Sazbean

Software Development Management

Main navigation

You are here: Home / Archives for customer-centric

customer-centric

/

Content is King – So What's Your Content Strategy?

kingmark_cogginsYou’ve heard it before – content is king.  Well without regularly updated useful content your business website will stagnate.  It’s the end of the year and a good time to reflect on how you’re using your website and the Internet to further your business goals.  Take a few minutes to think about how you can use content to help your customers and further your goals.  The good news is that content strategy can be cheap (in dollars) to implement and can provide excellent returns on investment (helping you reach your goals).  Here are some questions to consider in your content strategy:

  • What goals are you trying to reach with your content?
  • How will you measure your progress towards those goals?
  • What content should you provide?
  • How often will you post new content?
  • What types of content will you post (text, audio, video, images)?
  • How will you use your content and get your message out to your customers?
  • How will you connect with your customers and have rewarding, useful conversations?

In the next few posts I’ll give you an example of a content strategy that can work for any business and how to measure progress towards your business goals.

(photo by Mark Coggins @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: , ,, , ,

/

Online Customer Engagement Findings

cscapelogoAs a followup to yesterday’s post on online customer engagement, reader Sarah Woodbridge suggested taking a look at cScape’s report on Customer Engagement.  The report is well worth a look (and it’s free!).  They’ve been producing a report for 3 years so they have a bit of historical data as well.

Customer engagement is widely seen as a way of deepening and enriching a product or service offering and a method for gaining customer insight.  – The cScape Online Customer Engagement Survey Report 2009

Here are some of the key findings:

  • Only 42% of organizations surveyed have a defined customer engagement strategy in place
  • 41% of respondents said that deteriorating economic climate has resulted in a greater focus on customer engagement
  • There’s interest in creating relationships with customers to increase the long-term customer value and also to increase the value delivered to the customer.
  • Most organizations feel that sensitivity to price is a key customer behavior that will have to be addressed in the next 12 months (48%).
  • Email newsletters are the most likely tactic to improve customer engagement (59%).
  • Web 2.0 and social media such as user ratings & feedback (41%), user-generated content (37%), blogging (36%) and social networks (36%) will also be used to engage customers.
  • Very few companies (5%) have a strategy that uses mobile channels.
  • Lack of resources continues to be a barrier to successful customer engagement.
  • About a third of companies site problems with technology as a significant barrier to cultivating better customer engagement.

Technorati Tags: , ,, , , , ,

/

Think Like a Publisher, Not a Marketer

You have to stop thinking like a marketer, an advertiser and a communicator and start thinking like a publisher. Create information your consumers want, and they will share it, this is the idea behind creating the World Wide Rave content. “On the web, you are what you publish.” – Online Marketing Blog – The New Rules of Marketing & PR

fallsmandj98

Sound familiar?  Customer-centric design is about creating a site that works for your readers/customers.  Content is one of the most important aspects of a successful online presence.  Branding is now influenced by everything that is said and done by your company online (and said about you).

There are many opportunities for good content online:

  • Information about your products and services
  • Customer service frequently asked questions
  • Discussion boards
  • A company blog for continued education of your customers
  • Interaction with your customers
  • Social media
  • Commenting on other blogs and websites
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Photos

Keep in mind that content online doesn’t always mean formally written articles for your website.  Content can be more informal with blogs and social media.  Content is also interaction with customers on social networks and discussion boards.

What content do you provide for your customers?

(photo by mandj98 @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,