It blows my mind how many businesses I’ve worked with never follow up when they implement a marketing campaign. There is no call to action and no follow-up created.
The art of the follow-up is your most important marketing weapon. This is where a lot of magic happens. This is where you can take your marketing to a new level.
Your customer gave you permission to connect with them the moment they gave you their information. Now is the time to do something with it. Until they unsubscribe or request you not to contact them, they are listening to you and want to learn more.
Many businesses fail at following up or engaging with their customers
Engaging with your customer is a magic sauce of marketing that is free and powerful. A simple reply to a review (negative or positive) can change a prospect into a buyer. Asking for a review and responding to your reviews is big business.
According to BrightLocal, 50 percent of consumers visit local businesses’ websites after reading positive reviews (including 69 percent of 55 plus) 89 percent of consumers read businesses’ responses to reviews.
Customer service is also follow-up
It’s aggravating that so many companies still fail in something so simple. They will go out of their way to create a social media presence, have a customer chat portal on their website, or an email address to answer questions, but they don’t respond. You need to know 80 percent of consumers expect a company to respond to their email within one hour. If you use social media or live chat to respond to customers, you better answer them within 45 seconds.
When you start a social media account, chat portal, email address, or phone number, your customers expect you to respond and follow-up. Are you following up with your customer when they have given you their attention?
How to follow-up
Do you have the capacity to follow-up? Can you implement alerts, systems, and processes to manage engagement and follow-up? Can you respond to negative feedback without getting into a confrontation? I encourage you to do all of this because there are many companies that are failing at all of these questions.
Where do you start?
Assessing your follow-up process and engagement effectiveness can feel like a chore. Maybe you are failing at these right now? This can be your chance to examine your brand with a microscope and repair the damage, making your brand healthier.
This blog was originally posted on HoleshotBrandworks.com.
