Manufacturers: What are you doing to improve the customer experience?

Today more than ever, customers are expecting, and in some cases demanding, a better customer experience. These types of experiences have to start in the C suite and trickle down. The customer service department may be on the front line, but they can only mirror what management has in mind.

Do your top-level folks really understand the needs of your customers? If not, they certainly can’t help formulate or lead an initiative for a great customer experience if they don’t know what that is! I was surprised from a recent article in eMarketer that showed over 33% of senior managers weren’t aligned with the customer experience.

I think we can all agree that everyone needs to be on board to truly make the customer experience meaningful and real. For any of you who have flown Southwest or shopped in an Apple store, you know what I mean about customer service. The culture starts at the top and both of those brands know that other choices exist for their product and services.

The two takeaways I’d like to leave you with are:

  1. Listen to your customers – Find out what they want and how they want to get it.
  2. Under promise and over deliver – give them more than they ask for and make the mundane a memorable experience.

If you liked this post, you might want to read:

Customer service: What are you doing to retain customers?

Customer service: Is your company obsessed with it?

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For B-to-B Marketers, Email is Still an Effective Way to Communicate

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Sometimes as marketers we tend to gravitate to the newest or hottest thing out there to give it a try. What I might suggest we all do is go back to some basics like email marketing. This is a proven method of communicating with both existing and potential customers.

Lauren Fisher from eMarketer recently did some benchmarking on email marketing which included key data, trends and metrics. Here are some highlights:

  • Emails are increasingly accessed by mobile devices.
  • Personalization using triggered emails are increasing.
  • Daily email use is higher among mobile phone users.
  • There are over 546 million mobile email users in 2012. That number will triple by 2016.
  • USA mobile users are estimated at nearly 116 million users.
  • Nearly 33% of all emails are opened on a mobile device.
  • Internet users still trust email messaging.
  • Less that 22% of marketers are optimizing their emails for mobile devices.

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Media Companies are Changing Ways They Deliver Content

According to a recent article in BtoB Magazine, Making the Most of Mobile is beginning to change. Here’s an interesting stat – in December of 2011, eMarketer released a study that showed mobile had surpassed print readership. Mobile increased by 30% in 2011 to 65 minutes a day compared to print at 44 minutes. Magazines are finding that their content consumption on smartphones and tablets are beginning to boom.

This trend isn’t just in the B-to-C market. B-to-B publications are beginning to focus on different delivery options. Summit Media Group who owns Packaging World found in a recent survey that 46% of their subscribers owned a tablet and that 78% planned to own one by the end of the year. Of those that currently own tablets, 74% said they read work-related digital magazines on these devices. They have incorporated “responsive design” into their websites which allows for optimum readability automatically.

Ziff Davis, a tech media company, is moving ALL its print magazines to digital and mobile and is clearly a leader in this endeavor. Newer media companies like WTWH Media which just started a few years ago focuses heavily on the digital aspect. Cygnus Business Media, Penton Media and others are starting to follow suit.

So bottom line for those of us that are trying to reach professional tradesmen, we now have another opportunity and avenue to reach them. Benefits of digital are: 

  • We can measure responses
  • We can enhance our message by including links to videos, testimonials, etc.

If you haven’t included digital in your marketing plans, maybe it’s time you consider it.

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Does Blogging Fit Into Your Overall Marketing Strategy?

Not all companies should be blogging. How do you determine if you’re one of them? Most manufacturers, unless they are making commodity items, should fit into the “do” column. If you sell through a distribution channel, there should be another check, and if you ultimately want to reach your targeted end user, put a bunch of checks!!!

Blogs are becoming more popular all the time, and according to eMarketer, blogs have increased from 16-39 percent in companies blogging for marketing purposes.

US Companies Using Blogs for Marketing Purposes, 2007-2012 (% of total)

Our blog is the hub of all activity for us generating several times the number of page views than our web site. By utilizing other social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to drive more eyes to our blog by posting links on these sites, it insures that people keep coming back to the blog.

Why should you blog?

  • Position yourself as an expert in your field
  • Build your brand
  • Use SEO to build readership

Why is a stategy is important. The main reason is you don’t want the ready-fire-aim approach to be your guidepost. Consider these points:

  • Develop a policy and guidelines – This is new to everyone so someone has to set the ground rules.
  • Identify topic categories and resources – Don’t think you have to be responsible for creating all the posts. Get sales customer service, engineering and of course marketing into the mix.
  • Define frequency – You can start a blog and then do one post a month. That’s like trying to date and only calling the girl once a month. In order to build relationships, it takes time to get to know, like and trust people. I suggest at least once a week for a post; more if time permits.
  • Define the audience – This is key so you can write to the interests and issues (content).
  • Choosing the right voice – Remember, social is like having a conversation. Save the features and benefits for the sell sheets.

The key when considering blogging is that IT IS A COMMITMENT. But the upside is you can position your brand very favorably and generate lots of traffic, some of which will turn into relationships and maybe even business.

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How Tablets Can Help You Reach Young Tradesman

Times they are a changing. Last year, the tablet category essentially didn’t exist. Today with the iPad revitalizing the category, it’s expected to reach 81.3 million units by 2012 according to eMarketer.

This and the fact that there are more smart phones being sold each month than PCs means we need to rethink mobile as a viable means to getting to those younger folks (tradesman). A recent survey from Nielsen showed that iPad users were more likely (even more than iPhone users) to click on ads, videos, multimedia and interactive offerings.

Receptivity to Advertising Among US Mobile Device Users, by Device, 2010 (% of respondents)

There’s an opportunity for marketers to target these tablet users who are engaged and prime to purchase. The demo for the tablet users are high income 18-34 year olds – predominantly male. So, for those of you trying to reach that elusive young tradesman, this might be a way to do it.

If you like this, you might like the following:

White Paper: Trends in Mobile Media

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