Chris Brogan Webinar: Online Marketing Trends to Grow Your Business

In our most recent Fridays with Vistage webinar, Chris Brogan discussed web tools for reaching new and existing customers in his presentation, “Online Marketing Trends to Grow Your Business.” Chris is a New York Times best-selling author, president of Human Business Works, and consults and speaks with many Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. In his webinar, he talks about the four elements that need to be examined when addressing social web efforts. These elements include:

1. Listen and Ask Questions – “The best salespeople are the best listeners, not the best talkers,” states Chris. People are openly communicating on various social channels such as blogs, Twitter, and Facebook about products they use, need, like and don’t like. There are lots of opportunities for companies that are listening to chime in and suggest how they can fulfill those buyer needs. And since people frequently use social networks to complain, griping customers provide a great opening to capture business from a competitor, and “a chance to win them back if they’re complaining about you.” Chris offers a suggestion for free social media monitoring in his blog post “Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes” as well as paid options Trackur and Radian6.com.

2. Tell Stories That Connect Into Purpose and Equip the Listener – When creating online content, the goal is to post information and stories that are interesting and helpful to the buyer. Content should be appealing and of use to the reader while connecting them to the purpose your product serves. Chris says, “Make your buyer the hero,” meaning to focus stories on the people who benefit from using your products and not necessarily on the products themselves or your company.

If you’re concerned the content produced won’t be read, don’t be so sure.

Smartphones and tablets are outselling laptops and desktops, a trend that Chris contributes to people wanting to relax more with their computers as they are searching more for “things to learn and pay attention to.”

If you’re not sure where to post content, Chris suggests asking customers what sites they frequent as well as posting on your blog and Google+. He emphasized the increasing importance of posting on Google+, as Google owns the #1 and #2 search engines in the world, and their algorithms determine the rankings of what searchers will see. Use media like blogs, video, newsletters, and social nets to reach your customers.

3. Enhance the Communication Backplane – Since conversion is the main goal of your website, Chris says, “Your prime website should inform people enough so that they say, ‘oh I’m ready to take a next step.’” However, you also want to design your site so that visitors will want to share it with their social networks. Use social tools to help build trust with customers, and consider how people can share your content as well as interact with you.

Deciding to start a presence on a social media site is like opening up a new channel, or “phone,” in which to reach customers. Chris warns that it is important in building trust with customers to continue your presence on these networks once established, so choose your networks carefully. There isn’t “one social network to rule them all,” but use networks where you can educate and communicate with your buyers regularly. He mentions Twitter, Skype, and Google+ Hangouts as possible sites to use.

Chris says, “email marketing isn’t dead, bad email marketing is dead.” Make emails brief (under approximately 300 words), have one call to action per email, and consider doing away with elaborate html formatting as it makes emails look more impersonal.

4. Facilitate Collaboration and Belonging – Crowdsourcing is a means of outsourcing by using networks for the purpose of gaining knowledge or product ideas. “It works well if people believe you are passionate about making them the hero,” he says. However, it doesn’t work if it seems like you are trying to get others to do your work for you.

Don’t feel obligated to incorporate crowdsourcing into your business plan. Collaboration is a choice that an organization should make based on its culture and desired outcome. But it does allow a business opportunity where “people can share and make something their own and really add some value and bring it back to the system.” Look at Google+ and Pinterest as possible places for online collaboration. Consider avoiding contests, as the leads produced by them are often not quality.

Other recommended sources mentioned during the webinar include:

Findpeopleonplus.com to locate people on Google+

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki for more about crowdsourcing

The Referral Engine by John Jantsch for storytelling and testimonial ideas

Humanbusinessworks.com, sign up for Chris Brogan’s newsletter to get ideas for newsletter content

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