In order to create something that people would love to buy and use, you need to know your target market. To do this, you can:
]]>In order to create something that people would love to buy and use, you need to know your target market. To do this, you can:
If your idea is hard to duplicate, you can share it with other people, especially, if you have everything necessary for the start available. If not, it may be not a good idea to share it with the experts.
But one of the signs that the idea is worth implementing is if you hear people saying 'I want this, but I can't find it anywhere' or "Wouldn't it be cool, if..". If you see plenty of such mentions related to your idea on the forums, blogs, then you are on the right track.
Ultimately, it boils down knowing the needs and values that run the people and what they need at some point of time.
Knowing the needs and values of the people is absolutely necessary to provide value to them. As people only do or use what is useful for them, you need to provide absolute, astounding and astonishing value for them to pick up your product and share it among their friends.
One of the most precious things on the planet, becides life, is time. You can't control how fast your time runs: you can only control what you do with it. That's why people also enjoy things they can use easily and that work fast.
Becides providing value to your users/visitors/readers, you need to value their time and efforts. That's why you need to provide excellent experience for them by offering a useful and easy to use product.
Most products can be used in many industries, markets and niches. But in those markets, there are many other products competing for the same audience. To start well, you need to start with a very tight niche with little competition.
In this case, you'll be able to
All of the above will get you prepared to the future life of your product and company. It'll teach you how to live in the current market and progress.
Once you have conquered a small niche and have proven that your product is a success, you can expand. But you need to expand smart to keep the image you have earned within your small niche. That's why you can expand to a market, related to your first one.
For example, if you were producing umbrellas for the business ladies, you can expand to the mens business umbrellas market.
If you want, you may not expand, but you'll need to increase the quality of your product, create more offers for your niche and try to improve your business from the inside to create a stable company.
Once the success comes, you still need to keep providing value to your customers, because that's what have earned you their attention. If you increase too quickly, you may lose the product quality and the customers.
Since people need value, you need to focus on explaining why your product is useful for them: show them why they need to spend their time, efforts and money to use your product.
If you want your target audience to take action, you need to explicitly use call to action in marketing. This way, you will not only get a much higher conversion rate and ROI in your marketing (be it offline or online, especially on landing pages), but will help you get a share of your customers' minds, if you also focus on the benefits.
Nowadays, the web is getting more and more active and interactive. You not only just have to socialize on blogs and forums to know what your audience wants, but you want to be a part of the conversation for people to talk about you.
You can always add a social aspect to your marketing, such as:
If you become a part of the community, your product will also become a part of the peoples' lives, and that's what one of your marketing goals is.
Of course, savvy Internet marketing can't be put on one page. While the above rules significantly increase your chances for success online, you may want to subscribe to this blog's feed to stay updated with more tips on successful Internet marketing.
P.S. A fellow forum member of mine is trying to win a MyBlogLog contest. So if you have time, please join his community (the link is on the top-right) and take part in his $1.5k giveaway contest. Thanks.
]]>There is a very bright future for ecommerce websites. As long as there are needs that should be met, there will be customers. For ecommerce website owners, earning money online can be so easy. If people need your products and services, your website will stay alive as long as you want.
Because of the increasing numbers of online shoppers, there is a need for more ecommerce websites. The problem, however, is that there seem to be several ecommerce websites now. A lot of business persons have answered the call to sell something online. This makes online competition very tough.
Just think about this, if you sell health and beauty products online, there are hundred more several websites like yours. They also offer the same products and services. If there is one customer looking for a health product, he has a hundred choices to choose from. So how can you increase your website’s chance of getting that customer?
This is one thing that most ecommerce website owners do not completely understand. Most of them think that once they have set up their websites, they don’t have to do anything anymore. They will just sit and wait for sales. This may be true ages ago, but with the tough competition now, if you don’t do anything, you won’t get any sales.
