When you work online, creating customer connections is the key to finding your success. I am surprised by how many people online don’t care, and don’t think that customer service applies to them. The fact is, every client you work for, every visitor that sees your site, and every person who signs up to your list is a customer, whether they buy from you today or not. You never know who they will refer to you, or how much they might spend in the future.
So, that leaves the question, How do you connect with your customers? You should use every means possible to get people interested in your site.
Using Chats
One thing I like to do is chat with people in my market. I connect with people on instant messenger. Always make sure that you save your chat logs, if you want to do this. That way, you can go back and copy your conversation. Now, unless you have permission from the person that you are chatting with, I don’t recommend using the chat directly.
However, you can use the conversation as a launch pad to create some awesome content. Take the questions that they ask you. Use those for your subheadings. Then fill in with your answers.
When they ask you questions that you do not know the answer to, use it to do some research. This way, you help your readers, and increase your own knowledge and expertise.
How do you get people chatting?
One way I use to get people chatting is to offer it as a consultation. When you promote a product, offer a one hour consultation as a bonus. You can do this via chat, email, phone, or however you want to do it.
I do recommend that you make it a valuable consultation. I have received consultations before which did nothing to help me. All they did was pitch a membership program or paid consultation.
Now, if you want to do a consultation service, go for it. However, spend more time during your consultation assisting people. Don’t just use it as a way to promote products to people. You will lose more trust than you will gain this way.
Social Networking Sites
More and more, online marketing is a social game. Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, or other social sites you need to spend time connecting with people. One thing that I find helpful is to post a daily tip, or motivational quote. This can build up interest, and will be noticed.
I did this on one of my fan pages on Facebook. I wasn’t seeing comments or anything, so I stopped doing it. All of a sudden my fans started asking where the daily tips went. I never realized people noticed, since they wern’t saying anything. Just because you aren’t getting feedback doesn’t mean it goes unnoticed.
How do you connect with your customers? Let me know your experiences, good and bad. Tell me how you keep people coming back to see you again and again.
This post was written by...
James Pruitt – who has written 234 posts on IMRelations Media.
I Started my internet marketing journey in 2008, as I began building simple affiliate sites. Through the years I have worked as a freelance writer, publishing my own blogs and websites, written several ebooks, and now work mainly to help others build their online business through my marketing consultations, personal coaching, and relationship building.
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Offering relevant conversations to my audience is the key to having them return. Listening (on forums, message boards and in conversations) to what people in my niche are asking and then writing about it is important. The other way is to find a conversation already in progress (ie. in comment sections on blogs) and add relevant and helpful information to the conversation. If the topic warrants, I’ll do an entire blog post on the subject, but only if it adds to the conversation.