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The reality of “wow” moments

The reality of “wow” moments

By Phil Kingsland

I recently heard a colleague talking about a customer’s “wow” moment’, referring to the moment when a customer says (or hopefully shouts!) the word “wow” about your product or service. In the case of a retailer who shows stock in a different way, or a new product innovator it’s easy to see why the client may make this utterance. But for many businesses, the reality of understanding your “wow” moment and, importantly, what it does for you can be quite a challenge.

Consider an intellectual property protection advisory service, or a manufacturer of rolled metal, or even a wifi software provider. Getting to grips with and defining how your service makes your customers jump out of their seats and shout for joy in these cases can seem a daunting task.

To help then, it’s worth considering some of these hints and tips:

  • Start with “why?”: Why do your customers buy what you offer?
  • Then look at why what you offer is better than someone else.
  • Consider, what’s truly different about your business from the others in your market.
    • Is it the quality of your service? (and if it is – be specific about what aspect of your service is so great.)
    • Is it that you add value to the product you sell by tailoring it in some particular way?
    • Is it the status of your brand and what being seen purchasing from you says to others?
    • Is it as simple as price – being the cheapest?
  • Talk to your customers. Check that your “wow” really is a “wow” for your customers. Ask them. If they actually love what you do, or how you do it, they’ll tell you. It’s important to make sure you don’t second guess your “wow”.

Once you understand your “wow” moment you need to make sure it’s replicated consistently. After all, why wow only a few of your customers? And remember it’s not about you shouting wow, or saying publicly this is our “wow”, but it’s about consistently meeting that expectation every time.

If you’ve thought about it, talked to your customers and still don’t think you have a “wow” moment, then maybe it’s time to go back to basics and think about why that’s the case. Dig deep – the chances are that there’s a nugget in there somewhere and if not, then maybe things aren’t going so well for your business, so it might be time to start re-thinking how you truly can be different from everyone else.

If you have a “wow” you want to share let us know below!

7 quick digital marketing wins for engineering companies

7 quick digital marketing wins for engineering companies

By Phil Kingsland

We lead busy lives, so we often need reminding of the simple things, that have a big impact, never more so than when it comes to digital marketing. It’s worth taking 5 minutes to check you’ve not forgotten some of these:

  1. Put on your customers shoes – remember what you offer your customers is likely only a small part of their business, and they’ll have different issues to you that keep them awake at night. Think about how you can add value to solving their problems, not just how you can sell them more stuff.
  2. Ask your customers where they hang out – it’s no use chatting into the ether on Facebook, if your clients hang out on Twitter.
  3. Know your numbers – if you’re not measuring what’s working, how can you improve your outcomes? Always, set up a simple set of metrics to see what’s working well for you and what happens when you modify things.
  4. If you are measuring things like your website activity using a tool like Google analytics, are you taking action from the information you receive? If you’re reporting on the activity and doing nothing with it, then you’re missing an opportunity. It’s lovely to know you’re popular (if you are!), but it’s better to take action on that popularity and turn it into business.
  5. If you have a blog – when was the last time you updated it? Your visitors will look at your blog, and get an immediate impression of how interested you are in your clients. If you don’t update your blog, because you don’t think anyone’s reading your blog, then take it off your site – better not to have one than have one which was last updated over a year and a half ago. If you can’t think about what to write – go back to my first point and write about the things keeping your customers up at night
  6. Are there any ways you could be re-purposing the content you have in one place, such as your blog, and putting it out more widely. Submit a variation to the story to another site as a guest post or hook your story into a relevant event that’s in the news and highlighting it to a journalist?
  7. And finally, how easy is it to get hold of you? Is your phone number clear on your website? Do you make it clear that people can pick up the phone and talk to a real person for support? Do you have a personal email address on your website or an impersonal info@…?

These are just a few simple things to review, no matter where you’re at with your digital journey and they apply not only to engineering companies, but pretty much any business out there that’s seeking to make more of its online presence.

Don’t think you can do all that in 5 minutes? Select one, do that and do the one a day over the next 7 days. Let me know how you get on.

 

A secret of content marketing – getting back on the bike

A secret of content marketing – getting back on the bike

By Phil Kingsland

2014 was the year that the phrase “Content Marketing” took off (well, in marketing circles at least!). Of course, if you believe much of the hype it’s a new way of marketing, it’s never been done before, it’s the only way to get leads, etc. In fact, the reality is rather different: content marketing has been around for a long time.

Good marketing, ergo good content marketing, focuses on the audience and engaging them in a topic that is relevant, timely, has an impact on them and through their medium of choice. The reason that content marketing has been coined as a phrase is that the opportunity for content creation has been massively amplified over the last few years as the nature of the way people consume content has changed and the ability to easily publish content has changed.  Yet, even in the days before there was such a simple and direct way to engage your audience, the approach remained the same: provide a timely, compelling story built around the need of your audience and find the best way to get it in front of them. “Gobbing off”, as a colleague of mine once put it, didn’t work any better then than it does now.

One of the biggest challenges with content marketing today, is cutting through all the noise. With ease of publication, has come increase in volume – exponential increase in volume. So, how do you increase your cut through? Well, actually it all goes back to where good marketing started – step into your audience’s shoes, find out where they hang out, create content that is relevant to them, make it emotionally engaging, make it focused on their need. Then and only then, only once you have established connection and need, link it back to your offering.

And, while you’re at it, recognise that all of this takes time. There are no shortcuts. You need to take time and be consistent in getting your content out there, which is a hard thing to do. So, we often see people fall off the bike – they don’t get responses quickly enough, it’s not a core part of the business, they just can’t find the energy, they don’t have the commitment to the programme, so they stop producing content. And that’s ok – there’s no need to beat yourself up over it if you take a break from producing content. What’s important is to recognise when this has happened (no matter how long the time has been) and then get back on the bike and start producing again. No-one will judge you for starting again and who knows, the effort may pay off sooner than you think.

Enterprise Nation – find advisers for your growing business

By Phil Kingsland

As we enter this New Year, it’s a time when many are thinking about what to do next with their business:

  • How to grow?
  • What to invest in?
  • How to win more clients?
  • How to wow existing clients?

One question that’s well worth considering is

“How to get the most out of your money?”

…and one way of doing that is to take a look at the Enterprise Nation Marketplace. It’s a government funded scheme whereby businesses can seek support in different areas and receive match-funding up to £2,000 for specific projects in the following areas:

  • Marketing and customer service
  • Leadership and management
  • Expanding your workforce
  • IT and web
  • Finance and cashflow

It’s a straightforward application process, with a plethora of suppliers to choose from (we’re one of them), so it’s worth a look to see if you fit the criteria.