Ecommerce websites need two things to consider. First is planning and the second is marketing. Before setting up the website, there must be a thorough planning first. In planning, you must consider the target market, budget, design and other factors that will affect the overall performance of the website.
Second is website marketing. After you have set up your website, you need to work on a marketing campaign. Through marketing, you can make your website more popular and visible to your target market. There are several web marketing options which you can use. The choice of the web marketing option depends on the need of your website.
Remember not to stop working on your website after the set up. If you stop working on it, the sales will also stop. Continually market your website for continuous sales.
This article is written by nPresence, an online web marketing agency that specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, Content Management Systems, Web Design, Conversion Tracking and Analysis. Looking for the hottest web marketing tools? Please see Marketing Website Online.
]]>However, not all the ways to make money [online] are helpful, useful and valuable to customers. In fact, they can be categorized in short term (low value) and long term (high value) methods.
So the people, who are pressed for results, may strand for the short term ones, narrowing their view of the picture and allowing minute interests spoil the overall endeavour.
]]>However, not all the ways to make money [online] are helpful, useful and valuable to customers. In fact, they can be categorized in short term (low value) and long term (high value) methods.
So the people, who are pressed for results, may strand for the short term ones, narrowing their view of the picture and allowing minute interests spoil the overall endeavour.
Is there a way to deliver value to the customers, make profit and remain yourself?
One of the choices that business people and marketers need to make, when promoting their project, is on which benefits they will be focusing on. Naturally, the product should rather be quite useful and all benefits should be considered.
However, sometimes some marketers, probably due to lack of customer research, try to add imaginable benefits or those that don't really relate to people or add value to their lives. Such marketing not only wastes peoples' time, but also doesn't give them a chance to truly appreciate the project. In the end, the customers leave and business owners, marketers and customers are disappointed.
On the other hand, what might work could be:
By paying attention to the people, you not only deliver what they want and allow them to improve their lives, but you also succeed with your business venture. Most of all, you remain yourself, while making your bosses, customers and yourself happy.
The biggest part in successful marketing, as in this case, is remaining yourself. By being who you are, you not only do what you like to do, but you also find unique ways to approach the business, the product, the customers and the market. This will give you a significant advantage over those, who go by the beaten paths, avoiding studying themselves and others.
One more reason to be yourself in marketing is to remain unique. By finding the unique point of your personality, you find a new approach to the people, give another angle to the matter. It not only makes your own work stand out, but the product, too, as, most likely, no one has marketed like you before.
Another benefit of being yourself is that the whole marketing campaign will be pretty much build on one scheme: your own character. While this may not be true in larger companies, if you more or less control product creation and promotion, you can pretty much do as you please (as long as you provide results) and enjoy yourself (while providing results). Did I mention you still need to do something to get results?
Of course, the question easily arises "How do I not get swayed by some quick short-term goals, stay myself and deliver results?" The key here is aligning existing or new methods of marketing your product with how you'd like make your customers happy.
Let's take an example: email content delivery. One on scale there is spam: quick, cheap and very, very scalable. On another scale is your site newsletter: you spend your time to create truly valuable tips for your site visitors and this gives them a reason to subscribe to your newsletter, thus spending their valuable time on your messages.
Which one would you enjoy doing? Which one would give results?
Given that spam bears nothing of your personality, product individuality and ways to build loyalty (who likes receiving spam?), receiving a useful newsletter is something to be truly cherished.
With the useful newsletter you will not only build your recognition, but also show off your expertise, encourage trust and build relationships with your customers. Of course, it'll take lots of time and effort to build your loyal subscription base - but it'll be worth it.
So, short-term spam or long-term? Hate the thing or enjoy the process and learn something new?
It is up to you.
While it requires courage to go the route of being yourself in marketing and modifying existing or finding new ways of marketing, the whole reason behind this approach is to enjoy your life. While the execution of marketing solely relies on your skills, not techniques, you are more or less free to try the new ways to make progress.
