I was speaking to the owner of an internet cafe in shepparton about marketing and the various advertising methods he has tried. Like all good businesspeople, he tracks his advertising as best he can. Also like most businsespeople, he hasn’t yet been made aware of how the internet can powerfully enhance word of mouth, keep you at the top of the customer mind, and strengthen a community.

The communications strategy I’m going to outline here is a strategy we used very successfully with one of my biggest clients. This web based communications strategy was part of a broader strategy that saw sales rise 40% over the space of a year.

I’m going to call this the VDP web based communications strategy (see what I did just there? =P). Here is the general idea.

1. Follow up – make customers feel appreciated
2. Facebook – develop a relationship and enhance your brand
3. Newsletter – keep customers up to date

Follow Up

Your customer buys your product or signs up for your service. Once they sign up/buy your product/etc, they go into a follow up system. The follow up system is a series of emails that is sent to their email address.

The first email is a ‘thank you for buying from us’ email. It may also ask for feedback from the customer.

The second email makes the customer aware of other offerings you have that the customer may not be aware of.

The third email is a discount or offer. The best type of discount or offer is one that encourages them to bring friends with them.

The whole idea of the follow up system is to make customers feel appreciated that they are your customer. The follow up system should definately not be spammy, any new info you reveal about yourself or your services should be something that the customer is most likely already interested in.

In all of the follow up emails, I include links to the Facebook page and ask people to become fans. This leads to the next point.

Facebook

Facebook is huge.  Everyone these days is on Facebook. Heck even my Dad is on Facebook! The teen/young adult demograph is especially present on Facebook. If your customers fall into this demograph, there is so much to gain from having a facebook page.

Here are some reasons that a facebook page is such a strong marketing tool.

1. It gives you the ability to post updates to people’s facebook profiles (which all their friends see)
2. They show up on their profile as a fan of your business (which all their friends see)
3. People can write comments on their experience with your business. This acts as a great testimony for your business because the words are coming from a 3rd party.
4. You can post fresh rich content (videos and photos) and keep customers up to date
5. You can advertise events. People can look at those events and see how is planning on going.
6. There is a discussion board where customers can talk with one another
7. The main reason that Facebook is so powerful is that for all of the above points, the customer is actually doing that for fun! You get maximum cut through
8. Oh… it’s also free.

Facebook allows for viral growth, where friends see what each other are doing. One of the cool features of Facebook are “social ads”. Say that in part three of your follow up system you offered a 25% discount if your customer brings back a friend. You can actually place an ad on facebook to your customers friends and have it say “Your friend <[name]> has recently shopped with us. Ask him how you can get 25% off your next purchase”. If they click on that ad, you can show them a page on your website about your refer a friend offer.

Newsletter

Hopefully your customers are feeling appreciated from the follow up system, and through fresh content and updates on the facebook page, there is a relationship that has been formed.

The newsletter builds on that relationship by keeping the customer up to date with current events with your business. Again, this isn’t just a spammy blastout of your monthly catalogue, it’s information that your customers find interesting. In my VDP Websites newsletter, I have a main feature article surrounded by a few tips and misc news items like recent site launches.

Please note with newsletters that it’s very important to obey the anti-spam rules and to quickly unsubscribe anybody if they ask.

Summary

If done well, the relationship between you and your customer is meaningful to the customer, but also almost automated for you. Apart from entering the customers email into the follow up system and writing the content for the newsletter, there is nothing else to do but sit back and enjoy the rewards of a loyal customer base!

Edit: After looking around the internet to read a bit about communications strategy, I found the Independant Thinking Blog that has quite a bit more on topics like this.

How does your business handle web communications?

Does your business do web communications? If not… why not? If so.. what has worked for you?

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