Turn Your Customers Into Your Brand Advocates With Less Money
Want to make your girl happy? Buy her a flower or some heart-shaped chocolates but unexpectedly. Post a ‘Miss You’ note on her Facebook Timeline. Loosen the tight cap of a jar for her before she even asks you. Take care of her small needs and trust me, she’ll be yours to keep forever.
It’s the small things that matter. The same applies in businesses. You don’t need to spend too much to delight your customers. Offer small treats but do it diligently and when the customer least expects it. On a busy day, for instance, present your customers a free dessert to go with their cup of coffee – you know, a small cookie or a fudge cake. If that’s too much, give them a chewing gum or a candy bar when they’ve made the purchase. People love free stuff – and free gifts, even if they don’t really use them.
This is possible even if you deal in service industry. A 2%-5% discount on price when the client had not even demanded it; an additional service (e.g. basic on-site SEO of their website) or even a free (but sincere) advice to your client can even do the trick – anything that helps increase productivity of your client. Remember, the idea is to delight your customer – catch him by surprise. It’s safe to say such treats act as bait to hook your clients and make them come back for more but it also results in turning them into your brand advocates. And what happens when a customer becomes your brand ambassador? Yup, didn’t think I’d need to answer that.
Did You Get Your Free Hug Today?
Free Hug Pass
So, I entered the campus today and one of my dear students greeted me with a very warm, cuddly hug that took me completely by surprise. She then handed me a pass that read ‘Free Hugs’ and told me that they’re passing these around the college so anyone who gets a hug needs to pass it to somebody else. OK, that sounds like a hefty job there!
But I immediately realized something: moods are contagious. I had come to college daydreaming about my nice cozy bed with its nice comfy blanket embracing the ultimately nice and merry Asma (sigh!)- when this single but beautiful hug simply transformed my mood. I went to class cheerful, hugged another student on the way, gave her the ‘Free Hug’ pass, and didn’t even mind the students whispering in the back when I was giving my lecture in the class.
And it got me thinking: Marketing is all about giving free hugs. It is about being the reason to transform your customer’s mood from grouchy to happy. And this doesn’t come from a forceful smile hiding the gritted teeth just because your badge says ‘You’ll get a free coffee if I’m not smiling’. This comes from the internal motive, the drive to really put an impact on somebody’s life. Of course, the responsiblity of instilling this drive in the employees lies with the company, particularly for jobs like customer services representatives. Why the need? Well, in the end, a happy customer is a spending customer! So, if you’re all sullen and grouchy, chances are you will infect your customer with this virus (aka Emotional Contagion); meaning, you might have just lost a customer who would prefer going to your competitor just because they are generally more enthusiastic and make her feel good.
Don’t lose your customers and give them a free hug today.
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Formula for Getting Ranked with Long Tail Keyword: Infographic
With anyone in love with creativity to even a pin-size extent would appreciate the rising trend of infographics. Infographics are changing the way we illustrate data, figures, an idea, or even a procedure. They offer a creative solution to a boring finding. Simply putting it, they increase the readership probability of your content by going beyond the plain data charts and giving a garnishing touch to the illustration.
While I was working for one of my clients, I came across an infographic that so painlessly defined the formula for Ranking Success that I felt compelled to share it with you guys. I’ve given the link of the original source in the image for your and my ease. Let me know what you think of it.
Getting Ranked: The Long Tail Keyword Equation
Can Thought Outlive Body?
Human being comes into this world, lives his life; eats, drinks, nurtures wild ideas and desires in his mind. And then one day, he dies. In other words, he comes from non-existence to the existence and then again returns back to non-existence. His soul leaves him, his body perishes, his heart, his lungs, his mind –and so, his thoughts too. Or do they?
Youtube Search Stories: Yet Another Defeat to Microsoft!
Another article dedicated to Google’s excellence. Man, they should just hire me for their brand ambassador or something. But seriously, as always, Google has once again struck my ‘Get Impressed’ button with yet another example of their simple and sweet internet marketing strategy. Something their rival Microsoft could never have been able to think of, I believe. While Microsoft was busy trying to convince people to experience the power of Bing with their frenzy, dramatic and somewhat exaggerated (don’t get me wrong – I liked their ads but c’mon, when does THAT happen?!) search overload syndrome ads, Google decided to go viral using the most effective marketing tool ever: engage!
