This is the second in a series of articles we will be publishing relaying thoughts and ideas from the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago, which occurred June 5th through June 7th. Peter Kosciewicz, Director of E-Commerce for the Eastwood Company, and Chris Saito, Senior Director, Shopping Products for Yahoo! Shopping, delivered a presentation entitled “Social Networking: The Peer Pursuasion Marketing Tool.”

According to Kosciewicz, the Web today has grown into an “architecture of participation” that facilitates social networking through devices such as blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, and more. Forrester Research has published studies that show that traditional marketing is continuing to lose credibility. For example, in 2002, 78% of respondents in a survey said that ads are a good way to learn about a new product. In 2004, that number had dropped to 46%. In 2002, 14% of respondents agrees that companies generally tell the trust. As pathetic as 14% is, in 2004, it had declined even further – down to 7%. Social networking as a means of marketing overcomes this lack of consumer trust because it relies on the word of the consumer rather than the word of the producer. Research from Datamonitor reported that 85% of repondents in a survey indicated that word-of-mouth from friends, family, or colleagues is more trustworthy than corporate-generated content.

So how do you take advantage of social networking to sell more product? Simple – you open yourself up. You plant the seeds of a community to grow up around your site by using devices such as blogs, customer reviews, and forums to give a voice to your customers or prospective customers. The caveat is that you must be high quality. You must have high quality service and a high quality product. If not, avoid this marketing method.
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How much value do you place on your customers? Let’s face it…without customers you have no sales…no profit…no business. Yeah, they’re the keyplayers in the marketing game. In other words, wise marketers keep their finger on the pulse of their clientelle. The know what makes them tick and how to keep them coming back time and time again. Here are a four ways you can keep your customer’s happy and loyal.

Make Customer Satisfaction # 1
Hey, forget about how many sales you make in a day, and look at how many customers you satisfied today! Every satisfied client means repeat sales. Yep, it might be a product that they purchase over and over again, or it may mean different products they pick up every time they walk through the doors. Heck, it might mean both repeat products and added impulse products as well.

Happy customers talk to their friends, and friends trust what their friends have to say about a business. Yep, even though it’s an opinion…they’ll take it as the gospel and set a lot of stock in it. Keep your customers saying good things about your products and services…it’ll pay off.

Deliver…Don’t Promise More Than You Can Handle
No one likes to be let down. Yeah, that means your customers will be happier if you promise less, but deliver more. Think about this…happy customers tell 3 of their friends about you, but disappointed customers gripe to 11 friends about what you didn’t do right. Yep, it pays to keep your word!
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Do you have all the business you could possibly want or need? If you’re like me, you’re still growing your business. Marketing is an ongoing item on my agenda, and I’m always looking for new ways to market my services. Where do you begin the process of attracting more business? How do you get the ball rolling in the direction you want your business to be heading? Well, it’s really simple. Start planting seeds! If you can start your garden growing this spring, why not start your business growing too?

You can start by telling everyone what you do, including those people in your life you see every day. Talk to your hairdresser, dentist, financial advisor, or babysitter. You just never know who they might know who may want or need your products or services. Leave business cards with those people, so they can hand them out to others who may be interested in contacting you. That old saying that includes the line “the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker” may just ring true after all.
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The other day I was writing a sales brochure for a West Coast manufacturer. As I got to what I’ll call the “proof” section of the brochure, I was rummaging around for testimonials.

The company already had a full-blown Web site and a solid PowerPoint presentation. So I was hopeful that I’d find some ready made testimonials or at least some material I could use to create some.

As it turned out, they had one case study with a couple of customer quotes. I pieced the material together to create one measly testimonial. It was less than adequate.

Well, maybe it’s no big deal. After all, I wrote strong copy. Why even bother with testimonials? I’ll give you four good reasons.

1. Credibility

Testimonials give your company, product, or service credibility. Everyone is bombarded with advertising messages every day. It’s a brutal marketplace. If you want to sell something to somebody, you stand a much better chance if you can convince them that you’re credible. Testimonials are like references on a resume. They’re the people who vouch for you.
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