Listen, Engage, and Drive Sales!

By Christina Birgy

Whether you are a b2b or b2c marketer, recognizing what is expected of you can be the key to success. Recently, the Direct Marketing Association held a session at Advertising Week 2010 entitled “Listen, Engage, and Drive Sales!” The idea seems simple enough – tailoring your marketing efforts to what your customers want and need will increase response rates, and in turn, ROI. Yet some marketers continue to waste their time and money with the “spray and pray method.”

Ernan Roman, president of Ernan Roman Direct Marketing, kicked off the session by focusing on Voice of Customer-driven (VOC) Relationship Marketing. VOC marketing starts with in-depth customer interviews, followed by a multichannel communications strategy based on their requests. Instead of what you think they want, customers get what they want and how they want it. People are more responsive and more likely to opt-in on future offers.

Leslie C. Reiser, interactive marketing director at IBM, also shared valuable VOC knowledge from her experience with infoBOOM, an online community for technology professionals. Based on early VOC insights, she understood that community members wanted, first and foremost, access to IBM and industry experts. The site was tailored accordingly with great results. She found that site visitors were more likely to become members, and members were more likely to purchase IBM products since they were also given the opportunity able to evaluate those products in the online community. By doing her homework, Ms. Reiser knew she was connecting with her audience in the right way, and was able to achieve success from the get-go.

Doug Stein, president of HMS National, which specializes in home warranties, emphasized the importance of building a relationship with every customer. HMS transformed its customer outreach packet from something purely informational to an engaging, personalized letter. Mr. Stein compared HMS to a friend that customers can call when their water heater is broken. You need to be someone customers can rely on, which, he emphasized, also means following through on your promises.

Tools that enable customer engagement seem to emerge daily, but it is essential that companies listen to their customers before creating and implementing their messages. Above all, VOC marketing is about building trust and treating customers the way they want to be treated.

Christina Birgy is an intern in the New York office at ABI marketing public relations. You can reach her at +1 212-529-4754 and cbirgy@abipr.com.