Why do we do anything we do? Why do we study, tirelessly, for the hours we do? Why do we practice game strategies or techniques to the endless reaches that we do? What is to be gained by it all? The answer is gain itself. We do all that we do for the sake of gaining, improving, growing, and constantly besting ourselves and our competition in whatever it is that we do. The exact same goes for your business and ensuring that your brand continues to progress. There is no better way to do this than through the use of digital services associated with your online business strategy. Let’s check out some of the ways this can be accomplished.
Social Media
Appeal to your current customers while also reaching out to potential new followers and clientele. Start by considering an item or service within your product line that you could afford to discount or comp for sake of incentivization. Let’s say you are a drum company and the item that you are considering for incentive is a pair of drumsticks.
Make a Facebook status update, Tweet, or post on whatever social media platform of your choosing. In the post, encourage a ‘like’ or a comment to enter for a chance to win those coveted drumsticks. These social media users apparently enjoy your products, as they are following you, and for that reason, they will ‘like’ or comment for a chance to win some free stuff. So your customers are happy and excited to possibly win!
After the ‘like’, comment, retweet, etc, is where the growth potential takes place. People that are friends or followers of the original ‘liker’ or commenter will actually see that action on their own feed. It is both inviting and non-intrusive in the fact these outside viewers saw it based on their connections on the platform. This is a great way to gain customers by means of, well, having customers! Raffle Copter outlines some great guidelines and ideas for utilizing social media for business outreach, check it out!
Email Marketing
Social media is a strong tool for bringing in new clientele for your brand due to its high use globally. However, even stronger and more universally used is email. The same way that social media can be used as a cool and informal way to increase clientele, email can rally in new followers and customers just as much, heck, even better actually! In June of 2017, Facebook was noted to have 1.32 billion active daily users (Zephoria), while email boasts a whopping 3.7 billion active daily users (Lifewire) in comparison, almost three fold the size of the former, and likely to bear more impact.
Use this means in a similar fashion. And look to other brands that have successfully gained a following through the use of outreach via digital modes of communication. The men’s grooming company, Harry’s, was made mention of for this kind of tactic in an article by Forbes. The brand incentivized referrals to to-be customers before even launching the company. They extended the offer to join their email list to get cool information and concurrently generated and tendered unique referrals codes to people involved for them to share with their friends and family, while also being enticed with a benefit of their own to do so. A tier system was in order to distinguish what prizes people would receive for their efforts in referring new clientele.
The entire arrangement was worked out like a game, applied to staple items that men already need. Through marketed emails offering information and the chance to refer others in order to win those necessities encouraged those initial customers to really push the brand’s effort at hand. The people spreading the word could benefit as they fulfill the criteria with each winnings tier, and other people could learn more about products that most likely are things they need to use on a frequent basis anyways. Marketed emails, both from the brand itself, as well as from customer to potential customer quite possibly, was the reason for the success of this campaign.The same ideas applied to your brand could render the same great results for your brand too!
Customer Reviews
While there are some digital services with which you can incentivize for better growth performance, there are some services with which you have to walk the tightrope a little more carefully. Social media, being the fairly informal entity that it is, provides some wiggle-room in the guidelines of what is acceptable for incentivized programs. Email is communication with people who have chosen to subscribe to you, and as that is their choice, they accept whatever you have to push their way, even the agenda of brand growth. However, there are certain, more official measures that are viewed by more eyes and bears more power, leading to tighter reigns on the incentivization horse. This is the case with customer reviews.
When talking about customer reviews, reviews should not be incentivized with prizes, discounts, or the like. Not only is this just not a good reason for people to review your business, but it also alters the perception of your brand to other people considering it for its services. To encourage reviews with the promise of these things will trigger them to speak highly on your business, even if they don’t truly feel you have excelled. It can be kind of like bribery, and the last thing you want is to have representations of your brand based off of such a notion. To learn more about customer reviews, what incentivizing for them can do, and how this affects the way other brands use yours, check out Review Trackers for more information.
For the aforementioned reasons, don’t look to incentivize reviews, but strongly encourage them. Those leaving the reviews will take note of your good service and feel encouraged to buy through you on those grounds. The reviews will be used as incentives for other buyers and companies to work with you. Simply, upon hearing you have done your job and done it well, encourage a customer review and that will do the trick for bringing in future business and growth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as you are looking to new ways to grow the scope of your business and the magnitude of its following, digital services like social media, email, and customer reviews are all your friends. Utilize them to their full capacity, both in enticing your current clientele as well as new, potential clientele. To learn how to better harness the power of these tools or to start fresh with these integrated into your online business strategy, contact Rave Retailer today!