VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

How Virgin America Soars with Proactive Communication

I'm an advocate of Virgin America airlines for a number of reasons ranging from their new airplanes, the in-flight entertainment and WIFI, the food & bevies and of course, the on-time arrivals and departures. So, I was really impressed today when I got the email below to let me know they were making some changes.

And here's why:

First, they used an attention-getting, "cheeky" subject line to stand out in my crowded inbox.

We're Shaping Up Our Back End: Find out more about our new reservations system.

This got my attention enough to open the message and read more.  

Next, they used a clean and simple design for their message. This message doesn't need distracting images and sizzle. What it needs is simple and concise messaging that clearly communicates what is changing and addresses their customers' concerns. They score an A from me on all fronts. They start off with a short paragraph explaining the change and then address What to Expect broken down in easy to scan bullet points. They get extra credit for thanking me for my understanding and showing that they have thought about their customers and the impact this will have on them. And they get double extra bonus points for using social media as another channel to support their customers during this change.

Way to go Virgin America! How can you use this as inspiration for communicating your next big change to your customers?

Posted by Kim Stiglitz.

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

Get Your Support Team Holiday-Ready

With the holiday season coming up faster than a speeding reindeer, it’s important to be prepared. In no other area is this more crucial than your customer service. 

According to a recent Consumer Reports survey, "two in three customers have walked out of a store due to poor customer service." More than marketing, sales or public relations, your customer service has the potential to have the biggest impact on your holiday season.

But don't worry, we've got you covered! I sat down and interviewed several members of VerticalResponse's jolly award-winning support team, and have compiled a few useful tips to help you get ready for the holiday season:

Staff it Up!

Ensuring your support team is properly staffed and trained for the upcoming peak season will help reduce the stress of long lines or phone hold times. After all, no one gets their jollies from waiting on hold or standing in never-ending queues.

Take it into Overtime

Jose Escobar, Customer Support Specialist:
Consider extending your support hours. Anything from an extra hour every night, or a weekend morning. This extra time can help with answering emails, returning voicemails, or tracking down a shipment.

You can even boast about your holiday "extended service hours" in your offers, coupons and e-mail marketing messages!

Maintain Motivation

Kristen Hayer, Director of Sales & Support:
It's easy for staff to lose focus during the holiday season. Keep everyone motivated and on-task by holding team contests, but make sure the goals of the contests are consistent with the goals of your company. This way, your team will stay focused and have fun at the same time! Oh, and this time of year, wrapped gifts make great daily prizes.

Prepare for a Few Grinches

Kiz Dodds, Customer Support Team Lead:
It’s good practice to meet with your staff prior to ramping up for the busy holiday season. Touch base with them; let them know their managers/supervisors will definitely be available for extra support with any questions or concerns that arise.

Keep in mind that frustration levels for customers might be higher than normal during the busy holiday rush, so don’t take it personally. Remind the team to stay calm and continue practicing the fundamentals of offering good, friendly customer support.

Look Back, then Look Forward

Chris Li, Customer Support Specialist:
Look at past trends (order volume, customer questions, weather delays, etc) to see how much business was done in previous holiday seasons. Then, schedule your staff, orders, and hours of operation accordingly. But, be audible ready because things can and do change in the blink of an eye.

Create a Festival of Lighthearted Social Interactions

Lolly Dormido, Customer Support Specialist:
It's the holidays, so get in the giving spirit: invite your customers to ask questions or place orders through Facebook or Twitter (and offer special deals and promotions via those channels). This will encourage direct interaction and keep people talking about your business/organization.

Also, find creative ways to share personal holiday stories with your customers on your website or your social media channels. Customers appreciate knowing they are actually dealing with a person!

Have Yourself a Merry Breakfast

Justin Smith, Customer Relations Manager:
Being properly nourished will allow you and your support team to be patient, focused and helpful to your customers. So, eat your breakfast and start the day off right! A customer support rep that is hungry is much more likely to be irritable. And, with the heightened stress of the holidays, that irritability can become contagious in both your office and with your customers.

Related Posts:

• Holiday Mailing Deadlines You Don't Want to Miss
• Holiday Service Levels & Email Marketing

Posted by Brendan Hill

Brendan Hill is the newest Lifecycle Marketing Coordinator at VerticalResponse. Connect with him on Twitter at @BrendanHill

What Small Businesses Can Learn From the Missoni for Target Mayhem

Ok, I admit it. I'm one of the crazy people that got sucked into the Missoni for Target mayhem that ensued last week. I saw the ads and couldn't resist the temptation to score some high fashion at bargain basement prices. Well, I wasn’t alone. On Tuesday, September 13, an unprecedented frenzy was unleashed as shoppers clamored to get their hands on the Missoni for Target line. Stores sold out in minutes, and the Target website went down.