]]>You only buy something, when you need it (mostly). Would you expect your customers buy they don't need, then? Suppose, you have answered "I wouldn't!", so we could go on. If not, read the piece, nevertheless.
]]>You only buy something, when you need it (mostly). Would you expect your customers buy they don't need, then? Suppose, you have answered "I wouldn't!", so we could go on. If not, read the piece, nevertheless.
Thus, to truly succeed with the people, you need to create something useful. "Sure, everything that I think of has already been created", you say. Half-true. The other half comes from innovation and from looking at old things under a new angle. Thousands of things appear every year, why can't your product be among them or serve them to a different target audience?
Depending on the industry, people may value a number of things, be it comfort, speed or ability to fix something quick. But above all, there is a number of values people adhere to at all times, such as simplicity, efficiency, protection, etc.
When thinking of the people, who will use whatever useful you come up with, and the value you provide, you will be able to estimate, how successful your product will be. Success is in direct relation with how much value the people will get from the product, so it is absolutely important to provide value to your future customers.
This is where your future customer steps in. You need not only to know what the customer wants, but how much he wants it and why. Why is also astonishingly important, as you'll be informing all your potential customers why your offer is useful and necessary.
As you have probably heard, people buy a product for the benefits it brings, not the features. That's why you'll need to pay special attention to analyzing the needs of your customers, what moves them and how you can tie them with your product. If anything, you can modify the product to suit the newly discovered needs.
Of course, it'll be easier to sell your offer, if your product is unique in a market with sufficient demand. This is called a niche. Finding a niche, along with analyzing the people, is one of the important things to do, too. It not only helps you to stand out, but to provide value to the people in a new way, thus getting you more customers, than you'd get in an saturated market.
Then again, when you sell online, one of the few ways real people contact you is your customer support service. That's why it is important to make a good impression and provide good service to your customers, because they'll remember your company by these contacts. Also, you can convert an unsatisfied customer to a loyal company advocate with quality service.
Another thing to remember is personal approach. Every person is unique and wants to be considered such. That's why personal notes and overall customer personalization is important. By having emotional contact with your customers, you make your product a part of their life experience. Needless to say, they are likely to share about a pleasant experience with their family, friends, co-workers, etc.
If you really want to create something successful, start with the people. Analyze what they want and why they want it. Then give it to them.
This principle may be applied to any part of your online business, be it a product, your website or your promotion strategy. If you focus on your customers, you'll be going the shortest way to their hearts, which along should bring glory to you and your business.
P.S. Read how the principle of building business on customers enjoyment (and thorough keyword research) brings online success.
P.P.S. This article has been recovered from a 1 week oblivion. The seasoned subscribers of this blog could gain more insight be rereading it, while the article may be helpful for the recent subscribers, too. Thanks for reading.
]]>Online world is quite different from the real world. Not only in how people operate there, but also how they perceive it. When surfing the Net, it is impossible to touch, smell (until the devices become wide-spread, that is) or use a tangible product, so you have to make your decisions, based solely on the information you read (which may not be 100% correct and honest, too). Thus, one of the most important things you need to feel before making a decision to buy something online, is whether you trust the seller.
You can judge how competent the seller is and how quality his product is by trust, because trust is built by people, not machines. People develop products, create websites, communicate with the customers and also use the products. If in most (or all) instances you come across a company or a product you trust a company, the chances are you will buy their product or use their services.
Trust gives you something to back on before buying a product (you are sure in its quality), while using it (you are sure you'll get help, if needed) and after (you are sure you'll get an issue fixed or get a new, better version). In short, trusting a company and a product gives you confidence you'll enjoy using it. That's why it is one of the most important things that power your and others buying habits online.
As mentioned before, only humans can build trust. So, when it comes to building trust with your customers, you'll need to make sure your and your staff personality shines through however you communicate with your customers: through your website, via support emails or by phone.
That's why to build trust, you'll need to make sure your message is sincere, in good will and aimed to deliver value to the customer. Only then they'll be able to trust and feel confident when buying from you. To build trust, you may do one of the following:
Read more about credibility at the Stanford University.
