Is content marketing a good way to teach customers?

Recently, I wrote that if you value your customer you will teach them. I think content marketing is a perfect teaching vehicle that benefits the customer throughout their life cycle.  A well done content marketing effort should be the content representation of an organization's vision.  Essentially becoming the bible for customers of an organization.  Successful content marketing will be the first stop for the unfamiliar trying to better understand what your organization provides as well as the destination for the loyal customer looking to maximize the value of your product.   Done correctly content marketing will offer content that show how to accomplish the user's goal, that shows what success looks like, and provide insight on how you work and the quality of your organization.  Ideally through teaching your content will always help the user achieve their goal, but it will not always result in a sale.

Marketing value

What if we set a new standard for marketing?  What if the standard is that we only do marketing that adds value to peoples' lives? What would go and what would stay? I think this should be standard.

Data for everyone over big data

I am not a big fan of running your business using big data as the sole driver. Meaning that I believe it is possible to optimize yourself to failure by making short term decisions at the expense of your long term vision. That being said, I definitely believe numbers matter. In fact, everyone in your organization should be tied in to the key metrics. Everyone. If an employee says that they aren't interested, then they need to find something else to do, because numbers matter.

Is a bad customer experience a chance to increase loyalty?

A customer bought your product and some sort of unpreventable accident caused it to break, what do you do? Instead of saying you are not responsible and assigning blame elsewhere, I think the best answer is to use it as opportunity to show how good you are and perhaps even perform a miracle.    The customer will be that much more loyal to you because you fixed the situation even though you didn't have to.  I am not saying that you should rectify the situation no matter how many times an individual has an issue, customers who abuse your goodwill are bad customers, and you don't need them. It is just that odds are every customer is going to face a tough situation that is not of their own making.  It simply happens to everyone no matter how hard you work or how great your business is.  The fact that it happens to everyone eventually makes it a great opportunity to make a big difference.

Do you teach?

Of course you sell, but do you teach as well? If you value your customer, you are not satisfied simply with the fact they bought from you. You should aim for them to utilize you and your product to the fullest extent and that requires teaching. The instruction should start from the beginning, even before the purchase and continue throughout the lifecycle.  If you have constructed your vision statement around customer success, there really is no other way than to teach your customer.

Your product and price may be able to matched but your teaching cannot, because in teaching you are giving of yourself and your organization.

What do you do when an employee won't buy in to your change?

You have created a path for change, you asked others to follow but did not require them to be fully convinced, you met with them where they are instead of making them come to you, and yet there are still some on your team who are doing things that are against your new direction. Maybe they don't confront you directly but their behaviors and actions are in direct conflict with you efforts. What do you do? If you know, are absolutely certain, that you will be acting for love of your company or team and not because you feel slighted, then act boldly. Move quickly to remove them. Act with the conviction that these few are hurting the larger group. Do this for two reasons, first if you truly care about your team's success they do not deserve to have someone directly hurting that success, second the team must know that you truly believe what you are preaching and open defiance brings that into question.

Choose your customers

Do you ever think about choosing your customers?  I think you should.

The other day I was grocery shopping with my two boys who are 5 and 4 years old.  They both had those little kid shopping carts and were helping me shop.  We settled in the juice and cereal aisle and while I am the first to admit my boys can be crazy shoppers, at this time they had their carts nicely lined up along the side of the aisle.  A woman came up along side and parked her cart parallel to us effectively blocking the aisle.  Another woman came along and said to my kids, "You must move," in a very harsh tone.  The woman next to us moved her cart and said to the angry woman in a kind fashion, "It was my fault too."

In my best attempt not to be angry, I said to the upset woman, "Ma'am, you are going to be OK." She continued on in her unhappy fashion, not addressing me or the other woman.  The kind woman who was also blocking the aisle looked back to me and said, "I guess she is having a bad day."  Yes, I guess she was having a bad day and doing her best to get me to have a bad day as well.

The thing is, is that the shopping experience gave the woman no reason to be angry.  The store wasn't busy, there was plenty of parking, it was easy to check out, there was no shortage on any items, and yet she is still angry and making me angry, which in turn is making my shopping experience bad, and giving me a negative impression of the store.  The kind woman had the exact opposite effect, I felt better about the store because of her kindness.  So should the store care about the type of customer it has?  I would argue yes.

I love that Uber rates it customers.  There is no getting around the fact that your customer is part of your brand experience.    

Good times

If your employees or customers complain when things are going well, what is your expectation for them when things get tough? No matter what, there is going to be a time when things get tough. Use the good times as a gauge of what is to come and if you don't see the behavior you expect, use the good times to build your team for the hard times. A complaint during the good times can be easily dismissed, but during hard times that same complaint can be infectious. Is complaining negative behavior what you need when the team or organization must rally? Or would a positive can do mind set be the oxygen your team needs?

It may be very expensive for you to address the negative employees during the bad times because you feel even if they are negative, losing them will dig you deeper in the hole.   It is much better to do it while things are going well, when your back is not against the wall.