Target made the exclusive, limited-edition, 400 piece collection available online at 6 am EST, nearly 2 hours before the stores opened their doors. It took only 107 minutes for the Target website to crash.

Target had this to say:
"Due to an overwhelming amount of traffic to target.com, as a result of the Missoni for Target launch, our website has been inaccessible throughout portions of the day. Target.com is seeing greater item demand than we do on a typical Black Friday and the excitement for this limited-time designer collection is unprecedented. We are slowly bringing the site back online to ensure we can provide a positive shopping experience to our guests."

The line was scheduled to be in stores until October 22, but most items sold out in only 30 minutes. The next bit of bad news came in the form of eBay where nearly 22,000 Missoni for Target items were listed for sale by the next morning. Stores were empty, the site was still down and customers were livid. Meanwhile, Target was still running promotional ads for the line during prime time TV. The @TargetStyle twitter feed was out of control with angry fashionistas airing their frustration. In the next few days things went from bad to worse as customers received emails that their orders were delayed and some were flat out canceled.

How can we avoid a recipe for disaster like this from occurring in our businesses? I’ve outlined 3 things to consider:

1. Prepare: Target had hyped the collection for months and had ads in magazines and publications. They even set up a pop-up shop during New York Fashion Week. The special advance sale of Missoni products was planned for Sept. 8-10, but on the first day, everything was gone in just six hours. This should have been a big heads up. Demand was huge and supply was limited. At this point someone should have developed a plan to anticipate different scenarios of what might happen if the demand across all stores was going to be like it was in New York. And, the website problems came just three weeks after Target, which had been relying on Amazon’s back end for its website, switched to its own platform. Maybe not the best time to make such a big change?

Lesson to be learned: When preparing for any type of new product release or special offer that you’ve created buzz about, ensure you're prepared to deal with it. Order enough inventory, hire some extra staff, open early and have a game plan if things go awry. And, if you have overwhelming demand, be prepared to offer an alternative or risk disappointment.

2. Set Limits: Oh the pain Target could have avoided if they had only set limits on the number of items or the number of the same items customers could purchase. I doubt there would be 22,000 items on eBay for 5x the retail price had they implemented this simple strategy.

Lesson to be learned: Limit the number of items that can be purchased by a single customer. Toys R Us implemented this during the holiday season of 2010 when consumers were rabid trying to get Zuzu pet hamsters.

3. Test Religiously: Being in the technology business we can certainly relate to website downtimes and issues - but you must be prepared for peak shopping days and order overload. In the days that followed the launch, Target continued to cause themselves more issues by sending customers emails stating their orders had been delayed. This required customers to log in and approve the delay, otherwise, their orders would be canceled. But when customers tried to approve their delays, they received an error message stating they weren't authorized to approve it. This sent off another wave of doubt, confusion and anger.

Lesson to be learned: Target could and should have anticipated and tested their site, messaging, and user experience prior to a launch of this magnitude. Ensure you leave no stone unturned and test every detail of the experience your customers will have in your store, on your website or interacting with you via social media.

What other lessons can we learn from Target? Share your thoughts.

Posted by Kim Stiglitz.

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

How Gap Fails with Their Customer Satisfaction Survey

Any business that has customers should be concerned with their customers satisfaction. At VerticalResponse, we regularly survey our active customers with a simple  Net Promoter Survey that asks the ultimate question, "How likely are you to recommend VerticalResponse to a friend or colleague?"

Our customers then rate us:

• 0 - 6 "detractors", people that wouldn't recommend us.
• 7 & 8 "passives", people that think we're all right, but not great.
• 9 & 10  "promoters", people that tell all their friends about us.

From time-to-time, to encourage participation, we run an incentive for any customers that take the survey to be entered to get 100,000 free email credits. Anyone can win - regardless of the score they give us.

So, on a recent shopping trip to Gap, I received my sales receipt and was a bit surprised when I read it and discovered they were flat out asking customers to give them a "10" in exchange for 20% off.

Wowza, pretty presumptuous, eh? I think I'd rather Gap keep it real. I really like how they say, "we're striving to make your experience a fun and easy one every time you shop." But they lost me at, "give us a score of 10, and get 20% off."

