Engagement Marketing
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Part I: Rev Up Your Engagement Marketing Engine
Chapter 1: The Engagement Marketing Cycle
Everyone Has a Circle of Influence
Your New Business Engine: New Customers and More Repeat Business
The Engagement Marketing Cycle: Three Simple Steps to Success
Engagement Drives Social Visibility, Attracting New Prospects to Your Door
Engagement Marketing Boosts Your Other Marketing, Too
Engagement Marketing Builds Momentum Over Time
Chapter 2: Deliver a WOW! Experience
Good or Bad, People Will Talk About You
Deliver a WOW! experience
Little Touches Matter
Empower Employees to Deliver the WOW!
Listen, Learn, and Adapt
Surveys and Feedback
Keep the WOW! Alive After the Initial Transaction
Chapter 3: Entice to Stay in Touch
“Do I Really Have To?”
Tell People What They’ll Get
Know What You Want (But Have Other Options)
They’re Just Not That into you
Let People Connect Instantly
Close the Permission Loop
It’s About Quality, Not Quantity
Chapter 4: Engage People
Why Engagement Matters
Five Types of Interesting, Relevant, and Engaging Content
Question and Answer
Sharing/Information
Discussions
Promotions, News, and Announcements
Events
Calls to Action: Tell People What to Do
Invite Everyone to Your Party: Distribute Broadly
Focus on Quality (Not Quantity) Engagement
Chapter 5: How Engagement Marketing Drives New Prospects to Your Door
Engagement Drives Social Visibility
People Learn About Your Business
When People Engage, They Also Endorse
Engagement Enhances All Other Marketing
Engagement Marketing Nurtures Prospects, Too
Social Boosts Search Relevance!
Part II: Get More Business With Engagement Marketing
Chapter 6: How Social Visibility Happens
Social Visibility by Platform
Business Check-Ins/Tag a Friend
Tag a Photo
Participating in Surveys/Polls
Google+ Business Page
Encourage Shares to Happen Naturally
Chapter 7: Engagement Marketing in Action
Gourmet Coffee Service Engages Customers, Increases Month-to-Month Revenues
Deliver the WOW! Spoil Your Customers
Entice Customers to Keep in Touch
Facebook Page Gets People Engaged
Engagement Drives New and Repeat Business
Maas Nursery Creates a Community and Grows Its Business
Maas WOWs Customers with Gardening Expertise and Selection
Monthly E-Newsletter Packed With Tips, Coupons, and Other Goodness
Events Draw People Back to the Nursery
Engaging Customers Through Social Media
Sales Up in a Down Economy; New People Visit
Museum Engages the Community, Increases Attendance to Programs
Deliver the WOW! Exhibitions That Rock, Literally
Multiple Touch Points Keep People Connected and Informed
Social Media Lets People “Plug in on their Own”
Engagement Enhances All Marketing Efforts; Helps Drive Attendance
Chapter 8: Engagement Marketing Tips and Tricks
Tip 1: Make Your Customers the Star of Your Show
Tip 2: Create Platform-Specific Content
Tip 3: Sequence Your Posts
Tip 4: Fan the Flames of “Hot” Content
Tip 5: Use “Like-Gating” to Increase Page Likes
Chapter 9: Overcoming Common Obstacles
Obstacle 1: “Too Many Different Things to Learn. Changing Too Quickly. I Give Up!”
Obstacle 2: “I Don’t Have Time.”
Obstacle 3: “I Don’t Like Imposing on People.”
Obstacle 4: “How Do I Find Content Ideas and Inspiration? I’m Not a Marketer.”
Obstacle 5: “I Don’t Want to Post Personal Information.”
Obstacle 6: “My Business Is Boring. Why Would Anyone Follow Us?”
Obstacle 7: “No One Is Reading My Facebook Posts.”
Chapter 10: Resources
Social Media Quick-Start Guide
Google+ (G+)
Engagement Marketing Tools
Glossary
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Index
Praise for Engagement Marketing
“This book is for small business owners who want to learn how to leverage the power of online and offline communication to grow their business. It offers a refreshing look at how any business can grow by engaging with their customers. It’s not about tweets or Likes. It’s about doing right by your customers and enabling them to let others know about it. This book helps you do this in very practical terms. This book is a must-read for any business owner who is tired of the song and dance of ‘content,’ tone deaf to social media, and sick of blogging. This book is for those who want the ‘steak’ and not ‘oatmeal’ of making customers, loyal customers.”
—Ramon Ray, Technology Evangelist and Editor, Smallbiztechnology.com
“Engagement Marketing lives the talk with practical examples from small businesses on how to excel in their business with online content and make it easy for customers to interact with the business. Gail Goodman uses the power of storytelling to explain online marketing in the easiest and grassroots terms.”
—Shashi Bellamkonda, Senior Director, Social Media, Network Solutions and Adjunct Faculty Member at Georgetown University
“If you’re a small business owner you probably know Constant Contact. In her new book, CEO Gail Goodman takes you further down the road to success. The old values are still the best values and Gail has given them new life for the Internet age. She helps entrepreneurs understand that Main Street isn’t dead, it just went digital. Throughout, you’ll learn how to put the ‘word-of-mouth’ power of social media to your advantage. Small business owners who want to survive and thrive in the new world of Yelping and blogging need to read this book.”
—Charles “Tee” Rowe, President and CEO, Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC)
“This book is a must-read for any small business owner looking to understand the latest trend in permission-based marketing—permission to engage. When done well, it brings small businesses new customers from their existing ones. Gail Goodman makes a strong case for how Engagement Marketing will become an incredibly important source of new customers for small businesses—the key to growing in any economy. Best of all, she explains how Engagement Marketing gets ‘done’ in very practical terms, using a combination of old and new online marketing tools, including e-mail and social media.”