As you can see from the list, you can build trust by providing value to your customers and making it obvious to them.
Once we have outlined the direction you need to be going to establish trust with your website, let's see examples of what exactly you need to do:
Yet again, the above list could be continued, but the principles are the same: you need to focus on delivering value to your customers and be open about it with them. It is the people that count, not websites.
When you analyze your website from the point of view of making it more credible, you should, most likely, find more ways to earn trust with your customers, as each case is individual.
While the points above cover the site content (text, images, audio, etc) mostly, you can establish trust by having a professional and a usable website. First, let's see what makes a site look professional:
So, in essence, the site should look like it has been invested in and worked upon. In conjunction with the other points about site content, it should make a nice combination to form a sense of confidence in customers. Apart from visual design, the site should be easy enough to use:
While the list is by no means extensive, it ensures that your customers do what they want with your site and have a good overall experience.
Another reason to build a solid, trusted website is to get into the circle of other established websites in your industry. This means that you will be getting more sophisticated, determined and targeted customers through links, than you would get from marginal communities. You will also be able to build relationships with other people within the industry, which will help you to learn more and get noticed, eventually.
Getting into your industry means that you'll be getting links from other trusted websites and you'll be better off it, as Google begins to give more weight to trust nowadays.
In essense, it is quite an important moment to remember about your website, as it will allow you to build links naturally from trusted, related websites, which will improve your rankings easier. Some respected experts (like Ammon Johns) say that building content to get links is the easiest way to get links, so you should pay attention to this, too.
Sure, focusing on the customers is a great start to build trust. But what are the fundamentals you need to follow and which steps you need to consider for your particular situation? Here, various researches and studies have examined how trust is built on websites, how different people evaluate websites and what you can do about it.
It all comes down to how safe a customer can work with a website, whether he'll lose a lot of time on it and whether there's a chance of him losing money one way or another (phishing, bad product, no product delivered, etc). Paying attention to your customers, making it obvious that you work on overdelivering value to them (via your messages, site design and text, support, etc) will inspire people to prefer you over other less trusted online businesses.
Once you are done with the basics of improving your website, you can focus on building your loyal customer base by being open with them. This should, normally, involve communication via a company blog, various forums, other sites and such. The more value you deliver via the open channels, the better.
]]>Simple put, a niche is a market place where there is high demand for something, but with very little offer. Here are basic charactersistics of a niche and a successful niche product:
As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of competition online. To be able to capture your share of customers, you need to stand out from the rest of your rivals. That's why entering a market spot with litle competition and still high demand is the most sensible thing you can do.
You may think that by entering a smaller market segment you will get less customers. This is not entirely true.
First of all, even a small share of an immense market is large enough to have customers. Secondly, when developing a site in a niche, you'll be able to get top spots in the search engines for non-competitive phrases, related to your product.
It is not as easy in a competitive niche. In a full [of rivals] niche, you won't get noticed from the search engines - you'll get even less traffic than you could get in a less competitive niche.
When looking for a niche, you'll need to analyze both the demand and the competitors in the industry to ensure that you can sell your product or service as effectively as possible.
Naturally, you'll need to keep your potential product in mind when you analyze the market.
It may be hard to find a niche, as there are billions of people and billions of ideas. Clearly, you'll have to be very specific about the niche you want to occupy to be able to stand out and offer something unique and useful.
Finding a niche may be easier if you find a unique benefit of your product or service first.
Here is what you need to do to identify a niche:
First of all, you'll need to know if there is a demand for your product or service. A demand can be spotted in the following ways:
Here are a couple of possible situations when you can occupy the niche:
Seeking for an untapped demand is like seeking a seat in a crowded compartment. It is hard to see it, and it is likely that someone has already seen it, but when you notice it, you wonder "Why is this seat free?" and take it. (Of course, in real life, you'd rather offer the seat to an elderly or a young lady, but not so in business, right?)
