Rock Candy Media presents, The Product Process. See Part 1.
Tucking in the Customer
If you think an integrated marketing strategy ends when the sales been made, you will never make it through the test of time. Imagine the several Austin advertising agencies we have as food trucks, serving up marketing meals to the hungry start-ups and companies flooding to the city, and the idea of post-sales needs can be made a little more clear.
Queso-topped chimichangas are awesome. One of the top 5 inventions of mankind. But not without a fork and knife. If I order a 12 dollar fried burrito with melted cheese from you, and there’s not a fork, knife, and plentiful napkins conveniently placed outside, I’m not going to have as good of an experience. It’s not going to ruin my day, but I’ll have to shamefully walk over to another truck who I originally paid no mind to, and take some utensils without making eye-contact with the cashier.
What you provide for the customer after the sale can oftentimes be just as important as what you provide for them before and during. It’s different but equally beneficial for both you and the customer. But what exactly is it that you provide? And how?
Padding the Sale
A very common approach to a typical integrated marketing strategy is to send a product review to a converted customer. Customer reviews can make or break a product today, so it’s crucial to have a lot of positive feedback. Negative feedback can be beneficial too, as it will help create a better product. But first, you need to actually receive the feedback.
What a lot of marketing firms tend to do wrong when crafting product reviews is making it more about the company than the user. Incorporating messaging that has more “we, us, our” language than “you” language. Customers know when a company is thirsting for a review. And it’s not a good look. They already gave you their money, why would they spend more time on you?
As emotionless as copy on the internet can be, it is our job as one of Austin’s top advertising agencies to keep adding color and personality to this medium of ours. And we’ve done it successfully for years. If you talk to your clients and audience like actual people, when you ask them for something like a review and do it in the same tone you always have, they will respond. Because unless your product is so incredible or so extremely terrible that the customer just has to leave a response (although it does happen), it’s your job as an advertising and marketing firm to make them talk.
Product quality aside, customer’s product reviews will also be impacted by post-sales strategies, like the provision of information.
Keeping ‘em Fed
Customer support lines, to one degree or another, are imperative to maintaining product quality. Especially if you have a complicated product or it has a learning curve, providing customer support is essential to a powerful integrated marketing strategy. But customer support isn’t all about slapping a 1-800 number on your website for people to call with questions and concerns. It’s about constantly keeping them informed with product information and tips that keep them interested in the product and happy about their purchase.
One of the great ways our growth hacking consultancy and marketing firm keeps customers fed is through email. Less intrusive than social media, providing a constant feed of information via email gives you more room for information and specificities like new ways to use your product, updates, and any relevant news that pertains to customers and your product.
But social media can be utilized too. Depicting your product in different scenarios that relate to your customer or exist to enhance their positive perception will help affirm their purchase. Everyone has experienced buyer’s remorse and returns will never not impact a business’s bottom line – reasons why a post-sales marketing strategy should always be incorporated.
Closing the Close
One final piece of information that rounds out the closing part of our integrated marketing strategy seems obvious but is so commonly missed. When you’ve converted a customer, stop targeting them for sales! Nothing is more annoying than seeing ads for something you’ve already bought showing up time and time again. Not only that, as a digital marketing firm, you’re wasting money chasing a customer who already has given you business. Money that could have been spent going to new leads.
If you can follow these steps you will be able to retain customers and even keep them hooked for future sales. Interested in learning more? Schedule a consultation with Rock Candy Media owner Annie Jones – she’ll tell you what’s what.
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