It is Tuesday the 8th here in Las Vegas as we begin the final day of New Media Expo. I’m sitting in a session with Jay Baer, an expert in social media. His topic is about helping, not selling. If you make a sale, that is a transaction and often a one-time occurrence. However, if you help someone, you keep them much longer.
Here are some random notes and pix I got while in the session. Please excuse all the typos as I type this fast on my iPad keyboard in the back of the room during Jay’s session. This is kinda’ like you are able to be here without “being here” if you know what I mean. You get the essence of the presentation, just in case you weren’t able to be in the room. Let me know what you think in the comments section on this page.
Jay has some very good points that relate to Relationship Marketing, or what I call R-Commerce. We have to shape our companies into more of the characteristics of a friend. This approach makes a lot of sense.
If you are truly and inherently useful, your customers will keep you close. Don’t be wacky, but useful. “Friend of Mind” awareness. The company must become useful like your friends are useful.
He is referencing Marcus Sheridan, the Sales Lion. Marcus is one of the most brilliant marketers today. Providing solid, usable information to help customers make their decisions is one of the best ways to connect and engage with customers.
Customers view 30 pages on average. 75% of sales are virtual.
“Relationships with a person in business are a last resort.” Jay Baer
Being relevant for customers at a particular snapshot in time is critical. People use Smartphones as a library to get what they want, when they want it. Make a library of useful information that customers can reference at the moment they need help. Jay’s point is strong and correlates with what is happening with mobil and social Media together.
5 steps to create Youtility
1. Discover Customer Needs. Look at search keywords that people are looking for. Do an internal search and find out what people are looking for on your site. (This is strong!). Use web analytics. Look at social chatter and do customer surveys and interviews. Ask them.
2. Map Needs to Youtility Programs. Can use blog posts to review needs. Can use video reviews of various topics of interest to your people. Could create an eBook. Could also be a printed book. You could also do an event.
3. Market Your Marketing. When you finish creating your product, you are at the starting line, not the finish line. We are in middle of “invitation avalanche” today. It is going to become even more acute that you have to market your marketing. This is where social and content get even more important. “Content is fire, social media is gasoline.” – Jay Baer Use social to promote Youtility first, company second.
4. Make Youtility a Skill, Not a Job. Don’t get one person to do social. Let everyone work in providing useful marketing. Often the CEO is the least trusted in organization. Everyone in your company has something (knowledge) that others need. Insource your Information.
5. Make Youtility a Process, not a Project. Realize that it is never done. You are constantly evolving this project. RunPee.com – app to use when watching movie and when to “run pee” and how much time you have.
Don’t “create content.” Create Youtility. Be inherently useful and your customers will keep you close and beat a path to your door.
JayBaer.com/NMX – to get slides. Book coming in June from Portfolio.
This marketing is farming, not hunting. I like that metaphor & use it in my book on Relationship Marketing.