Basically, you have already seen a niche when you tried searching for something you needed but didn't find it. Creating something useful for yourself and then distributing it creates a niche product.
Alternatively, instead of seeking a niche and being the first to be there (which is the best thing you can do), you can join an uncompetitive industry.
The easiest way to identify competition is through the search engines. Just enter a phrase that would describe your potential product the the most precisely and see for yourself.
When analyzing your possible competitors, pay attention to the following:
Sometimes, you find yourself interested in a particular niche, but there already are some competitors. Here are a couple of possible situations you may find:
Naturally, with each of the competitive situation, you can take different types of action:
Of course, the last course of action may be applied to any competitive situation to actually offer the best product and be the undisputed industry leader, but with highest competition the latter alternative is the only option to actually be noticed among the others.
Establising yourself in a niche may save your hours, days, weeks, months and years of work as well as from going bankrupt before really starting your business. If you find a niche, create a unique, useful product, most likely, you'll be a leader in it and will reach success easier. As mentioned earlier, building your product on a unique benefit should really help you.
]]>Nowadays, you not only need to have a good looking website, but the site has to do well with the search engines and, most importantly, with your visitors. You need to consider such aspects as website usability, site copy (copywriting), accessibility, search engine optimization and what not. But most of all, you need to shift the focus to your customers from your website.
The new approach to marketing is based on focusing on the customers, even when working on the website. This involves customer research, which, in turn, involves keyword research, focus on the benefits to the customers and ethical website promotion.
Now, to be successful, you need to give to get something in return. When applies to websites, it means providing value to your visitors in terms of website usability and interesting and entertaining content.
Yet another way of smart Internet marketing is creating quality content. Though this may be viewed as a continuation of the 'give to get' principle, this field is so large it deserves its own pedestal. As the Internet is based on pages (with content) and links, you need to build content to be able to get links, which will, in turn, drive direct and indirect (search engine) traffic.
When it doesn't end with creating a website and filling it with good stuff. You also need to optimize it to achieve the maximum efficiency. When improving your site for the visitors in website usability, site copy and accessibility, you'll gain that extra edge to be the best in your niche. Today, this is the only way to succeed online.
As you may suspect, Internet marketing doesn't end after website optimization. You also need to promote your website. What is so good about having great websites is that it is easy to market them - everyone needs something to learn, to have fun or buy. That's why your easy to use website, full of interesting or entertaining information, will be enticing enough to keep visitors on the site, make them talk about you and link to you.
Surely, Internet marketing doesn't end here as well. But since we were speaking of the new principles of Internet marketing (which are the old, forgotten ones, to tell the truth), we'll stop here. Thus, if you want not only to be competitive but to be ahead of some, most or all of your online rivals, you'd rather have superb looking site, with great content and optimized enough to bring maximum possible conversions and traffic.
]]>The key to having a success in your business is providing what your customers want. Without this, they simply won't be your customers. To learn what your customers want, becides a simple market research, you need to build relationships with your customers to get honest feedback. This way, it'll be easier for you to provide what your target audience needs.
As the only way to interest your customer is to give something to him/her, you'll need to actually give something out for free and useful before you are able to sell anything. There can be many things that can make you stand out in the eyes of your customers:
The common characteristic of the above items is that you will provide value to your customers without them actually paying you first. First, you give them something intangible, then they buy from you. That simple.
Building relationships with your customers, based on trust, will inspire your potential customer to talk with you, buy from you, visit your site and tell his/her family, friends, co-workers and such about you. By providing value and building solid relationships with your customer you not only gain a happy customer and a sale, but also an advocate for your business among other potential customers.
By the way, if you have unique, quality content on your site, you'll not only increase your conversions, but you'll get more traffic from the search engines and incoming relevant links, too.
Providing value is not a simple characteristic of what you need to do. This is a principle you need to drive your business with. If your product or service don't deliver quality and value to the customer, you'd rather reconsider your decision to have business at all.
