eCommerce Blog

When it seems like all of the marketing ploys have already been played, it can be tough to come up with a new trick that will attract new customers and bring old ones back for seconds. Today’s wary consumers are watching their wallets closely – but that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in turning browsers into buyers. It may take an innovative approach to send them from product to cart to confirmation, but you can do it – and your existing customers can help.

Customer Reviews & Recommendations

One of the easiest and most effective ways to help your customers help you is to ask for feedback once they’ve received your product or leveraged your service. What did they like best about it? What did they like least? Would they recommend it to friends and family? You’d be amazed at the spontaneous endorsements these kinds of surveys will provoke.

Most customers will be delighted to give their feedback if asked, but be sure to get permission before you use their words on your website or other marketing materials. Ask your happy customers if they would be willing to compose a brief testimonial of how the product worked for them for publication on your website. If you have a small, inexpensive product, toss it in as a free gift to anyone whose testimonial you use on your website or blog.

Some companies set up open discussion forums where customers can post comments and feedback. This approach can work well or it can backfire. It’s a good idea to ask customers to email you their testimonials and post their comments yourself – this allows you to retain control of what goes up on your site. Although most experts advise against doctoring consumer reviews, you don’t want to post anything containing inappropriate language or touting the benefits of a competitor. Be sure that someone is moderating each review before it gets published.

Customer Photos

Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame! Invite your customers to submit pictures of themselves wearing or using your merchandise at home. The photos may not look quite as nice as the ones you’d get from a professional photo shoot, but their authenticity makes them twice as appealing to prospective customers. Plus, it’s free publicity for you! Proudly displaying pictures of bona fide consumers using your products in real-world situations will make prospective customers more comfortable completing the purchase. “If they like it,” your new customer is likely to think, “then maybe I’ll like it, too.”

Customer Videos

Customer videos can be even more powerful marketing tools than photos or written testimonials. A perfect example is the iPod Touch fan commercial that Apple eventually bought rights to for their promotions – a piece so well-produced that it rivaled their own commercials. It’s easy to hold a contest and ask customers to put together their own video commercial or recorded testimonial about your product. Offer a product prize for the winner – or a thank-you prize for every entry – and announce that the winning video will be promoted front and center on your website. Fifteen minutes of fame, free stuff, and a chance to show off their artistry—what tech-savvy customer could pass that up? Everyone wins, including your marketing department, whose job has now been done by the best and brightest of your customers.

Network Your Brand Online

Of course, the ultimate in advertising is in the magic that can happen through online social networking. A few years ago, it was sites like LiveJournal and Blogger that carried the bulk of social networking traffic; today, it’s the all-consuming Facebook and Twitter, the new micro blogging site.

Making your presence known on social networking sites can make all the difference in making your product easy to find and a relevant talking point. As an added bonus, most blogging and networking sites let users tag their posts with keywords that can bring in people searching for those tagged terms – all of which underscores the importance of picking a brand name and sticking to it. Branding has always been critical in the world of business, but on the Internet its importance is magnified.

Make sure your “brand” is easy to remember, easy to spell, and that you don’t change it around too often. You want old and new customers to be able to find you easily, with a few clicks of the mouse, and it’s up to you to make it easy for them. Get your presence known on the Internet under one name or a couple of related search terms, and you’ll be well on your way to success.

What Have Your Customers Done for You Lately?

The beauty of this unique marketing approach is that, in most cases, your customers won’t even realize you’re using their comments and behaviors as marketing tools. In today’s highly competitive marketplace, online sellers need all the help they can get. Why not leverage your target audience to help you meet your targets?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.