Read Steve Pohlit’s ‘Blogging for Profits’ issue 9 article titled “How To Use The Powerful Motivators Recognition and Praise In A Special Blog To Help Grow Profits”.


Steve Pohlit’s latest article is reprinted here.

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Blogging for Profits Issue No.9 How To Use The Powerful Motivators Recognition and Praise In A Special Blog To Help Grow Profits

You probably have noticed companies in the hospitality industry encouraging customers or visitors to acknowledge outstanding service, or to comment on their dining or hotel experience. Maybe you have read a survey card delivered with a the check at a restaurant. There are businesses where you are asked to write a note or complete a form if an employee did something extremely well and made the experience at that place of business more pleasant than you expected. Some companies send on line and off line surveys asking for feedback.

All of these programs were started and then duplicated by someone who realized that by asking for feedback you demonstrate you are interested in doing things better and want your customers to be happy. Employee recognition programs were started by someone who knows that praise and recognition are the two most powerful motivators.

Blog are a great tool to further enhance the customer comment and employee recognition programs. This article details how using blogs for customer feedback and employee recognition should be structured. When implemented properly, revenue and profits will increase as direct result of this effort. In this Blogging for Profits series, every issue is focused on how to use blogs to increase revenue and profits. All prior issues can be found at www.stevereports.com. Register now at the main page and read all the issues starting with No. 4 Issues 1-3 are posted in their entirety at the blog.

Planning This Blog

The first step is to outline whether you want to use one blog with sections for employee recognition and customer comments or more than one. Currently I favor one blog with both of these sections since they compliment each other. If you develop a blog for employee recognition that has comments from other employees, it should probably be kept separate and not made public.

As for the public blog, in each of the sections, namely customer comment and employee recognition, decide on the categories. For example a retail company may have separate categories for each location or if it is a large chain, the customer can provide that information on a form when they post their comments. Categories could be by department or product line. A grocery store could have categories for meat, produce, deli, etc. Drug Stores could have categories for the pharmacy. photo, cosmetics, checkout. Information marketers should have categories for each of the main products they sell. The public blog for employees may not have many categories but probably would use a form requesting information such as: the name of the employee, location and a comment section that allows the customer to describe the positive event.

What incentive will you provide customers for leaving comments? Maybe it is a discount off their next purchase. It could be a contribution to one of a select group of charities. The incentive might be a free report or ebook. An incentive could be a gift from a complementary company that you have set up a joint venture with to promote their product or service. Whatever it is you decide to test, the key here is capturing at least the name and contact information including email of your customer. I am sure you can see where that is headed.

How will you let people know there is a blog for them to post comments? Of course retail establishments can use inserts at the checkout counters, buttons worn by the employees, in-store signs and banners. The blog can be promoted on the company’s website and in email and direct mail campaigns. There can be incentives for employees who have customers post comments to the blog. Comment cards and customer service departments do not go away. Post the information obtained from comment cards and customer service to the blog. Issue press releases with particular attention to neighbor hood papers.

Explore how you can set examples for customers to write blogs so that keywords important to your business are optimized in blog postings. For example: a customer writes “your staff and especially Melissa were all so very helpful in explaining what I could expect when having Lasik Laser Eye Surgery by your New York Lasik Surgeon Dr. Vinie Boombotz.” Is it OK to edit postings to help your keyword optimization when customers comment? I know what I would do. (By the way www.lasiklasereyesurgery.us is a good site and Dr.Vinie went away when Rodney Dangerfield passed.)

How will you get this blog started so it has comments as examples right from the start. Think sales letters. I have never seen one written that did not have glowing testimonials about the product or service being sold. Use your comment cards, customer service interviews, follow-up phone surveys, anything you can to get this started with positive excitement. Once you have enough content to have this blog go live with meaning, don’t wait. Go live! How much is enough? More than 10 and less than 100.

How will you deal with negative comments? First you will not post them until you have clarification from the customer that you can add to the comment. Second you never allow inappropriate language or threats to be posted, so all posts are read for edits first. Finally, you have procedures in place to isolate the cause of the problem and to take steps that is will not happen again. Taking action to correct problems is key. Most companies do not correct the problems at the source. Everyone I know has a horror story about calling the cable company, cell phone company, phone company, credit card company and more. Don’t fall into the category of not listening to and not fixing problems brought to your attention. If you are not serious about running your business better then do not activate this type of blog as it will only hurt your business.

Would a product or service review panel help promote the use of your blog and provide valuable feedback? If so, ask customers who post to your blog if they will be part of a quality review panel. Of course you will need to have appropriate incentives for that group. However you can then ask this group to review or test new or enhanced products or services and comment on them in the blog.

Consider a ” Wall of Fame” for the best customers and outstanding employees. This can be a section of your blog where photos are posted, testimonials and product or service related stories. Again you will want to have rewards for making it to this section. However these rewards do not need to be expensive. There can be a duplicate of this wall in your lobby. You can send a framed copy to customers and employees who make the Wall. You can use the stories in email campaigns and direct mail pieces.

Additional Considerations:

The ideas above are the start and the goal should be continual development and improvement over time. Establish your plan, but do not wait for all pieces to be ready before launching this blog. Take action and get it started. “Inch by Inch It Is A Cinch…”Yard by Yard It Is Hard!”

Is there a return on investment for this blog? Sales and profits linked to work on this blog are more difficult to track. However, this blog will demonstrate your interest in your customers and employees. When you continue doing well what you are being complimented on and improve in the areas needed, you build a positive buzz that grows.

Measure your revenue and profit trends when you start this blog and track the trends. Growing sales and profits are highly likely. Of course this blog will contribute to the development of your contact data base that you are already using to communicate with your customers and visitors using direct response email and direct mail.

This article will be found at www.IMNewswatch.com which is tracked by most of the Internet Marketing and Direct Marketing Gurus. A number of them run forums in connection with their products and that is great. However, I do not see the above recommendations being incorporated in anyone’s blog at this point. I have just started implementing parts of this plan in my latest blog www.successtips.us and will be incorporating many of them in www.stevereports.com. I will
be reporting at a later date the results of this initiative.

Be well and prosper,
Steve Pohlit, Business Consultant
www.stevereports.com
www.stevepohlit.com

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*IMNewswatch would like to thank Steve Pohlit for granting exclusive permission to reprint this latest article.

 

 

 

 

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