It’s an odd dynamic I see in play today – in today’s ever connected environment marketers tell me they feel even more removed from direct customer interaction.
As a former sale person, I used to schedule “ride-along” time with my sales team just to get out on sales calls and hear how we position ourselves in front of the customer, how that message lands on the customer and more importantly what the customer is saying in reaction to how we are positioned.
Today I would argue that is still important (and few marketers actually do it) but with the tools we have at our disposal you don’t even need to get out of the office to talk with customer. In fact, I talk to customers EVERYDAY, even several times a day. How? With Twitter!!
Every week my virtual social media team and I are listening to 1000 – 2500 mentions of Avaya plus a bunch of “Conversations” we are tracking (see Forget Audience Segmentation – Segment by Conversation!)
We are engaging with customers and solving their issues in record time providing excellent service to them around issues such as: Customer Support, End of Life product, Highly Technical questions, Finance and Billing questions, and Partner Relations. In fact we even won our first engagement over Twitter – so watch out DellOutlet we are gaining on you fast!
Our goal as a Social Media Marketing team is to engage in more conversations this week than we did last week and have better relations as every week goes by! With today’s tools there is no excuse for not engaging with customer in real time – what’s stopping you?
[Editor’s Note: The photo in this post is from Paul’s sponsor Shutterstock – to learn more go to http://www.shutterstock.com –mrh]
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About Paul Dunay
Paul Dunay is an award-winning marketer with more than 20 years’ success in generating demand and creating buzz for leading technology, consumer products, financial services and professional services organizations.
Paul is Global Managing Director of Services and Social Marketing for Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications, and author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies (Wiley 2009). His unique approach to integrated marketing has led to recognition as a BtoB Magazine Top 25 B2B Marketer of the Year for 2009 and winner of the DemandGen Award for Utilizing Marketing Automation to Fuel Corporate Growth in 2008. He is also a five-time finalist in the Marketing Excellence Awards competition of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) and a 2005 gold award winner.
Buzz Marketing for Technology, Paul’s blog, has been recognized as a Top 20 Marketing Blog for 2009 and 2008, a Top Blog to Watch for 2009 and 2008, and an Advertising Age Power 150 blog in the “Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs.”
Paul has shared his marketing thought leadership as a featured speaker for the American Marketing Association, BtoB Magazine, CMO Club, MarketingProfs, Marketing Sherpa, Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG), and ITSMA. His articles and research have appeared in Business Week, BtoB Magazine, Information Week, MarketingProfs and Marketing Sherpa.
Paul holds an Executive Certificate in Strategy and Innovation from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and Computer Science from Ithaca College.
Gain insights into Paul’s approach to integrated and social media marketing at: http://www.buzzmarketingfortechnology.com.
It’s an odd dynamic I see in play today – in today’s ever connected environment marketers tell me they feel even more removed from direct customer interaction.
