Spending on social CRM is set to go through the roof – but there are major concerns that much of the investment will be as impetuous as in the early days of CRM. So are businesses set to repeat the same CRM mistakes as they did 10 years ago?
On the eve of the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit, Summit chair and research director Jim Davies, describes the present scenario as a "significant time of change" for CRM. With smartphone and tablet sales overtaking the PC, the mobile touchpoint is having an increasing influence on sales, marketing and customer service processes. Elsewhere, new developments in analytics trends are also forcing their way into a next generation customer strategies.
But it has been the social phenomenon that has attracted the most attention and the most hype. And expenditure is set to follow suit, with Gartner recently forecast that by 2013, spending on social software to support sales, marketing and customer service processes will exceed $1 billion worldwide.
According to the Gartner report 'Emerging Technology Analysis: Social CRM for Customer Service' most deployments of social CRM are taking place in corporate marketing departments as an exercise in brand management, whether that be maintaining a presence on Facebook or Twitter or monitoring activity relating to the brand on social networks.
"A lot of this [expenditure] comes down to the fact that all businesses are more paranoid about what people are saying about them and social media is a great way of finding out what people are saying about them and their competitors," says Davies. "So even as a starting point, social media monitoring is a massive investment area because it gives that really quick unbiased independent voice of the customer view."
But to a lesser extent expenditure is also being driven by sales ("there is an interesting opportunity with lead generation and even just finding contact details and network analysis – so if Fred knows Harry can we sell to Harry as well," says Davies) and customer service ("On the social media side it could be Jim from Widgets ‘R’ Us reaching out to a customer in Twitter to show how to resolve a problem or support via communities... also on the support side there is a growing trend for communities providing self-support, rather than the business doing it.")
Social media perception
Davies spent much of last month travelling around Europe talking to hundreds of clients and prospects about social CRM. The discussions have provided interesting insight into the perception of social media within the business community.
"A lot of companies view it as just another channel - it allows them to sell to the customers and market to customers and support their customers. It is like ‘email 2011’," he explains. "Then there is another portion of the market that views it a little bit more strategically and profoundly - it is creating an opportunity to start to have a relationship with the customers and work with them and listen to their ideas and listen to their challenges and you evolve the business and the products and processes based on that relationship. But irrespective of what side of the fence the company is on, whether it is the more collaborative deeper relationship side or just needing to do some social media monitoring as a tool, both sides need some technology and that is driving up the market."
But Davies has been left concerned by the course that the expenditure is taking in many cases, and particularly so given the fact that social media investment in 2011 is only the thin end of the wedge. One point he raises is that while marketing, sales and customer services departments have – to a greater or lesser extent – been involved in social CRM projects, one department that has been conspicuous by its absence is IT.
"It is interesting that the one department that hasn’t had much involvement [in social media] is IT," he says. "Seeing as it is a technology investment it is scary the degree of times that IT has been completely bypassed in the decision-making, both in terms of vendor selection and in terms of the ongoing support of the application. It is almost like rolling the clock back to when Salesforce.com emerged and salesforces were bypassing IT and buying Salesforce.com for their sales processes and the same is happening now for a lot of the social media monitoring and social applications. It is all software as a service so they just bypass IT."
Building blocks
This is a somewhat ironic development given the tendency for businesses to view CRM as purely an IT issue in the early days of customer relationship management (a tendency which Gartner noted a decade ago was significantly contributing to disaffection with CRM projects). But there are other mistakes being made that are more familiar to CRM territory.
"I spoke to some very large international banks and they had no overarching strategy, nothing apart from acknowledging that there is something going on socially and that they should take a look at it. So their whole social media approach was to set up a team of relatively junior people who are in touch with the social world, just to work out what is the role for social media for that organisation. And that is quite a common thing, and it’s not the way to go about it at all," says Davies. "A lot of organisations have gone into it without really thinking it through."
