Recommended reading time…the first one is from Servant of Chaos on the importance of product differentiation (valuable differentiation versus the more common ‘our product sucks which makes us different from the competition’).
This is something that advertising is simply not going to fix. It’s actually not possible. You see, it no longer takes a big budget and a sexy image to reach an audience. Anyone can start a blog for free and begin corralling opinion. And you know what? It is all captured by Google. Every word, every rant, every unsubstantiated comment (and every truth) is indexed by Google, assessed for inbound links, page rank and a number of other elements and then presented as fact to the unwary web surfer.
What’s unique about your products and services? How do you consistently deliver a valuable solution for your customers? Is that clearly communicated in your messaging – across the entire organization?
The reason I asked that last question, about communications across the entire organization, is because of this next post about customer retention from the folks at ScLoHo’s Collective Wisdom. My favorite excerpt is this one -
Sixty-Eight (68) percent of customers who leave your company and start doing business with another company do so because they feel taken for granted by employees who display an attitude of indifference.
So after you get those buyers knocking on your door, make sure the sales and service folks greet the buyers with a big smile, a positive attitude and the commitment to deliver an incredibly valuable experience. And you might want to think about little ways to show your customers that you love them – random acts of kindness like handwritten thank you notes or calls to check in and see how they are doing (no sales pitch allowed) can work miracles.
Note from Pat: As soon as I closed this post, I came across this piece from Baskin’s Dim Bulb blog on on his experience with Vanguard. God, I have been there!
