Social Media was a nice phase that everyone needed to learn from. Now, people are moving on and moving on in a big way.
Moving toward content marketing
This is a popular area for people to migrate to. People are looking at writing more or sharing more through video and podcasts around a particular topic. There are many people who are really good in this area and they have developed an audience.
Moving toward less social media
There are a growing number of people who are say social media is a waste of time and they are going back to traditional marketing. Email marketing, direct-mail marketing. They are seeing results in offering people quality email content through articles, specials and events
Moving toward inbound
These people are looking at the value of bringing people to their website. There are many software applications that can effectively measure the traffic coming to your website.
Moving toward mobile marketing
These people are creating shorter, cleaner content in a way that fits for a much better experience on mobile devices.
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Moving toward more networking events
I’ve seen attendance at trade shows and networking events pick up again. It is good to see people getting out more and connecting directly with people.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
The point is that nothing has really changed in my mind. In some way, all of us are working with all of these different areas. It is part of our job and our clients are expecting us to continue to build a better experience.
We have forgotten how to be involved in the conversation? (This is my opinion -I hope you disagree with me)
While we were trying to figure out how to do all of the items above correctly, we took our eyes slightly off the needs of our clients and we are trying to play catch-up. I am going through a lot of feedback and I am discovering a list of items that I really overlooked.
Too much content on sites, can’t find simple information that leads to a transaction
Can’t find information online to contact a representative at the company
Would like a simple form to fill out that’s easy to complete on a phone or tablet
Would like to know more about what your company is doing for the future, not a celebration of the past
Need to talk to talk to someone about better service. Who should I talk to? Who can I email?
What do clients want today? How can we create a better experience?
This really should be our goal. What are we doing to create a better experience for our clients? Are we making the experience a faster, easier experience? This approach is much different than trying to improve our website search rankings.
Are we giving people options? Do we offer clients a way to contact us by phone, email, online -website, texting – (this is a hard one).
Are we working toward 24×7 customer service? We are getting closer and closer to this day.
Do we have the right people in place to service client needs?
Are we visiting our clients outside of work? Some people prefer face-to-face. Many clients never visit our websites.
GET IN THE CONVERSATION
Right now, the focus should be to simplify this process. There are so many channels and avenues for getting our company message out there. It really circles back to how do we do a better job of getting into the conversation to begin with and how do we keep that conversation open for future conversations. Keep this in mind as you work on your marketing plans today and into the future. Get in the conversation takes on a whole new approach and remember it really helps you focus on who your clients are and the type of message you want to focus on. Without a conversation, all of these channels are just that a bunch of channels, words and links.
photo credit: HA1-000976 via photopin (license)
Author: Brent Pohlman
Brent Pohlman is the Marketing Director at Midwest Laboratories. Brent is in charge of marketing activities related to trade show coordination, direct mailing advertising, online marketing and social media marketing. I am closely monitoring the developments on Google Plus and I am really finding success by connecting with people… View full profile ›