To address this challenge with CRM 10 years ago, Gartner developed its eight building blocks of CRM which consisted of steps such as vision from the board, implementation of strategy and changes to organisational structures, processes and culture. Davies subscribes to the same approach to ensure that investment in social CRM isn’t wasteful.
"I was recently giving social CRM scenario presentations and talking with hundreds of prospects and clients at those events and I really got the sense that a lot of companies that are doing social CRM have actually forgotten about the building blocks. They may have had a CRM strategy and metrics and done all that in the past, but now with social they have forgotten about it and instead it’s all about playing with social monitoring platforms.
"There was a real sense that there wasn’t a social strategy in place that could then help steer them in terms of what technologies they need, what metrics they should be tracking, what data they need to collect, and what analytical tools they need to buy. All of that hadn’t been thought through. It was more of a ‘kids in a sweet shop’ approach. On the back of that I published a research note which was basically eight building blocks again, but applying it to social media, because I think it is such an important finding that people have forgotten about it and they are not approaching this the way that they would approach CRM – but they absolutely should be."
Fragmented vendor landscape
While past CRM excellence certainly does not equate to future CRM success, a robust CRM strategy does provide a strong platform for social CRM – and, conversely, if they have done a poor job with CRM then the foundations of social CRM are critically compromised. Davies warns: "If you look at the reasons for CRM failure in 2002, I think the same thing will come around again now."
A fresh challenge also exists, however. While traditional CRM was driven by the emerging technology, with the strategies and processes playing catch-up, the social phenomenon is being driven by consumer adoption – and social CRM technology is yet to catch up with consumer behaviour.
As a result of this, the recent Gartner social CRM Magic Quadrant provided a portrait of a fragmented vendor landscape, populated by the likes of community builders and social media monitoring firms, with the only significant representation from the traditional CRM vendors coming in the form of RightNow.
Davies notes: "It was a very difficult Magic Quadrant to get a lot of value from because if you looking at who is the best at doing social CRM well actually none of them are because nobody has got a social CRM suite. They are all good in certain aspects because of their backgrounds. Next year the true social CRM suites will start to emerge. As acquisitions happen and as R&D happens then they will start to get broader in their capabilities."
A learning curve
So what is the message for businesses that have done their groundwork on social CRM building blocks including vision, strategy, processes and information and are now fully prepared to contribute to the soaring investment in social CRM technology?
"Ultimately they should be able to turn to their incumbent CRM vendor for that – and if they haven’t got an incumbent CRM vendor then they are probably not necessarily doing a good job with CRM in the first place. If they have got a CRM strategy and they have gone through the eight building blocks of CRM, and done that, and are living and breathing CRM, then the chances are that their vendors will ultimately have a social capability that they can use," suggests Davies.
"In the meantime, if those vendors haven’t got it, they absolutely should not wait. Because there is going to be value to be had by buying SaaS-based, pay-as-you-go service for a tool that may be acquired in a year’s time or they may not want to use in year or two’s time. So they need to think about it strategically and long-term, but don’t delay investment in the software because they are incumbent and can’t do it yet.
"It is a learning curve. If they are running vendor X for their core CRM platform and are going to wait until 2015 for that vendor to come to market with that offering then there are three years of learning that they are not going to have benefitted from. They are going to start to lose out from a competitive point of view because if all their competitors are having social activity, talking to customers socially, using it as a lead generation or marketing tool, then they are going to start slipping behind. So there is a risk of choosing a vendor now that isn’t going to be around in two years time but I think the benefits outweigh those risks."
2/08/2011
Gartner: Four CRM trends to watch - and how your firm must respond
With CRM high on the agenda again this year, Gartner has outlined its CRM predictions for 2010 and beyond.
Gartner has forecast that customer relationship management will remain high on the agenda this year, as the analyst outlines its key predictions and advice for the CRM space.
According to the Gartner Executive Programs (EXP) 2010 CIO Agenda survey, attracting and retaining new customers will be the fifth biggest business priority for CIOs in 2010. And as a result, they are keen to explore how CRM technologies and processes can help them meet these goals.