I think they would be better off extending the 20% discount to anyone that participates and get some real, actionable feedback from their customers. We often learn the most from customers that give us low scores, or those in the middle who are struggling with something. This type of information has helped us grow our business and better meet our customers' needs.

So come on Gap, listen to all your customers and you might just learn something.

What do you think?

Posted by Kim Stiglitz

Kim Stiglitz is the Director of Lifecycle Marketing at VerticalResponse. She blogs about marketing, social media and other things that strike her as interesting. Connect with her on Twitter at @Stiggy1.

Related posts:

Net Promoter Score - What it is and How it Can Help Your Business

Zappos: A Great Example of Exceeding Expectations

I must say, "I truly love Zappos." I think their customer service is great, the site is easy to navigate and it's an all-around super experience. My husband and I are always mesmerized by the Zappos logistics. We can place an order on Sunday night and Monday we'll have our pretty shoes delivered.

So the last time I ordered a pair of shoes, I got my confirmation email which was expected. But right after that, I got this email:

What a great way to exceed expectations. Especially since these days it seems to be a thing of the past.

So how can your business exceed expectations?

• Ship your products out early
• Stash some extra goodies in your shipments
• Get a customer in or out before they expect it
• Have a human being answer the phone
• Give your great customers and fans a thank you gift
• Upgrade your customers...just because they're customers

It's a small gesture and could go a long way with word of mouth. Look, I'm certainly blogging about my experience with Zappos! What can you do to exceed your customer's expecatations? Give it a whirl!

How to Turn a Negative Customer into an Advocate

It happens to the best of us. Sometimes we fail a customer. We hate it but no company is perfect. And with all of the social media platforms available, the customer can get so angry they blog about it, they Tweet it and put it up on Facebook for the world to see. And not only their followers can see it, but if anyone is following your company name and someone negatively (and positively) Tweets about you, anyone can see it.

So how do you turn the negative into a positive?

How to Handle Social Media

First of all, follow your own company name, then if someone posts something to Twitter or Facebook negative about their experience with your company, ask them to call you, or ask them to email you so you can discuss the issue. If the issue has been fixed, go ahead and apologize, then reply to them (or direct message) that you've heard their concerns and fixed the issue. Any way you can, start a dialog with them.

How to Handle the Nasty Email

Many of us have been there. You've got a customer who sends the email of all emails wrought with anger about their experience. Much of it is them getting their emotions out into another medium. But what happens on the other end of that sent email is that some poor person whose job it is to deal with customers gets the email and most of the time, they had nothing to do with the issue. It's time to take a deep breath, not take offense, and focus on the issue. Picking up the phone can go a long way in building your customer relations because most of the time your customer isn't even expecting an email back let alone a call.

The message is, going above and beyond to get to the heart of these issues will go far in turning a negative experience for your customers into a positive one. Chances are if ONE of your customers is experiencing this issue, others are too, they're just not communicating with you.

The best thing you can do is to make sure whenever you upgrade something or fix an issue customers are having, tell ALL of your customers even if you think it illustrates a weakness you have. You'll make more customers happy which is what you want in the long run.

Do you have any experience turning a negative into a positive? Love to hear it!

6 Customer Service Changes You Can Make NOW to be Holiday Ready

The holidays are right around the corner and you know you've got to make the most of them, especially if you're in the retail industry. One of the biggest ways you'll win new business this season could be from word of mouth and there's nothing that affects that more then great customer service. So here are 6 things you can do now, to be ready for the onslaught.

1. Hold Music - Have you listened to your hold music? Why not put some holiday tunes on there to get people in the mood. If you've got specials, you can record yourself, save it as an mp3. and upload it to your iTunes. We play our hold music with our iPod.

2. Call Your Own Number - When was the last time you called your own phone to see what your customer's experience is? If you've got a phone tree, make sure the extensions work.

3. Experience What Your Customers Will - Go all the way through your purchase process and send yourself one of your products. This way you'll experience first hand what your customers will this season. You'll surely see obvious changes that could make a big difference to your customers.

4. Spice Up Your Packaging! - If you can throw some goodies into your packaging to give it some extra flair do it. Do some severe quality control if you're gift wrapping. No one wants to give or get a poorly wrapped gift.

5. Script for the Phones - If you've got people other than you answering the phones, make sure they make the most of the call time. Upsell your sales or your products while you have a customer on the phones for any reason.