—JJ Ramberg, Host of MSNBC’s “Your Business”
“Businesses that have a loyal and engaged customer base enjoy greater success. Why? Because educated consumers seek those companies that listen to their needs, and when they find them, not only do they stick, but they also share their experiences with others. It’s a marketing strategy known as engagement marketing, and no one is more of an expert than Gail Goodman. In her book, Gail shares the important strategies all businesses can employ to leverage t
echnology and social media platforms to build their businesses. This is absolutely a must-read for any owner or team that is struggling to survive. Gail’s sage advice will turn your business into a thriving entity, and you’ll soar to success.
—Susan Solovic, CEO and Cofounder, ItsYourBiz.com, New York Times Best-Selling Author of It’s Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss
“Engagement Marketing, as clearly explained by Gail Goodman, will help businesses face the public in personal, human ways. That connection is what chambers of commerce do, too; at least they should. Those who read the book will know better how to reach out to their community and their current and potential customers.”
—Mick Fleming, President and CEO, American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE)
Copyright © 2012 by Constant Contact, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Goodman, Gail F., 1960-
Engagement marketing : how small business wins in a socially connected world / Gail F. Goodman.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-10102-5 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-22378-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-23711-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-26208-5 (ebk)
1. Internet marketing. 2. Small business marketing. 3. Online social networks. 4. Social media. I. Title.
HF5415.1265.G659 2012
658.8’72—dc23
2012003556
This book is dedicated to small businesses and organizations everywhere. Your dreams, passion, creativity, tenacity, and guts continually inspire me.
Foreword
A few years ago, we did a survey of small businesses and found that 83 percent said their main source of new business was “referrals.”
Think about that statistic for a moment. As a small business owner, your new business most often comes from other people who are talking about your company. And who are those “other people”? Complete strangers? People who’ve never heard of your business? Of course not!
The people who recommend your business to others are those who already know your business. They have had a positive experience with your business. They feel so positive that they want to tell others about it. Those people are, in two words . . . your customers.
The people spreading the word are current or past customers who, when asked which company they recommend, have such a warm and fuzzy feeling (in marketing speak, they are “highly satisfied”) that your company’s name is the first out of their mouths. They don’t have to think long and hard about it. It pops out spontaneously. Your business is top-of-mind.
Highly satisfied customers often don’t wait for anyone to ask. They may be so wowed by their experience that they rave about it over lunch with colleagues or at networking events. They might even volunteer how happy they are with your product or service by writing about it on their company blog or personal Twitter account. Or perhaps, if they think that your company really went above and beyond, they’ll leave a five-star review on one of the many consumer review sites.
Whatever they do, they are telling others about your business in such a way that it leads to new customers and more sales.
Our Endless Quest for New Customers
We business owners and marketers tend to obsess over new customers. A friend of mine calls the quest for new customers the “Holy Grail of small business.” It’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s the buried treasure we seek.
A question I hear over and over in my interactions with other business owners is “How do I get new customers for my business?”
We see this question covered daily in the blogosphere. On social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, small business owners endlessly share tips about how to get new customers. We hear the topic discussed in person at conferences and industry events.
We small business owners talk with colleagues (though not competitors, of course!) about how to get customers. We may advertise to bring in new customers or offer special promotions and discounts. We invest in search engine optimization to direct new people to visit our websites or blogs, hoping they’ll find us online and get directions to our physical locations. We use Google AdWords to drive new customers to our eCommerce stores. We attend conferences to learn how to drive new sales. We may retain a business coach to help motivate us and our sales team to find new customers. We may even devour books in our spare time . . . books about how to sell to new customers.
Think of all the effort and brainpower we’ve put toward finding new customers.
Yet, how many of us devote a significant chunk of our resources—time, money, and staff—to actively engage with our existing customers? What do we do to increase the warm and fuzzy, highly satisfied feeling among the very people who are talking about our businesses, spreading that word of mouth that leads to new customers and keeps existing customers coming back?
And how many of us know exactly where our referrals are coming from? Do we make any effort to track the source of referrals and encourage them?
Most of us, I suspect, could do much, much more.
The need to engage with existing customers has become even more urgent over the past decade, because so much discussion happens online. With the explosion of social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, and review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, it’s easier than ever for a satisfied—or dissatisfied—customer to spread the word about your business. And does it spread! Even if you are certain that most of your business comes from your local community, whether you realiz
e it or not, people may be discussing on the Web the experience they had with your business.
Enter Engagement Marketing
That’s where Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World comes in. Engagement Marketing refers to providing a great experience and encouraging your customers to tell your story through socially visible word-of-mouth referrals.
As Gail Goodman points out in this book, Engagement Marketing is a cycle. She shows you how to engage your customers online to drive more new leads, more repeat sales, and more referrals. It’s all part of one loop, and when you get good at Engagement Marketing, you’ll sell more.
The Engagement Marketing Cycle consists of three steps:
Deliver a WOW! experience so that customers will remember your business with a positive feeling.
Entice customers to stay in touch, whether via e-mail marketing or social media, so that they’ll give you permission to continue to stay connected and market to them.
Engage people through social media, e-mail newsletters, blog posts, and other methods to keep them interested and help them find value in staying connected.
Engagement Marketing is marketing, true. But it’s not traditional marketing in the sense of unrelentingly pushing “buy now” offers on your current customers. Do that and you’ll soon turn people off.
Rather, Engagement Marketing is about making your company so interesting and providing so much value that people want to stay connected and maintain a relationship. By doing so, you greatly increase the likelihood of existing customers talking positively about your business on social channels and thinking of your company when it’s time to buy again or they are asked for a referral.