Furthermore, the proliferation of social media tools has created new opportunities for businesses to engage with customers – though this will add another layer of complexity to organisation’s customer strategies.
"For most organisations, the single most logical way to differentiate the business is through great customer experiences, rather than having the lowest cost or most innovative products and services," says Ed Thompson, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "However, gaining a clear understanding on which specific customer-centric initiatives will prove decisive and merit investment will require coordination across departments."
Gartner has identified four key trends that it believes will emerge from 2010 and beyond and has provided its advice on how businesses should respond.
- With the number of social tools expanding, marketers and customer service functions should focus on the three or four networks that will dominate specific languages. Facebook, for instance, will emerge as the number one social network in all but 25 countries by the end of this year, according to Gartner – but will not be the leader in India, China or Japan. "Facebook membership hit 300 million in September 2009, and is roughly doubling each year," says Thompson. "It is reasonable to assume that it will attain a membership of 600 million (including inactive accounts and a small number of users with multiple accounts) by the end of 2010 based on the trajectory in 2009."
- With CFOs demanding greater marketing accountability, marketers must leverage marketing resource management (MRM) and enterprise marketing management (EMM). Through 2010, marketing budgets will remain flat in more than 90% of companies, despite a return to growth. Furthermore, CFOs are demanding increasing accountability from marketing departments, often exerting unprecedented pressure to link programmes to sales results and ROI. "As a result, marketing organisations will need to automate operational processes and learn how to leverage technology to measure areas previously left unmeasured, enabling them to do more for less and articulate business value," says Kimberly Collins, managing vice president at Gartner. "MRM will become a top priority for marketing organisations, and EMM will take on new meaning as a vehicle for strategic planning, collaboration and measurement."
- While many firms are struggling to make a clear business case for social media, the largest growth in this area will be by firms using social tools to improve customer relationships. Although the hype around any and all social media activities will continue through 2010, companies are struggling to find a business case, including hard metrics and specific business outcomes, using general social activities and generic social applications. Nevertheless, social projects evaluated by Gartner show that those with a clear and direct mutual purpose (benefits for both company and customer) were the ones likely to show measurable results. The analyst believes that by the end of 2010, more than 80% of market growth in social applications will centre around a business use case for improving external customer relationships – rather than improving internal collaboration. Gartner says that the social application vendors that make the transition from general purpose to support for specific business, with use cases and key performance indicators, will see double- or triple-digit growth in 2010.
- Marketers are ramping up their online marketing activity and will enable firms to save significant money as a result of the online channel’s precise attribution metrics. By the end of 2011, more than 90% of Fortune 1000 marketing campaigns will include online marketing, up from 50% in 2009, according to Gartner. Marketers are responding to the expansion of the internet by investing in addressable branding and advertising, and contextual, community and transactional marketing. Gartner predicts that marketers will see a 10-20% savings in marketing communications as a result of precise attribution metrics for campaigns. "Being online gives marketers greater access to response attribution metrics to help determine what is working and what isn't working in a campaign," says Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. Online marketing will enable faster testing and campaign refinement, and help avoid the continued waste of funding a failed campaign, while engaging in more-thorough campaign testing prior to launch. It will improve the overall success of all marketing objectives. Both speed of analysis and response will be critical to success.