6. Live Chat - If you don't have it and you can man it (or have an intern man it) at least for a good portion of the day, get it. It's important to have because for the most part people don't really like being on the phone with any company if they don't have to. Velaro looks to be about $52/month/person, BoldChat is about $29/month/person. The cool thing is, if you've got people browsing around on your site for a bit, you can even pop up a proactive chat window and see if they need help.

Capitalizing on these touchpoints is one great way to convert new customers and keep existing ones coming back. What are you doing to get holiday ready now?

Lessons in the New Marketing Experience

Yesterday I attended the New Marketing Experience Conference that was put on by our friend Chris Brogan and New Marketing Labs. This conference was packed with social media advice.

Instead of writing paragraph after paragraph about the social media tips from the event I want to use my 140-character limit on Twitter to help pass on some of the lessons discussed in social media marketing. This is what my conference looked like from @VR4SmallBiz’s point of view.

Tweet 1: Piggy back your new Social Media campaigns onto your proven engagement campaigns. #nme10 /via @MickGriffin

Think about what is already working for your business. Maybe you are selling to businesses and you have figured out that your audience is really responsive to webinars or demos of your products. Add social media to these events, Tweet and post to your Facebook pages to invite people to the event. Also add a hash tag and encourage people to Tweet and Facebook during the event. You will only build on the traffic you already receive from your proven campaigns.

And after you finish the webinar remember to post your recorded version to your social media platforms to keep building.

Tweet 2: What you can change is if you are part of the conversations. You can’t control them happening

More than likely some of your audience is taking part in a type of social media. Maybe they’re on Twitter or Facebook, or maybe they’re using a blog or a social community. Even if you’re not there your customers could be talking about you. These conversations could be good or bad but if you aren’t there you don’t have the opportunity to be a part of that conversation and represent your business.

If you haven’t yet started on social media do a few quick searches on places like search.twitter.com. Search for the name of your business and your services and products to see if anyone is talking about you right now. Then jump into the conversation.

Tweet 3: RT @tedprodromou: @scottalbro says "always be helping" is the new "always be closing"

Scott Scott who with what company? was making two points with this statement. The first one is that customer service is a very important part of your sales team. If you do not have helpful and friendly customer support then customers might start looking at other companies that do.

Secondly, customer support needs to reach across all departments. It is a buyer’s market and if you aren’t helping someone do something why would they buy from you?

Tweet 4: Found VerticalResponse customer @StSupery at New Marketing Experience looking to learn how to reuse content - can't wait to see what they do.

What came right after that tweet:
@VR4SmallBiz Thanks for the mention. We're doing our best to be a conduit of useful information :) from @StSupery

Support your customers in anyway you can. By engaging them on social media or highlighting them in your email marketing newsletters you will be building your relationship with them and in return finding a more loyal customer.

Tweet 5: 3 types of media; owned (website..) paid (search..) engaged (word of mouth..) All of them can work together via @brickfish

The 3 types of media are “owned”, “paid” and “engaged”. The owned media is anything that you can control and have ownership of. Some examples of owned media would be the content on your website and your social media profiles like your Facebook Fan page. Paid media is something you paid for to drive traffic to your owned media. Some examples are your search or display campaigns and your email marketing. Engaged media is the media that your audience creates for you. When one of your customers tells a friend about your business or tweets about you to their Twitter audience that is engaged media.

These three types of media work together in a continuous loop. Let’s say you write a blog post (owned) and you think that everyone needs to see it because it is so good. So you send out an email marketing campaign (paid) letting your audience know that you just posted something you think they would be interested in and ask them to share it with their friends. After you send out this email, a recipient reads it and agrees it is good. So that person then posts a link from your blog to their Facebook Fan page (engaged).

By making all three of these types of media work together you just got your business in front of a few more people. Now you just need to make sure you have an email opt-in form on your blog so you can capture a few more people.

Tweet 6: Outbound leads can be the nudge for some inbound leads. But think about the right timing and message.

A story was told at this conference about a sales person who could tell when someone was on their website. They had the phone number for this particular site visitor, so this sales rep gave that person a call while they were still on the site.

The sales rep called this the “pounce method”. After working with the pounce method for a little bit they decided that it was a bit to early in the sales cycle for these potential customers, not to mention creepy. They have since scaled back and now call people who visit their site a few days later. This worked much better for them because their visitors had time to process and think about the info they read on their site.

All of your marketing has time slots that are more effective than others. Figure out what is the best time for all of your messages and you will see a better response from your audience.

