Market with your four walls
It’s no secret, MindComet sells social media strategy as a service. Organizations come to us, not knowing where and how to start using social marketing effectively. We educate and help them, generally in exchange for money. But today, we’re giving away a freebie. It’s a very basic, two-fold strategy that, in my opinion, is one of the most effective strategies a business can employ.
Part one: Market with your four walls.
Four-walls marketing is not a new concept, yet it is really simple. If you can consistently deliver a unique and memorable experience to your customers, they WILL market for you. Top restaurants have been doing this for years. Do you think that the Cleveland-based chef and restauranteur, Michael Symon, spends significant amounts of money advertising his flagship restaurant Lola? No, his guests do his marketing for him - By the way, if you’re ever in Cleveland you MUST dine there. It is amazing - see what I mean?
So ask yourself, is your customer experience unique? Are you delivering something, whether it be a product, experience, or customer service, that you can reliably say you’re doing better, and not just marginally better, than your competition? Work on this until you can emphatically say yes, then move on to part two.
Part two: Encourage or ask your customers to talk about you on social media channels.
If you’re doing part one right, then you’re guests will already be talking about you to their friends. However, you’re goal is to have them talking about you in a public forum, like social media. Don’t be bashful, strike up conversations with your happy customers and see if they use social media. If so, ask them to post reviews on sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs. Sometimes people just need a little nudge and I guarantee that a good number of them will be happy to do it.
Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 26, 2009