As one of the owners of a “brick and mortar” business as well as a budding Internet Entrepreneur, its interesting to see all the “different” ways the “Guru’s” in the Internet business come up with to get new customers.
I have been lucky enough to be able to work with my Father in our business for the last 25 years. Undoubtedly, one of the BEST marketers that I have ever met. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has ever been to “over the top” for him. He even rode a bull during a Rodeo event that we sponsored as a fund raiser for the local Fire Dept. People still talk about that years later! I have come to the conclusion that marketing is marketing is marketing. It doesn’t mater if you are creating blogs, capture pages, videos, writing tweets, posting on MySpace or running newspaper ads, having giveaway promotions, running specials, or even riding bulls. It is ALL the same! It’s building relationships! While certainly there are many many differences, when it gets down to the bottom line, it’s “what kind of impact” can we have on others, that will make them want them to do business with US!
There is a tremendous amount of competition in the Internet world as well as in the brick and mortar world. We happen to be in the grocery industry. If you think you have a lot of competition in cyberspace (and we all do) try being a small independent grocery retailer going up against WalMart or other regional or national chains. Competition is good. It makes you better. Online marketers need a way to differentiate themselves. To stand out from the others. Make yourself a leaders. How do we do that. We have to find a way to serve. We serve in the retail world by having products that our customers want at a competitive price. We (our company) serves by still taking groceries to our customers cars. Yes, it’s a little old fashioned and costs us a considerable amount in extra wages, however it also “differentiates us from the Mega stores. We give better customer service. We have to in order to survive.
Online, we have to serve as well. Become a giver instead of a taker. Take the time to answer that question someone posts, give them a URL to a site that will help them, help them learn a new skill. All with NO AGENDA! I have been involved in the network marketing business for many years. I’ve always had some moderate success but never become a “heavy hitter”. One may ask why I still love network marketing if I’ve never made a huge amount of money in it. The MAIN reason? I have friends all over the country. Some going back nearly 20 years, that I would have never met, if not for network marketing. I’ve built groups the old fashioned way and online. For me all this social marketing, Web 2.0 stuff is simply networking. It’s just relationship building taken to the next logical step.
Learn your craft (and there is a learning curve). Don’t jump in and oversell every contact you get in your inbox. That would be like me following customers around in our stores and putting an extra rib eye in their cart. I don’t think they would appreciate that. Help them, learn from them, establish a relationship. Let them know what you do of course, but let them decide how they want to do business with you. I love to show our customers how much better our rib eyes are and we will cut them just like they want. Establish your niche, show how you do it better, and they WILL buy. Then, they are your customer for life! I’m still doing what I did 20 years ago. Building relationships. The ONLY difference is, we now call it Web 2.0 or Social Media Marketing, and we do it online.
Michael Lindsay
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