2/07/2011
數據庫行銷與口碑行銷實戰解析 文章來源：鳳凰網
“中國的電視廣告，你可以把他當作電腦特接的演示，你可以把他作為激勵演講的表演，你可以把他作為教育孩子不要撒謊的反面教材，但千萬不要把他作為選擇產品的依據”我的朋友和我如是說：“我要真想購買什麼東西，需要了解的話，我首先會選擇朋友去了解，然後去網上找資料或看評論，廣告-----見鬼去吧！”他在一家上市公司技術部工作，我已經不止一次聽到這樣的話。
作為中國的行銷人，我為不斷聽到這樣的話感到悲哀。我們公司最近做過一個2000人的電話調研，通過分析問卷，我們得出這樣的結論：只有22.8%的人認為可以信任電視、戶外廣告等傳統廣告媒體，這一數字遠遠低於西方發達國家的(45.6%)，另外我們還調研了上海、北京、廣州三個城市的白領人群，通過這個統計我們發現，一個中國普通的白領城市消費者每天大約會接受到超過280多條各種形式的廣告資訊，包括電視、雜誌、樓宇廣告、報紙、戶外廣告牌，公交廣告，手機短信，郵件資訊、電話訪問……,要吸引他們的注意力是多麼的艱難。
在客戶的注意力被細分的越來越嚴重的時候，經濟危機爆發了，大部分企業都縮減了自己企業的市場預算，在這種情況下，企業必須為自己的行銷找一片藍海，尋找新的行銷方式，行銷創意，來維繫公司的銷售。如何通過省錢，有效的方式影響到消費者的行為。我下面介紹兩種新型的行銷方式的組合：數據庫行銷+口碑行銷。
什麼是數據庫行銷？
在國內，很多行銷人對數據庫行銷的認識是非常淺層次的，簡單的認為數據庫行銷是利用一個數據庫去做銷售就可以了，比如拿著一批客戶名單去打電話，發傳真，發郵件，發短信，去傳遞企業的產品資訊。其實這是數據庫行銷的執行方式，是數據庫行銷的一個外延。真正的數據庫行銷項目其實是一個複雜的系統的行銷活動，包括，數據庫的規劃，建立，數據的分析，數據的統計，數據的挖掘，數據模型的建立，數據庫行銷項目的硬體規劃，軟體規劃，人員規劃，執行方式，測試控制，部門協調機制等。限于篇幅關係，不在詳細分析。
但數據庫行銷相對於其他行銷方式的有點在於，低成本運作，行銷的投入于產出是可控的，可實時調整的，所以在國內被很多大的公司所採用，或正在組建專門的數據庫行銷部門。
什麼是口碑行銷？
利用口碑宣傳企業已經被很多企業認識到這種品推的重要性，但很多企業並沒有把這種方式專門的行銷方式來運作。人們每天都會就很多問題和周圍的人做溝通、交談，這其中也包括他們購買和消費的產品或服務，尤其是女性消費者，在這方面表現的更為突出。這樣的談話或溝通都是沒有任何商業傾向的情況下做出的，不帶任何的商業宣傳色彩。但這次談話的參與者對評價的產品的評價的認知和後來的購買行為產生很大的影響，因為人們對周圍同事，朋友，親人的信任度不知道比站在櫃檯後面的銷售人員要高多少。
口碑行銷之所以能成為一種新的行銷方式，很大程度上是緣于它所具有的“病毒式行銷效應”。人們每天都在溝通交談，不管是講自己的事還是講別人的事。我們調查的結果發現，一個對產品或服務有正面體驗的消費者，會將他的故事告訴至少5個朋友；如果是負面體驗的話，他會告訴至少11個消費者。而那些聽到故事的人又會再告訴5~11個人，依此類推。
故事呈幾何級數速度傳播，最終在很短的時間內傳播給大量聽眾。這就是口碑行銷的的魅力所在。
另外，雖然“口碑”傳播不是什麼新鮮事，但系統地將人們自然進行的對話作為公司行銷和溝通組合的一部分，並在消費者中產生正面影響，卻是一個新生事物。這主要也得益於web2.0技術的迅速發展。以前，我們只有面對面的溝通或電話交談，如今web2.0技術的發展大大增加了口碑溝通的渠道和速度(電子郵件、論壇、部落格等)，從而增強了口碑的病毒式行銷效應。通過web2.0，許多普通消費者變成了某些產品或服務方面的“專家”。例如，很多電子產品的商務類門戶網站，很多用戶會分享他們對某款相機或手機的使用心得；如果潛在消費者認為他們的評論有用而且打了高分，他們就會頗有成就感。總的來說，中國消費者比世界其他地方的人更依賴口碑。在像中國這樣的更注重集體的社會，人們通常會更重視其他人的評論，特別是在同一個圈子裏的人的評論。
正是這些強大的力量使口碑行銷如此有效。例如，一次口碑宣傳所產生的廣告記憶度，可以是傳統電視廣告所產生的廣告記憶度的80倍，因為口碑的重點更突出，而且是在更私人的層面與消費者進行接觸。雖然一次常見的口碑行銷對消費者的覆蓋面遠不及中央電視臺播放的廣告，前者千人成本是後者的10~15倍之多，但在實現“知曉”之外，就廣告記憶度及行銷所構建的品牌偏好而言，口碑行銷的成本卻要低很多。與電視廣告相比，口碑行銷的規模也小很多，這在預算緊張的時候不失為一個好選擇。
數據庫行銷+口碑行銷模式實戰分析