Tweet 7: RT @gingerw: Really great content is not about what you want to say but about what your audience wants to hear #nme10 you will see it in ROI

Take some time and listen to your audience. Give then a survey or ask for feedback on one of your newsletters. Spend a few days closely following a group of your customers on Facebook and Twitter see what they are talking about on a daily basis. Take a look at past blog posts and see what you traffic has been, then blog more about the content that has been getting a higher traffic rate.

The time you take finding out more about what your audience wants to hear will be worth the rewards you receive after your new content is published.

Tweet 8: Email is the digital glue #nme10

Email is a very unique communication tool. It crosses all types of platforms; your phone, your social media profiles, and your inboxes. Email is a tool that people use for the important stuff. When people really want to pay attention to something on social media they sign up for email alerts. Many times people are in their email multiple times a day. I know I check my email on my phone and then save some of the messages as unread so that I can reread them when I am at my computer. Email is a very strong form of communication and if it’s used properly with social media it can be your digital glue that makes all of your social media efforts more successful than they would be on their own.

I did a very similar post about a word of mouth conference I attended you can read it here: Lessons in Word of Mouth Marketing.

My biggest take away from the event is that social media can integrate even more than I knew into already proven marketing tactics. Does anyone have any other tips about the integration of social media and other marketing tactics like email newsletters?

The 2010 New Year Checklist for Your Business

Every year here at VerticalResponse I make it a point to come up with a list of 10 things you need to be  thinking about in the new year. They may be related to marketing, or running your business overall, and they’re usually something I relate to things I have to do in my own business.

1.  Use “Cause Marketing” – This is the year that you should identify your business with a worthy cause and either donate a percentage of profits to it or contribute to it in some way. And if profits or hard cash don’t fit, consider donating employee time. Then in your email marketing campaigns, your marketing materials and sales pitches you should talk about what you’re doing and why it’s important to you. Your prospects and customers increasingly want to do business with a business that cares and has moral obligations, and they’re looking for you to let them know how you fit the bill.

2. Use Social Media with Email Marketing - Finally get your act together with social media this year. Start with Twitter and Facebook, it’s easy. Then set your goals on how many Twitter followers your business will get or how many Facebook fans you’ll attract. Make sure you tell your email marketing recipients to follow you when you send out a campaign. And don’t forget to post your links to your email campaigns in your Twitter account and Facebook pages and ask people to join your email list. All of these marketing vehicles work really well together and feed off of each other.

3. Nail Your Email Marketing – Your customers are your lifeblood in these economic times so make sure you put as much care as possible into how you communicate to them. One small yet important thing we all tend to overlook is the subject line, which is the most important part of your email. Whether you think about your subject line as the first order of business, or you write your email then come up with the subject line, take a moment and make sure it’s the right one. Here's an idea the day before you send your campaign, take a small number of email recipients and split the list in two. Then send two different subject lines. If there is a clear winner, meaning one that has more clicks and opens, choose that one to roll out to your entire list the next day. If there isn’t a clear winner, then choose what your gut tells you to choose.

Test a different format or a different day to send your email campaign. Squeezing an extra few opens, clicks and sales can make a huge difference for your business all throughout the year.

Send regular surveys to your customers to find out how they rate your product, your company and customer service. Find out what you can be doing better, then tell your customers how you’re changing your ways in your next email newsletter because you’ve heard their message.

4. Make This the Year of Customer Service - People talk about companies that listen to them and that treat them well so you’ll want to go above and beyond with customer service this year. This is especially true since companies like Facebook and Twitter are taking off and becoming a platform for people to tell the world how they feel…about you. This might be the year you get your customer data all in one place so it’s easy to find a customer when they call. Then log all of their issues so you have it for next time. Try BigContacts, Zoho, ACT!, and Salesforce for low-priced options. Provide Support has an option for one operator for less than $10/month for a year. Also manage your incoming and outgoing customer service emails. Palo Alto Software has a great product called Email Center Pro where you can manage your incoming and outgoing emails from one central web location and it’s free for 2 users. 

5. Cut Costs - Keep cutting costs because we’re still in the economic weeds. Look at your top spending categories and see if there’s money to be saved. Is your rent too high? If you’ve got a number of years left on it you might call your landlord and ask if you can renegotiate “stepped” payments. Ask for a discount this year and tell them in the future years you’re willing to pay at bit more per square foot. If you’re spending too much on shipping, start calling other providers to see if they’re competitive. Doing things like this in January will add up for the rest of the year and help you to profitability.

