How To Improve Your Business Bottom Line With This Big Shift In Marketing

When it comes to building a tribe of raving fans, the more you get them involved and make them feel important and special, the more they will buy.

This concept of a tribe isn’t new, for thousands of years humans have been part of one tribe or another.

One thing that will separate your business from others is when you start to lead a tribe, a tribe of raving fans – not just customers. Your tribe members will amplify your marketing message and take it to heights you’d never be able to reach on your own with paid advertising.

Many businesses stop their marketing effort once they’ve converted a prospect into a customer. You on the other hand since you’ve read this far, know that your marketing efforts should remain constant. And because you know that you should look beyond the transaction, your business would stand a good chance to grow rather than remain stuck.

The result of such thinking can allow your business to get remarkable results because each customer you add will not be a sale once but he or she can be a sale over and over again because this person now becomes an evangelist for your business.

Even more, your new product launches become easy and predictable. With these types of customers, you won’t have to market, hustle and convince as much when they’re a part of your tribe of raving fans. Let’s take Apple as an example, when they launch a brand new product or even a new category of product, there are already people lined up in front their stores days in advance begging Apple to take their money.

Small businesses have a great advantage where they can be agile and respond to customer needs and feedback quickly. More importantly, when compared to large bureaucratic companies, small businesses are able to stay better in contact with customers – customers don’t easily get lost in a sea of other customers, so relationships are developed which are more personal and much more tribe like.

This is why it’s your job to create and foster a tribe of raving fans and understand that the marketing process really only begins once you convert a prospect into a paying customer.

Some but not all of your regular buyers will become raving fans and will actively promote your business to their friends, family, and the wider public by their participation in online forums and social media. Your tribe of raving fans will be marketing your products by encouraging the right customers to visit your Website and buy from you.

You can further harness the power of these brand advocates by including a function in your Website where there could be a customer Q&A area, a whole forum or chat section for customers to interact. These forums could serve as a means to having your customers help each other out.

The stronger the relationship with your regular buyers, the more of them will become raving fans, and the stronger your business will become. This means more profits and a faster growing business.

Keep your community engagement simple and see what happens.  You could start by:

• Sending out a free gift.
• Inviting customers to trial sampling your products at a discount.

Being the Voice of Your Tribe

To deliver a world-class experience to your customers and tribe is to become a voice of value to them. You do this by becoming a creator of content. Successful entrepreneurs are prolific content creators.

To become a voice of value, you need to have valuable ideas by seeking our other voices of value – thought leaders in and out of your industry, mentors, coaches and successful peers, you lay the foundation for building your own valuable ideas.

Yet it’s important not to let too many voices in, however tempting that might be. A few voices that speak from experience and firsthand knowledge are infinitely more valuable than a multitude of voices that speak from theory and opinion. You want voices of value that have been where you want to be.

The days of high-pressure selling tactics are fast coming to an end. We’re all now connected in a reputation economy that requires you to transform your marketing from just information and high-pressure sales tactics to education-based marketing.

The point of education marketing is twofold.  First, it’s about positioning yourself as an authority in your target market. People want to hear from an authoritative source. When you’re a content creator you position yourself as an authority and expert in your niche.

Second, it’s about building relationships – becoming the trusted advisor to your target market rather than just a salesperson. When you regularly release valuable, educational content to your target market, you lay the foundation for a relationship – who would you rather buy from, a trusted source who has been giving you a lot of value or a stranger who wants to make a quick sale?

Becoming a voice of value is hard work and it takes time, but when you invest that time, it will pay you back in dividends. In this reputation economy you can’t afford to be a commodity or another typical type of business. Think about what you can do to be a voice of value in your market? Could you start a blog? A monthly newsletter? Regular YouTube videos?

Anyone of these things could be the start of you becoming a voice of value to your marketplace. Doing so will set you far apart from your competitors who are still stuck on the selling tactics that are no longer working.