利用數據庫行銷的數據挖掘和分析能力和口碑行銷強大的傳播機制和堅挺的信任機制，並以此來影響消費者，影響消費者的購買行為，奠定企業抵抗金融危機的新的行銷思路，可以遵循五個方面去運作。
一個有內涵可傳播的故事
中國有句古話：言之不文，行之不遠。行銷要想成功，就必須具有“傳播性”。換句話說，必須有一個原因讓人們願意去“傳播這個故事”。它可以是有趣的、感人的、有爭議的，甚至可以是一個笑話。但最重要的是，它必須能夠傳遞一個正面資訊，並且是消費者自己傳遞的。商家應該準備一個故事梗概，並且讓消費者在故事中加入自己的體驗和經歷，使它成為消費者自己的故事。在中國，最好的口碑行銷例子是海爾和溫州燒鞋事件。下面僅和大家共用海爾集團的這個案例：海爾在1985年當眾銷毀了一批有問題的冰箱。是張瑞敏親自用斧頭砸碎了第一台有問題的冰箱，當時每台冰箱的價格都相當於一個普通工人兩年的工資。海爾此舉的目的是向消費者傳遞這樣一個資訊：海爾是一家品質重於泰山的企業。這個傳奇故事20多年來不斷流傳，消費者今天還在講述，海爾高品質的品牌形象也不斷加深。不過，讓故事具有傳播性並不意味創建一個在土豆網上播放的瘋狂視頻片段，關鍵的是它所講述的故事與要推廣的產品或服務應該是有聯繫的。
利用普通消費者來傳遞資訊放棄所謂的“專家”
很多公司喜歡用那些被認為對產品有很多背景知識的“專家”來幫助促銷產品。但是，由於各類產品方面的“專家”並不多，這種類型的口碑宣傳通常也不會走很遠。也有欲蓋彌彰的嫌疑，前段時間中央臺就曝光了，所謂的“假專家”事件，同一個專家可以多個行業的專家泰斗，但實際情況卻是廣告公司找的托，悲哀！無語！如果是普通銷售者來推廣，成功率會高很多，只要利用數據庫行銷的理念來細分群體，並利用數據庫行銷的執行方式確保資訊到達目標消費群體。
例如，立頓近期在中國推出了一次口碑宣傳活動。它在指定城市推出了免費茶和小點心，針對高檔寫字樓的白領和他們的朋友。只要他們在立頓的網站上留下朋友的辦公地址和手機號，就可以給他們點免費茶和小點心。這個消息迅速傳播，突然間，很多辦公室白領都開始給朋友和同事訂茶。在僅僅兩周內，立頓就派發了20多萬份“套餐”，更不要說大家在網上和網下談到它的次數了。
確定收集反饋資訊渠道和方式分析反饋資訊調整行銷策略
一旦消費者開始使用某種產品或服務，他們就會不可避免地反饋自己的使用感受。例如通過電話投訴，和朋友傾訴，去論壇或部落格發表看法等，企業要及時收集他們的反饋，分析反饋資訊調整行銷策略，據此改進產品或服務，把不好的反饋扼殺在搖籃中，並強化良好的口碑宣傳渠道。例如，西門子(中國)成立了一個“消費者俱樂部”，消費者可以參加西門子客服中心組織的活動和產品培訓；公司還定期和消費者開會，收集他們對產品和服務的反饋，然後根據這些反饋改進自己在中國的產品開發和服務。另一方面，西門子對消費者的關注和主動傾聽，對他們的意見予以反饋，也成為消費者在進行口碑宣傳時的話題。
注意測試，利用合理的數據模型分析行銷效果
和任何一種行銷措施一樣，我們也要衡量這種行銷的效果。雖然像改善首要知曉度等比較傳統的行銷標準可能有用，我們也應該考慮那些能夠具體反映行銷效果的指標。這既包括行銷所創造的口碑聯繫或網頁登陸數量，留言量，細分圈子影響度等定量標準，也包括人們在部落格中的評論及主要關注點等定性因素。綜合評定，確定行銷策略的正確性和可操作性。
根據客戶生命週期階段進行設計，並與數據庫行銷工具相結合
口碑行銷可以用在一個產品生命週期的各個階段。對於配合新產品的推出而言，它是一種節省成本的方法，特別是在經濟危機中市場開發的費用有限的情況下。企業可以收集在產品試推出期間的口碑宣傳反饋，然後在正式推出產品或服務之前進行相應調整。此外，我們也可以用口碑行銷來重振品牌形象，並結合數據庫行銷的各類執行方式和分析工具。定向收集消費者的反饋，是行銷更精細化。
企業可以將口碑行銷與其他行銷工具結合起來，制定一種綜合的行銷戰略。化粧品品牌DHC在中國就做得很好。它在時尚雜誌上做廣告，維持並提高消費者對品牌的知曉度；公司網站提供產品資訊，併為新加入的會員派送產品試用裝；此外，公司還成立了DHC俱樂部，為會員提供有關美容方面的建議，提高消費者忠誠度；俱樂部的會員之後成為品牌的主要宣傳大使，在親朋好友中進行口碑宣傳。
總之，雖然新型的行銷模式不可能完全取代傳統的行銷方法，但越來越多的人已經開始意識到它是一個節省成本的強大行銷工具。通過我講解的這兩類新型行銷模式的結合，企業超越了傳統的廣告形式，建立起一個真實的反饋環節，從而與消費者進行真正的雙向溝通。企業也真正從客戶的角度去考慮問題，這樣我們的行銷才能真正走向正規化，規模化。
Ten Ways Social Media is Changing Sales and CRM By Jennifer Schiff