On the other hand, by following the principle of providing value, you will be able not only to boost your customer relationships, but also learn new ways of promoting your product, be it a unique benefit or other related websites, which can link to your valuable site/product.
]]>Here is a list of efficient paid website marketing methods:
]]>Here is a list of efficient paid website marketing methods:
Though some of the above website promotion methods give you links, you should be targetting at getting targeted visitors and maybe links. Let's see each method in greater detail.
PPC is the easiest way to get traffic to your site. The peculiar thing about Pay per Click advertising is that the results solely depend on how you setup your PPC campaign. If you use Google AdWords, pay attention to developing quality landing pages and following other PPC strategies as well.
When you run out of money, the traffic stops. That's why you need to use other ways of website promotion, which will last for longer than that.
Press releases is perhaps one of the methods that gives you the largest exposure, though not necessarily targeted traffic. The peculiar thing about press releases distribution is that whatever you publish should be extremely newsworthy, interesting and written in a journalist style in the third person.
When you pay about $30-$100 for press release distribution, you can include text links in the press release body. This will increase the chances of your PR readers visit your site. Also you gain a semi-relevant link from a trusted site, as well.
If you don't write, it'd be smart to hire a professional press release writer (www.PRWeb.com offers such services as well, among others).
Directory submission is perhaps the cheapest way to get almost irrelevant links. But if you have the budget, getting any links you can get from the free 500+ directories for $100-$250.
In the nearest future (even right now, perhaps) directory submission will be totally useless, unless you submit to paid quality directories, like www.business.com.
Buying text links is perhaps one of the most controversial site promotion methods. Generally, if you buy a visible link from a topical site, you get targeted traffic - and a relevant link, too.
The thing is that if you buy a link below the fold (the visitor will have to scroll to see the link) and from an irrelvant website, you won't get traffic and link weight as well. Not to mention that if you buy from a low quality website, a bought link may be detected.
One of the reputable link brokers is www.text-link-ads.com
Also, buying links may be quite expensive when compared to other site marketing methods, such as hiring a copywriter to produce quality content.
Though sponsoring an event may not get you a link (it should, though, if you sponsor an online event, contest, etc), you can build your brand, if the event is related to what you offer. For instance, you can sponsor a race and get your running shoes ad there.
Depending on what you sponsor and how much you donate, the results may differ. Generally, do this, if you have a nice budget so you won't be disappointed with the investment. Remember, whatever you do, provide value.
One of the popular site promotion ways is running a contest. You can run a contest among your existing customers on the best article about your industry and your customers using your product. This will not only get you a lot of quality content, but relevant link, word of mouth and will give you a chance to communicate with your customers.
Generally, you need to make sure that everyone has a chance to win. You can do this by having 3-7+ places, great prizes and several nominations. If you have a solid budget, running a contest will be a good move.
Though hiring a copywriter can't be directly related to site marketing, you can get your copywriter to create a lot of quality content to get targeted traffic and natural links.
As I am all for quality content, as you may have noticed, I'd consider this one of the best investments you can make, besides optimizing your website.
Basically, what you want to do is to get noticed among your target audience. To succeed in website promotion, you need to find where your target audience roams and appear providing value. The more you give, the more you get, generally.
In this respect, just thinking of the exact traffic or link numbers will only distract you. Think of how much of the targeted audience will see your message and respond to it.
]]>Is the client satisfied or absolutely thrilled to be yours? This can be a great difference, right? That's why it is important to ensure that you do anything to make your customers happy to ensure most of them become your repeat clients and bring more people to your business.
]]>Is the client satisfied or absolutely thrilled to be yours? This can be a great difference, right? That's why it is important to ensure that you do anything to make your customers happy to ensure most of them become your repeat clients and bring more people to your business.
One of the most important things in life is enjoying it (I'd even say that this is the goal of life, but who I am to tell you how to live?). There are lots of reasons one can be such, and, generally, all people try to keep something in their lives that allows them to enjoy their life.
