VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

Use Word of Mouth to Grow Your List

List building is essential for marketing success, but just having a customer list is not necessarily enough. Your marketing success depends on the responsiveness and size of your list. So how can you grow your list with people who are likely to trust you and be responsive? A good place to start is with your current customers.

Aside from maybe your parents, there isn’t any group more ready and willing to refer others to your company than current customers.  And, aside maybe from their parents, there isn’t any group potential customers are more likely to listen to when making purchasing decisions than their friends.  I say this based on personal experience - VerticalResponse asks new customers how they heard about us during the sign-up process, and the most popular response to this question is, by far, “a friend.”

What are some ways you can tap into this referral potential by encouraging - and making it easier for - happy customers to tell their friends about you?

Forward to a Friend

One way is to include a Forward to a Friend link in your outgoing email messages.  Including such a link in email you send through VerticalResponse will remind recipients to forward your email on and provide, to the recipients of such a forwarded message, the opportunity to join your mailing list.  These potential customers are more likely to sign-up to hear from you after someone they trust has forwarded your message over to them. This option is a free, simple and effective way to get new prospects and customers.

If you’re not sure how to add Forward to a Friend links to emails you send through VerticalResponse, then watch this short video.  It shows exactly how to add such links to an email created with our Canvas editor:

If a “forwarded” recipient chooses to opt-in to your mailing list, they will become part of a new list in your account called “F2AF_Name_of_the_Email_They_Received.”  This list will not be connected directly to your SF lead records.  To add these sign-ups as leads, you would:

1.  Go to the VR Email Tab and select View All Lists
2.  Click the Actions link to the right of the F2AF list and choose to download that list.
3.  Save the list to your computer.
4.  Go to your Leads tab and use the Lead Import Wizard to upload the F2AF list as Leads.
5.  You’re done!

Start a Facebook Group

It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s a great way to communicate with your Facebook using customers (and allow those customers to communicate with each other).  This not only adds a layer of personalization to your communications, it also makes it very simple for a customer’s friend to connect with you. They can easily see that their friend is a member of your group or a fan of your business or product. 

VerticalResponse has a Facebook group - go here to see it (and join it).

Include Customer Testimonials on Your Site

If you put testimonials up on your site, then some of your customers will likely ask to participate.  More often than not, these same customers will tell their friends to check out the testimonial, which drives traffic to your site.  Customers who provide testimonials are your “influencers.”  I can’t tell you how many more eyeballs we get on our marketing by including customers in our ad campaigns.

Help your testimonials stand out by including a photo of the customer and, if you’re a B2B company, the address of the customer’s website.  This will legitimize the testimonial and provide a free advertising bonus for the customer.

Start a Blog

I doubt that blogs need much of an introduction (considering you’re reading one now), but starting one can be a great way to put a more personal face on your company.  And it’s also another resource that people can refer their friends and associates to.

We have two blogs at VerticalResponse:  this VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog and our CEO’s Marketing Blog.  Our CEO previously wrote a great post about why businesses should be blogging, and you can read it here:

http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2007/12/what-is-a-blog.html

Ask for Referrals

Taking the simple act of asking a customer for referrals is a great way to get referrals.  And if you can sweeten the pot a bit by providing some kind of discount or bonus to the referrer or the referred (or both) then all the better!

Any other ideas out there for making it easier for customers to refer your business to their friends?  Let’s hear about them in the comments!

Richard Huffaker, Education and Training Manager

Your Marketing Checklist for 2008

It's that time of year again when we all list our New Years resolutions. Lose 10 lbs, get to work early, call your Mom every week, we know, we all have them. Well we hope this one actually sticks since so many of them don't. It's a list of resolutions all businesses should focus on in the New Year if you're not already ahead of the game. If you are, consider yourself a pro and do everything 20% better!

1. Use a Calendar - iGoogle has a great one where you can use alerts to remind you to write your copy and send your communications. Bonus? You can also share it with others so that they know exactly when you're planning to launch. Double bonus? It's free. You can also use the Salesforce calendar but it's more for making meetings with your leads & contacts imo.