More and more businesses of all sizes are using social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare, as a way to better engage customers and increase sales. However, just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account is no guarantee of success.
So eCRM Guide asked Pamela O'Hara, the co-founder and president ofBatchBlue, the maker of BatchBook social CRM software, and Margaret Donnelly, the vice president of marketing and business development atJitterJam Social CRM, how companies can leverage popular social media sites, as well as YouTube and Flickr and blogs, to enhance and improve their customer relationship management (CRM).
Social Media Monitoring and CRM Tips
Herewith are 10 ways social CRM can benefit your business.1. Social CRM can help you target your marketing to key segments. "Brands are looking to see ROI from their social marketing activities," said Donnelly. "By using customers' interests, conversations, location, demographic and other data gathered from various social media sites, marketers can capture and utilize that intelligence to create very focused messaging and offers to motivate their contacts to act. This enables the brand to see the entire cycle of customer development from their social marketing efforts, from initial discovery to transaction and beyond."
2. Social media monitoring can help you uncover potential customers and find out which customers are influencers. "People are talking about products, brands, product categories, wants and needs at a staggering rate [online]," noted JitterJam's Donnelly. Monitoring the social web enables businesses to monitor the chatter and sentiment about their products and services as well as the competition's, she said. "More importantly, social CRM enables businesses to identify current customers — including the ones who are potential influencers and advocates for your brand — as well as prospective customers," said Donnelly.