6. Listen to Your Customers - Listen and watch what your customers are saying about you. Sign up for Google Alerts with your company name as a keyword, but also with your competitor’s names so you can see what is being published about them as well. Sign up for a free TweetDeck account and do the same. You’ll see what people on Twitter are saying about your company, your competition and even your industry, up-to-the minute for an unlimited number of keywords. Then chime in to the conversation and address the issue or try to get a new customer. Word to the wise: make sure you’re transparent with who you are, you don’t want to “hide” as someone else, tell them you’re with your company and you want to help out or answer any questions.

7. Find New Customers, Inexpensively - Google is where people go these days to find businesses they’re looking for. So set up or build on your Google Adwords pay-per-click efforts. If you don’t know where to start with Google try Google Basics. Get started simple, choose keywords that make sense for your business and build on it from there. To find how many searches are happening on your keywords check out the Keyword Selector Tool to find out how many searches occur for your keywords. Note: although Google is the clear market leader, other search engines like Bing are gaining a bit of market share and can be less expensive. Word to the wise: take a deep breath and be patient, success doesn’t happen overnight but when you start to gain traction you’ll see that it does work and you can build on your success from there.

8. Build Your Email List - I've put together this blog post called 29 Ways to Collect Email Addresses for Your Business. Live it, learn it, love it.

9. Hire People Who Care – If you’re lucky enough to be hiring for your business, this should be the year where you have an ample choice of people who need to work to choose from, so it’s your pick. Make sure you select people who have the same passion as you do, and people that fit into your business culture like a glove. Make sure you ask the questions that count; you want someone who can handle situations, someone who can communicate and someone who you trust. Don’t settle for second best, your customers will notice.

10. Embrace Word of Mouth – At VerticalResponse over 50% of the people who sign up for our service select “Word of Mouth” as the source for where they heard about our company. In 2010 you’ll really need to take a good look at what you’re doing to spur word of mouth. As noted here, customer service is important, the quality of your product or service is important and the entire customer experience is important in order for word of mouth to start. But there are other remarkable things you can do for your customers that can start them talking about you.There are some great ideas on the VerticalResponse Blog as well as Andy Sernovitz’s Word of Mouth Marketing Blog to get you started.

2010 is poised to be a great year for growing your small business. Comment with your ideas for what you'll do to get your growth on.

Want to Hear From Your Customers? Create An Advisory Board!

If you’ve got a customer pool you can talk to, first of all, do one thing, consider yourself lucky. Sometimes we only think about how we communicate TO them, instead of asking them for their opinions. We’ve talked a bit about how to do that with surveys, but what about actually visiting them or meeting with them face-to-face to find out how they like your products or services?

Do you have a product or service that might warrant getting some of your best customers into your establishment and start a round table to get their ideas? You might be surprised at what ideas come up from other companies they like and patron.

At VerticalResponse we’ve got a great group of customers we tap into to find out how they use our product and what they like or like to see changed. We’ll be increasing the size and use of that customer group soon because we think it’s important to actually visualize how they use our service and talk to them about their challenges. Chances are our customers have figured something out that we couldn’t have possibly imagined and it might even be a useful idea for all of our customers.

Here's one way to start your CAB:

1. Send an email marketing campaign inviting your customers to your Customer Advisory Board. Use a VerticalResponse opt-in form for this select list. It will be a separate list in your account.

2. If you've got new ideas on the fly, send an email to them asking them about their opinions. They'll tell you when it's too much for them.

3. Invite them to meet face-to-face each quarter but be cognizant of their time.  A larger group is always better, more ideas come of it and if some can't make it you still have a meaningful discussion. If you can't do it at your business site, select a local restaurant or establishment. Either way make sure you offer refreshments, lunch or dinner, it's the polite thing to do and a very inexpensive focus group.

4. Come prepared with what you want to get out of the meeting, then be surprised at what you actually do get out of the meeting. If it's a new product line, show them the product line and ask for their feedback. If it's a partnership you want to do, talk to them about the features and benefits and ask them if this would benefit them.

5. Give a half hour at the end (or the beginning) for networking. People will leave when they have to, they shouldn't be rushed out of the door. Introduce your customers to some of your employees, customers always like to know who is behind the scenes.

6. Give a gift! If you have schwag give it up! Everyone likes something for free, and if it has your logo on it even better!

7. Thank your customers profusely!

Your customers are visiting many websites and many businesses each day. You could really learn from their experience. Create your own Customer Advisory Board and make it work for you.