2. Publish a Blog - Yes, even if you already have a website you should also host a blog. It's another way the search engines can pick you up, you establish yourself as an expert in your industry, you give a "voice" to your business and you can get your reader's insight into how they feel about you or your company through comments they make.  It's not an overnight success, however when it starts to take off it can be incredibly beneficial. Make sure you flag categories on your posts or tag them for the search engines. Make sure you backlink to your own site from your most popular keywords in your posts. Check out TypePad or WordPress, two great blogging platforms that are very cost-effective and easy to set up.

3. Get 5 Testimonials - Get your best customers to give you quotes and use them everywhere you can. Include them on any outbound communications, in your email newsletters, on your site and in your store. Used often, they can be one of the most powerful forms of marketing you have. We have a store near us that prints off huge posters of their customers wearing their clothing and hangs them in the window along with their history of being a customer. Benefit? The customers tell all their friends to go check out their big picture and shop at the store. These people are your influencers, use them wisely. To track what people are saying about you online, check out Andiamo Systems, then contact your talkers and ask if you can use what they say.

4. Get People Talking - Have a "wow" factor. Give free samples, throw a free gift into the customer shipment, call your customers to see how they liked their service, send a birthday greeting. Whatever it is, get your word of mouth campaign going!

• Send your best customers a "thank you for being a customer" gift. Expedia send me a great bright yellow Expedia travel wallet for my passport. It's easy to pick out in my bag and it's branding for them.
• Call your webinar attendees to ask if the information was helpful, thank them for joining.
• Retailers throw something fun into your online shipment orders or shopping bags.
• Consultants give your first 2 hours of time free.
• Offer coffee at your offline location.
  

5. Shake it Up - Pick one customer-facing thing you do and change it drastically. Change your entire look of your website, repaint your store, start a monthly club, change your advertising message, change your uniforms, heck even change your "hold" music. Just do something different in the coming year that you've always wanted to do. 2008 is your year.

6. Host an Event - If you've got a retail location host an after-hours sale or an event to celebrate your best customers, the new year or your anniversary party. Make sure you do enough marketing in store and outside your location to get the number of people you want there.

If you are an expert in your field host a "lunch and learn" or a networking event. Again, make sure you do marketing to your own list as well as potentially renting a list for a postal mailing in the area to get people there. If you're work is online, host a webinar. Note: most of these have a 40-50% attendee rate.

7. Advertise - Make a list of 5 of your competitors OR 5 other businesses in your local area and look at where they advertise. Then finally answer that pesky ad sales person and choose somewhere you've never advertised before. Then roll the dice! Caveat: don't only do it once and make the call that it doesn't work work, if it's in your budget, advertise 4-6 times before you decide to stop it or better yet, continue it.

8. Do a Customer Survey - Send an email and ask 10 questions about your customer's experience with you with a 5 point rating: Excellent, Good, Neutral, Poor, Very Bad.  Be ready for the good, bad and the ugly, you'll learn what your customers like and what they don't, then you can make changes. Make sure you send a statistically valid sample and get a good sampling back. You don't want to make changes based on just 1-2 remarks. Make sure you announce your changes to all of your customers in an email campaign. Everyone wins! Check out our friends at Clicktools on the AppExchange.

9. Collect Email Addresses - Put an opt-in form on every page of your site or blog or link to it on every page with a link "Newsletter Sign Up". Put an exit pop-up window with the opt in form when someone leaves your domain. Put a sign up form on your blog. Ask for your customer's information at your counter, input it daily into a spreadsheet or better yet a contact management system. However you collect email addresses send a welcome email to them with a thank-you offer. Use the Salesforce web-to-lead form or VerticalResponse to collect email addresses for free!

10. Analyze - Use Google Analytics to track your website visits. Get to know where your traffic is coming from and how good it is. Then make changes to your site, or your marketing materials.

Hopefully you're doing some of these already. It's tough to run a business and constantly come up with new ideas to market. Hopefully this list sparks some new ideas. Happy 2008!