That's why Donnelly advises business owners to monitor conversations around their brand, their products and services and their competitors, using appropriate keywords. "For example, a backpacking products company could search for people talking about backpacking and hiking trips," she said. "Gathering these social conversations [in one place like your CRM system] enables you to track the volume of conversations about your brand or market over time," and then use that information to better engage and interact with your customers.
3. Social CRM can help you monitor what customers are saying about your brand and your products (for better or worse). "Monitor your product name, your company name, or just keywords for your industry, and then pull those bits of information into your CRM system," said O'Hara. That will help you get a true sense of what customers (potential and existing) are saying about your products, services and business, so you can adjust or target your marketing and development strategies accordingly.
4. Social media can be a wonderful customer service tool — especially for countering negative comments. Monitor those sites where people can leave comments about your business, products and service, advised O'Hara. That way, if or when someone has something negative to say, you will know right away and can respond immediately. Responding online, in a public forum, in a sympathetic and helpful way "goes a long way to showing that person that you're listening, that you care — and it also shows everyone else who's privy to that conversation that you're there and you care and you're taking the time to reach out to someone who had a bad experience."
5. Social networks are like having a free focus group. When Kent Krueger, chief dog spoiler at SitStay.com, a maker of "good for your dog supplies," needed help picking a label for the company's new line of SitStay-branded dog treats, he turned to Facebook. Specifically, he turned to the (then) over 21,000 dog lovers (that number has since risen to over 25,000) who "liked" SitStay.com's Facebook page to help him choose which one to use. Not only did SitStay.com's Facebook fans quickly identify a favorite, they made the label even better by pointing out that "Made in the USA" was missing, "which is very important to our demographic and dog treats," Krueger said.
6. Social media can build community and lead to new opportunities."We've run a Twitter chat for the past couple years (we're actually evolving it shortly into a video chat), where we invited small business owners to come once a week," said O'Hara. "We talk about different issues for small businesses — how to use social media, what virtual collaboration tools people are using, how to manage your finances," and other topics of interest to small business owners. As a result, there are now more than 20,000 people following that Twitter account, and it's been a great way for O'Hara and BatchBlue to connect with business owners and has even led to several business opportunities the company might not have found otherwise.
7. Social media can be a great promotion and sales tool. JetBlue set up @JetBlueCheeps on Twitter to promote "great deals on last minute flights every Tuesday." And the account has amassed over 150,000 followers (who have helped fill up planes). Similarly, many bricks-and-mortar businesses are using Foursquare, a mobile social tool, to engage their mobile customers, offering them discounts and prizes like a free cup of coffee or a coupon for 10% off their next purchase when they check in on Foursquare at their store or restaurant or business, which often leads to actual purchases.
8. Social media can help establish you as an expert people want to buy from. For example, one real estate agent O'Hara worked with set up a Facebook page where she posted pictures, videos and information about events in her community, giving prospective home buyers a real flavor of the community and establishing herself as a kind of trusted friend and guide — someone who people would want to buy a house from.
9. Use Facebook to let customers get to know your business and the people behind it. Use sites like Flickr and Facebook to post pictures of your products, either on their own or being used by customers, fun events sponsored by your business, as well as employees — images that accurately portray your company culture and give people a true sense of who you are and what you do. People tend to trust and buy from companies they feel they know and have a relationship with.
10. Use YouTube to educate your customers. Use video networks like YouTube or Vimeo to post helpful how-to guides that show your customers how to set up or use your products, advised O'Hara. This form of outreach and customer education engenders loyalty — and can help you attract a wider audience for your products and services.
Jennifer Lonoff Schiff is a regular contributor to Internet.com and runs a blogfor and about small businesses.
Best CRM Practices
Michelle McMahon, VP of sales operations for Procuri, discusses the importance of integration in any CRM implementation.
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