Support Your Brand

Keeping in touch with your customers is more important than you think. No matter what your product, its important that you regularly put your brand name in front of consumers. If you dont, then theres a good chance that any loyalty those consumers have will evaporate over time. Big companies have many options for keeping their brand name out in public view. They can buy billboard advertisements, get ads on network TV, purchase space in magazines, and have their product displayed on stands near the Point of Sale in major stores. Smaller companies dont have that luxury, so have to be a bit more creative. Heres a few of our favourite ideas for keeping awareness high through more direct means of communication. 1. SMS marketing SMS marketing is a cheap and effective way of reaching a large number of customers. With SMS marketing, you get your message sent to the consumers device, no matter where they are. Since most people carry their smartphones with them almost everywhere, this means that your message is going to get read shortly after you send it which means that this kind of marketing is brilliant for local companies running time-sensitive special offers. 2. Email Newsletters Email newsletters are easy to run, and inexpensive forms of marketing too. The return on email marketing can vary, as theres a good chance that your message will be missed in an already overflowing inbox. However, this problem is something that you can reduce by consistently providing quality information in your newsletters. If your content is good, people will eventually notice that, read your newsletter, and hopefully forward it to their friends. 3. Twitter Twitter is useful as a tool for talking to your customers. Make sure you have someone monitor your Twitter account on a regular basis and respond to messages. Consider adding your websites news feed to your Twitter account too, so that you can reach more people. 4. Voice Broadcasting Voice broadcasting can be a good way to send marketing messages to a large number of people. Instead of having to tie up dozens of contact centre employees with the task of calling a huge list of numbers and speaking to each person individually. Voice broadcasting does not completely remove human contact from the equation you can set up the system so that people have the opportunity to press a button to speak to a person in response to the call. This flexibility makes it a valuable promotion tool. 5. Facebook Facebook is another useful social network site. Groups and pages on Facebook are more personal than Twitter, and allow for more flexible interactions. You can set up your Facebook page to include links to apps and galleries, discussions, and more. If you set up a Facebook page for your company, make sure that you dont abuse the Likes that you gain. Use Facebook to converse with your customers, and advertise sparingly. If you clutter up someones Facebook stream with numerous ads, theres a good chance theyll remove themselves from your page, and lose their taste for your brand. Wayne Barker writes for Collstream worldwide experts in SMS and voice broadcasting that are tailored to your particular business.