That's why making your clients not only satisfied, but also eternally grateful for doing business with you should become your primary occupation, if you want them to be your loyal customers and spread the word about you.
Before you can actually brighten someone's day, you need to know why that happens. First of all, you can think what makes you happy, while buying anything online or offline. Customer service? A bonus? A discount?
Generally, something makes you happy, if:
In essence, it all swirls around providing more, than a person is expecting, considering or thinking about. Needless to say, you can go use your imagination and knowledge of your customers to give to your customers.
Examples of things to do could be:
As you can see from the above, a lot can be improved with customer service. One reason that it is of great importance is that your customer service is the only way your customers have contact with you. Otherwise, they just browse your website (which should be communicating something, too, of course).
Obviously, a website, which the people use, plays a role here, too. If your customers find what they want quickly and easily, they'll enjoy visiting the website, which will asociate your company with a pleasant experience, thus increasing trust and increasing conversions. (Read more about improving websites.)
Basically, the more you make your customers aware that you value them by providing extra value to them, the happier they will be and the more people they will mention you to.
One of the important aspects of delivering value is in setting the right expectations with customers. If you say you are the best, you have to be the best (before you say that). If you say your customer service is the best, you ought to deliver.
It is important to set the right expectations, so the people would not be disappointed, when you do not come up to their expectations (maybe they were imagining everything too positively?) and when one of the factors you promised fails (which can happen).
Even if you are not the best, you need to be honest with your customers, then they won't feel cheated or as lesser quality customers.
As a happy customer is the one, who has gotten more, than he has thought of, you need to set modest expectations, so that you could deliver more, than you promise. Then the customers will be pleasantly surprised by your great efforts to be a good service.
Generally, you simply need to provide great service and/or product to your customers. But to give you another edge to win, you need to deliver more, than your customers expect. This partly depends on you, so you don't set unreasonable expectations and do provide great service.
Also, you need to be great, anyways, because if you underpromise, the customers may not be impressed by your offer at all. So the best strategy would be is to balance between taking pains to deliver great value, to be the best, but not overly excite your customers over what they'll be getting. Let them discover the value themselves.
One of the "discovery factors" is surprise. If no one has promised to give you a 20% discount, would you be more thrilled to receive it, than if you were told you'd get one anyway? Of course, you don't need to limit your marketing campaigns by saying nothing, but keeping some of your great efforts secret should be just enough to create the magnificent feeling of great service.
Read a good list of how to surprise your customers and a very good example from Dave Balch.
Overall, how you deliver to your customers will build your brand, because a brand is the sum of everything that people have experienced with your company. To have a good brand, you need to make sure you do everything possible to satisfy, inspire and enliven your customers.
Of course, it'd be unreasonable not to take advantage of the strategy and not to get some serious buzz going around your business. The best way, of course, is to provide great value to the customers. This one along should make you remarkable.
Also, you can build a platform for communicating with your customers, be it through your blog, a forum (or both), or just via e-mail. Talking with your customers about what they need, how they'd like you to improve the product and so on will help you not only to improve your product or service, but to also gain a couple of loyal brand advocates.
Other things could be giving a customer a discount, if he refers a friend to you (now that's basic, right?). A better way would be to give random or selected customers discounts and give them a coupon or two for their friends. Another one could be to give away a complimentary product or service (such as a how to guide for nearly anything, for example).
The key rules here would be to overdeliver to your new customer, give him/her a chance to share your great service/product and to pleasantly surprise the receiving side. Then, you need to give your customers an easy way to share the value you give to them - it could be even more important, than what you give, too.
In general, if you only stick to the direction of overdelivering value to your customers, you should be on the right track. Depending on how well you communicate with your customers and how fearless you are in going forward, you should be able to find new ways to provide value to your customers and make sure they enjoy being your customers. So, go and make a customer or two happy now.
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