The Way to Create Genuine Business Fans
If you’re a business owner, one of the biggest mistakes you can possibly make is figuring out how to attract customers. You don’t want to attract customers. You want to create genuine fans of your business. You know, the kind of people that get excited about your product launches, stay up to date with what you’re doing, and tell their friends and family all about you! That's what you want!
Take a look through these pointers and tips and you’ll quickly learn how to create fans.
Know Exactly Who Your Audience Is
Before you go about creating fans for your business, you need a good idea of who your audience is exactly. When you know this, you can tailor your efforts to them and speak their language. You can’t target absolutely everybody, so don’t try to. Sure, you’ll probably get people who were’t expected at one point or another, and that’s fine.
Roll with it. Just keep on doing what you’re doing.
To make sure you have this part down, sit back, imagine your perfect fan and try sketching out a couple of ideas. Write down who these people are, their age, what they like, don’t like, whether they have kids, what their problems are, what they do in their spare time - all of these things will help you to create awesome campaigns. It’ll also help you to see how you can target the people you want perfectly.
Start With Your Brand
Now you know who your audience is, you can start designing a brand that appeals to them. Bear in mind that your brand is everything these days. Your brand is not only your logo, but your fonts, the words you use, the colors, your values as a company, and more.
Make sure your brand aligns perfectly with your target audience. Doing this alone could be difficult, so you should consider working with an experienced company who can help you. Smashbrand is a good example of what can be achieved when hard work and experience are put to the test. Click for more information if you think they could be of help to you. You’re free to go it alone, but if you don’t have experience in the field, then it probably isn’t the best idea.
Set Up Social Media Profiles
Social media is a must for any business in this day and age, but it's especially important when trying to win fans. You want to make sure you have the social platforms set up that your audience most often use, though. Don't just go crazy and start a page on every site. You'll get worn out and your posts won't be as good. This is why many businesses choose to hire a social media manager.
Make sure you do your research here. Your customers might use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or something more specialized. For example, if your niche is crafting or how-to, you may do well with Pinterest. If your niche is tech, Reddit may be the best option.
To gather fans, be sure you post consistently, post when your target audience will read it and interact with other people who post things in your niche.
Make Sure Your Customer Service Is Impeccable
Something that fans of your business will love is a great customer service ethic. Make yourself an expert in customer service by remembering great customer service experiences you’ve had and figure out why they were so great. Write a list of things you want to emulate.
Then, do the same with terrible customer service experiences.
The thing about customer service is that you’re not always going to be dealing with happy or chilled out customers. Some may be quite angry and aggressive if you’ve made a mistake. The customer may not always be right, but if you want to keep them, they need to feel like they are. Here are a few pointers:
Make sure customer service is consistent across your entire business.
Make sure you can show empathy, and you aren’t just reading robotically from a sheet.
Make sure they go above and beyond to help a customer resolve a situation.
When talking to customers keep a smile on your face. It's sounds crazy, but people can actually hear a smile in your voice.
Remember, word spreads. People will be more likely to tell others about a bad experience, than a good one. They could haunt you!
Give Your Customers Stuff
To run a successful brand you need useful things that your fans can get from you to make them feel like part of the team. For example, my No-Fluff Writer brand includes a book, a free download, an Instagram feed full of writing tips, this website and a Facebook group.
I even give out free wristbands! lol
Don’t Compromise On Product/Service Quality:
Create Awesome Content
This goes without saying, but creating awesome content keeps people coming back to your business again and again. Whether you choose to write helpful blogs that are designed to inform, or create videos to entertain and educate at the same time, make sure you do it and do so consistently. Post them to your social media channels, and design them so that people share them and engage with your business.
Content is one of the key things you should focus on if you want to create fans of your business. Don’t be afraid of sharing your knowledge. When you establish yourselves as experts, you’ll be glad you did!
You should make sure your product or service is the highest quality you can muster. Ensure you have a great quality check process, and that everything meets the same standards across the board.
For articles, be sure to check:
Spelling
Grammar
If the intro is interesting
If you've included different types of media for visual interest
If the title grabs attention without being clickbait
Links: They need to be live and point to reliable sources
Style
Personalize Interactions
Personalizing interactions -- not just sending duplicate messages to people (it’s too easy to copy and paste) -- will go a long way. It shows people that you’ve paid attention a bit, and shows them that you care. Do your best to personalize email interactions, social media interactions and telephone interactions.
Listen To Your Audience
Make sure you take the time to listen to your audience too. Perhaps one issue has cropped up a few times, or you put out a survey and ask what can be improved. Make sure you actually make the changes they are suggesting! You don’t have to change everything based on a small number of issues, but showing that you’ve paid attention to your audience will create more of a loyalty with them.
The thing is, you don’t just create fans with your product or service, like many people believe. You could have a great product, for instance, but if the rest of your business is off, it’s unlikely people will come back. The key is making them feel good about the entire experience. That’s how you create fans that keep on coming back.