Your indispensable guide:
1. Keep doing what you have always done.
If it worked ten years ago it will still work now. Simple? Simply wrong I’m afraid. We are living through a massive communications revolution. Media and businesses used to be the gatekeepers of valuable information that would influence consumers. Now consumers are in control of that information. And that changes everything.
So before you re-book your telephone directory listing because you always have (and everyone else is in there); before you sanction a 10,000 person mail shot which washes its face because it generates a 2.38% margin on a high spend high margin product or service (And the other 97.62% is generating awareness anyway) … Take a step back and consider the best way to give your communications the engagement factor.
2. Don’t speak to customers
After all, what do they know about your product or service?! Customer opinions should be at the centre of any smart communications strategy. Set up meaningful two-way communication using social media (The social media channels that best suit your business) to monitor feedback and evolve your smarter communications strategy.
3. Don’t offer valuable content
Consumers ‘might’ hand over a sales brochure. But they ‘will’ share genuine, compelling added value information that resolves real issues and problems or demonstrates personality. And they can do it with the click of a button if it’s presented as a YouTube video, slide share, free pdf e-book download, info graphic. Demonstrate your experience and personality. Then openly discuss it and thank people for doing so.
4. Don’t lose control of your message
Remember the consumers are in control now. Your ego might be stroked by a shiny new brochure which you had the designer in a headlock over because you wanted ‘market leading’ in big emboldened font. But, it’s meaningless without meaningful positive engagement with consumers. (see number 3 above)
The most unique element of your business is arguably the people at the heart of it. Your staff. Offer them direction, then trust them to engage people online in the same way you’d trust them to engage with them in a retail environment, service desk etc. People buy from people.
5. Keep on droning on about your products and services
When old-school advertising techniques are applied on the internet the result is a massively tedious bombardment of advertising messages: spam emails, pop ups, click here to win etc. We then arrive home to be invited to complete telephone surveys and read through swathes of junk mail. Before settling down to Corrie and watching another CFS, DFS, Something FS advert about a never-ending sale that ‘must end soon’ but never quite does.
Consumers have developed smart ways to ignore people who sell to them and manage their attention. The answer? To break through you need to understand – really understand – their problems and develop compelling engaging content to help them solve them.
6. Obsess about brand guidelines so it cripples creativity and personality within your organisation.
Brand guidelines are important. But they should liberate communication, not shackle it.
7. Don’t rock the boat. Give up on introducing new communications ideas. Staying with what you know is easier.
Change management is at the heart of any smart organisation’s response to the communications revolution. Introduce new ideas at a gentle pace. Register a Facebook page. Encourage staff members to Like it. Pick two or three key staff to register twitter accounts. Allocate time during brew breaks to dive in to the conversation and simply find out more. Manage expectations and make a start. See where the adventure might lead.
Have I missed any out? Why not comment or tweet. www.twitter.com/richardglynn
PS Google search: ‘David Meerman Scott’ to track down the definitive texts on all of this and watch his videos on YouTube. You won’t regret it.
