for a service like ours, I’d argue it’s massive value to any small business. Even if you can only be available to chat a few hours a week, you might just land your next great customer with it.
Here are a few of the benefits to consider:
When your online, you can answer questions immediately
It informs you what questions matter to your customers
It will surface what content and answers might be missing on your website
When offline, the added contact form captures prospect info easily
You can integrate it into many other platforms you might use
Olark has very affordable plans and even has a free version for up to 20 chats a month.
Respect Customer’s Time
Many would argue that time is our most precious commodity. Smart businesses find ways to save customers time, or at a minimum set and expectation of the time investment with them. Unfortunately I’ve run into quite a few businesses that selfishly forget this recently.
I wrote an article a few months back at GetFiveStars on a couple of customer feedback surveys that were WAY too long . We conducted a survey and found that 74% of consumers prefer to answer 5 questions or less from a business.
This week I received a survey request from Mens Wearhouse where I shop from time to time. They asked for some feedback in exchange for 50 points in their loyalty program ( I have no idea the value of that) and decided to take part. When I finished 20 minutes later I had answered 90 questions! WHAT!?! Unreal. And sad.
IMPORTANT: If you are going to request TIME from your customers, then tell them how much time they will be investing. If you don’t do this, you are telling them their time has no value to you.
I can say without a doubt I think less of Mens Wearhouse after this survey.