It’s one thing to be good at generating ideas, it’s another knowing how to explain and promote them. Most business owners want to tell as many people as possible about their brand new idea through as many channels as they can.
Unfortunately, this isn’t necessarily the best strategy for attracting an audience that will stick with you. Getting the dialogue right in your marketing is about building a relationship through communication in a way that feels natural.
So how do you become a master at using language to charm that one time shopper into a customer for life?
Research what your customer base reacts to
Of course, before you start writing anything you should consider how your audience likes to be spoken to. The kind of messaging they’ve reacted to in the past should offer some guidance to the type of dialogue you should pursue. Take this opportunity to test different tones of voice with select members of your audience before you launch a full strategy.
It’s vital to know why your audience likes you. Define your USP(unique selling points) and why they keep coming back before you try and take a customer relationship to the next level. Consider what attracted them to you in the first place. As part of this process, take some time to research how people react to certain language and its presentation. Learning literary skills such as how to write dialogue can drastically improve your understanding of good online communication.
Jericho Writers suggest keeping your writing tight, which helps you avoid writing unnecessarily long sentences over-encumbered with additional words, like this one is. Learn what your audience reacts to on and offline and you have the first step of a winning strategy.
Define your personality
Before you can connect with an audience in any fashion, you need to determine your brand personality. This shouldn’t mirror your CEO or the marketing intern, it should reflect the personality and ethos of the company.
A modern brand is more than it’s color, name or font, according to Fifteen Design. Do you want to present yourself as a professional outfit 100% of the time, or let your customers peak behind the curtain and show what fun you have in the office? How playful or serious you are with your language is important.
Avoid dishonesty
Your audience isn’t stupid. If you’re trying to build a relationship with someone, it’s important not to make them feel like an idiot or lied to. This is why you should avoid dishonesty in your dialogue. Build your marketing dialogue around truths about your business. If you try and mislead your audience they will find out, the information is too readily available. Sacrificing this trust will ruin your entire relationship marketing strategy.
This doesn’t mean let your social media team go wild slandering the company on Twitter, but keep things positive and through your dialogue, show you’re listening to concerns and questions from your audience (this is a great time to include social listening in your strategy).
Consider your main channels
Similarly to how you need to define your personality, you need to decide where you’re going to say it. An online retailer may be best served by building a dialogue with customers through automated emails, which requires an entirely different kind of tone to replying to a Twitter message. EverBrave highlights how unique all the social media platforms are in their customer expectations.
Considering the channels you’re going to pursue these relationships through will help shape your dialogue choices and save you time writing out the perfect quirky social message when a simple reminder to follow up on an order will do.
Have conversations
Communication with your audience doesn’t need to be sell, sell, sell! You also don’t need to apologize and solve their problems all the time. Your dialogue can simply be conversational. Try to not always speak at your audience, engaging with them and give them the chance to provide the dialogue for you.
Speaking to your audience about what they are interested in, and like or dislike about your company won’t just make them feel more at ease talking to a brand, but expand your marketing knowledge in the process.
Be personal
Your audience expects a lot. They want you to give them something special. They want you to give them something exclusive. They want you to exceed expectations. Most importantly, they want the experience to be personal to them.
Personal dialogue is the closest thing an online business can offer to face to face customer service. Tailoring a follow-up email or marketing campaign to a customer’s name, location or preferences based on recent activity helps to build a strong relationship. Using their name is a no-brainer, but taking the time to delve into analytics and find a way to appeal directly to their habits offers a stronger sense of understanding.
If you’re not looking to use your marketing strategy to sell them anything even better! A quick email wishing them a happy birthday or a thank you for being a loyal customer goes a long way to building a customer-brand relationship. See this as an extension of customer service, and great customer service often leads to positive referrals.
Brand communication and building a customer relationship is a much-discussed topic, but so many businesses still can’t build a meaningful one or rush into being too forward that ultimately drives off potential life customers. It’s about finding the fine balance between appearing genuine and engaged, while not breaking the initial premise of the relationship.
Rodney Laws is an ecommerce expert with over a decade of experience in building online businesses. He’s worked with the biggest platforms in the world, making him the perfect person to offer advice on which platforms to build your website with. Check out his reviews on EcommercePlatforms.io and you’ll find practical tips that you can use to build the best online store for your business. Connect with him on Twitter @EcomPlatformsio.
