Connecting to your customer on-line

If you're determined to try to make your connection with your customers on-line and your website isn't ready, you can still do it. At a previous employer, we heard a pitch from a web marketing team for all sorts of user generated content and a vibrant community that would then exist on the website. My reaction at the time, was maybe we didn't understand our customer as well as we wanted to believe. While we were absolute zealots for our products, most of the people who bought them saw them as a commodity. Why would they come to my site to talk about them? They are much more likely to show up at homedepot.com or lowes.com and talk about them there. You can take advantage of that. Ask your customers how they found you on-line, then engage them there!

I'll give you an example.

As a parent of two children, I can identify as a customer for diapers. Many, many diapers. But not once did I ever consider or even remotely think about registering at Pampers.com or Huggies.com or even at Target.com to learn about my child's development. It never once occurred to me. But surf on over to the My Pampers.com site and there it is. For all I know, it might be full of really good information about my toddler. Where did I end up? Babycenter.com It already had a hub of parents exchanging information and letting me learn about my child's development.

I'm sure when they had the strategy meeting to put together a wonderfully constructed site for the myPampers site, they talked about exactly the issues that might be important to me. They probably had a guy like me in their customer persona. But it's a waste of money. What would have been a lot smarter, would have been to go to the sites where parents are already looking for information and offer yourself up as an expert. So when a parent asks on babycenter.com about how to choose diapers, you're right in there, helping educate them and helping them make a decision. Right here as a matter of fact, where babycenter.com has a community section.

Selling locks? Write the installation guide for homedepot.com and lowes.com. Heck make one that you can let independent Ace hardware owners refer to. You don't need to spend your money looking to attract people to your social media on your website if they are already predisposed to look for it in an existing social media hub. The whole point of a social media website is that people can educate each other about products, services, and experiences in their life. Why recreate the wheel if someone else who's product neutral has already built it for you? Use a search engine to watch the site for changes, your products being mentioned, even your competitor's products being mentioned.

Then get in there and act the role of a professional, right in your customer's living room asking you a question in a subject where you're an expert. How delighted will your customer be then?