Youtube search stories allow the audience to go ballistic with their imagination and create any kind of search stories. You get to choose your own theme of the story; select your own music and the tool will make a high quality video for you at the end. All this for free.
What’s in it for Google, then? Well, as people gleefully play with the tool and create unlimited videos, we see Google very tactfully being promoted as the search engine ‘where you can find absolutely anything in the world’. Every video you create becomes a proof of that. Every video markets Google because that is the search engine being used in all of the videos. And the topping on the cake is that Google does not get to be the one to say claim this. It is the users, in fact, who through their weird stories (ugh, you gotta see some of them) are marketing Google even if it’s not their top preferred search engine. No expensive ads, no marketing campaign – just a little investment on the development of the tool and there you go! You and I become the ones, as we create, upload and share stories, to go about doing all the advertising for Google. This is what I call strategic marketing!
I’ve also tried my hand at the tool and this is what I came up with. Let me know what you think of it. 
In the end, let me ask you. What do you think of this kind of marketing? Would you consider it as an effective strategy? Also, tell me if you’ve tried the Youtube Search Stories tool? How was the experience?
5 Things About SEO
ZunnU: Hey Asmi, do you know what are the five basic things ’bout SEO?
Asma: Ummm, well there are quite many! which ones are you talkin’ about?
ZunnU: The top ones. Jus’ make a wild guess 
Asma: Ahan! okay, lemme jus’ try…
- It is not an instant drink
- Ir requires a lot of research
- It requires careful planning
- It is an on-goin’ thing. Its not one person’s effort
- Rules of the game keeps changing
If you liked the reasons that Asmi gave here, you can download this presentation by clicking on the following link:
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Google’s New Background Option!
Google rolled out the first of a set of backgrounds by noted artists on Thursday, promoting a new feature that lets users add their own photos as the search page’s backdrop. Microsoft is not impressed!
The feature was first announced last week. Users were greeted by a rolling set of images from a list of contemporary artists that will include Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons and Tord Boontje. The page also will feature photos from National Geographic.
The images were scheduled to appear as default backgrounds through Friday morning.
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Google and Branding
After creating a whirlwind of excitement with the Pacman game, Google gets creative with FIFA World Cup 2010. If you type the query ‘World Cup’ in Google search, you’ll see the Google logo changed into this (image below) at the bottom of the page.
What always thrills me about Google is that it never fails me to quote its example for branding. While maintaining simplicity in all its products, Google has quite successfully promoted itself as a fun-loving, lively, ingenious and a youthful company; and all this without any expensive marketing efforts! What a tactic!
And if I were to picture Google as a human being, I’d say it’s a young guy, around the age of 17 -20, smart, caring, humorous and a whacko. In short, completely a cool dude! (Y)
What do you think? How would you personify Google?
Greetings World!
I’m Asma and I’m a marketing professional. I’m working as Internet Markeing Specialist at UltraSpectra.
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Why Nobody Comments?
But let me tell you something that might cheer you up. Commenting is not the only determinant to measure the performance of your social media campaign. Yeah sure, it makes you feel good. But sometimes, you need to look deeper into statistics. For example, people like me (who use Firefox browser) bookmark the page if they happen to find the content useful or interesting. So when you visit a page from your bookmark, Google Analytics counts it as direct traffic. Checking the percentage of the source of traffic, hence, also becomes important. Plus, you’ll need to see the number of readers’ subscriptions to your blog. If it’s increasing, it’s an automatic indication that people like what you write.
Here’s another thing. If you happen to be a regular reader of Mashable, you might have noticed that most comments that people make there are negative ones. There are, of course, people who appreciate the writer or add something to it; yet, the majority of them are the ones who most likely disagree with the content or simply make fun of it. It can be said then that most people comment back when they want to criticize you or differ to your what you’ve written. And while I personally think this adds spice to your content, it also drives home a point that people don’t comment if they generally agree to your article or like it.
That being said, if you’re not getting any comments or even ‘likes’ on any blog posts, and your readers’ subscriptions or RSS Feeds are also not growing then this can mean red siren and you probably need to take some immediate action.
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