by Brittney Borowicz | Featured Contributor
As the popularity of social media continues to grow with both customers and salespeople, companies are realizing the importance of being socially present. This presence allows customers to see your company, know your company and ultimately think of your company when they need your product or service. But marketers aren’t just staying present on social media. A true integrated marketing campaign utilizes social media as well as blogs, email blasts, white papers and so on.
As companies strive for this constant presence to their audience, they seem to be forgetting one thing: being useful.
Everyone agrees that spammy, overly frequent emails are the worst, but what is worse
than the worst? Spammy, overly frequent emails that provide no value to me, the consumer. I mean, come on! At least tell me how your product/service is going to help solve my problem! Some annoying runner-ups to spammy, overly frequent emails include boring blog posts for the sake of having multiple blog posts per day and the hourly social media update using some meme that was brutally misused.
In order for a company or brand to truly market effectively to their consumers, they must provide value in their content. In other words, companies must first start thinking, “will our customers and potential customers find this content to be useful?”
Publishing valuable content does great things for the relationship between your company and your consumers and potential consumers. People want to do business with people they like and trust. Providing reliable, useful information builds trust with your audience by establishing your company as a credible thought leader that wants to solve their customer’s problem(s). Remember, the customer should always come first — not just in sales, but in marketing as well.
So what are some ways to be present and useful but not be annoying?
- Utilize your social media accounts to answer questions, engage with your audience and post helpful tips, tools and articles… and don’t be afraid to have fun with this!
- Respond to reviews – both positive and negative. A “thanks” or even an “I’m sorry this happened but here’s how I am going to fix it for the future” goes a long way to show customers that you care.
- Write blogs and white papers about topics your customers are actually interested about. If you’re not sure, try looking at the top ten questions your company gets asked about your products/services/industry.
- Email consumers and potential consumers ONLY when you have valuable information to share. This may be the blogs or white papers you have written above or maybe updates or news about your products and services.
- Don’t just stick to text. Experiment with sharing your content in infographics and videos. Visuals can often tell a story much better than just text can.
These are only a few examples, but by all means stay present! It’s important. The challenge is to find that balance between being present and being useful to your consumers. Unfortunately, there is no cookie-cutter answer to where that balance lies among different industries and audiences. Marketers must test types of content and frequency of publishing to find what is most effective for their company. Make sure your customers and potential customers know you are present… but don’t be THAT brand that gets sent to the spam folder because you are annoying… you won’t be seen there.
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Brittney Borowicz is an integrated marketing professional with a strong communications background specializing in journalism, public relations and social media. Originally from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Brittney has spent the past few years working with entrepreneurs and start-ups in the Chicagoland area to enhance their marketing and social media efforts.
Prior to her current role as the Marketing Manager for an embedded networking company, Brittney realized her affinity for all things media and marketing while working in radio and television and as a professional presenter. Later, she began working at a couple of small marketing agencies in Chicago as a Public Relations and Sales Director and Account Manager, which required her to be well-versed in coordinating specialized public and media relations strategies, creative marketing initiatives and cohesive sales process implementations.
As a strong believer in intimate consumer/brand involvement, Brittney helps her clients create content that engages and educates brand audiences while establishing each individual or company as a thought leader in their industry.
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Brittney Borowicz is an integrated marketing professional with a strong communications background specializing in journalism, public relations and social media. Originally from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, Brittney has spent the past few years working with entrepreneurs and start-ups in the Chicagoland area to enhance their marketing and social media efforts.
Prior to her current role as the Marketing Manager for an embedded networking company, Brittney realized her affinity for all things media and marketing while working in radio and television and as a professional presenter. Later, she began working at a couple of small marketing agencies in Chicago as a Public Relations and Sales Director and Account Manager, which required her to be well-versed in coordinating specialized public and media relations strategies, creative marketing initiatives and cohesive sales process implementations.
As a strong believer in intimate consumer/brand involvement, Brittney helps her clients create content that engages and educates brand audiences while establishing each individual or company as a thought leader in their industry.
