I was in Minneapolis last week speaking at an excellent conference called Converted by a company named LeadPages. I was fortunate to hear dozens of the latest and greatest tactics being used in a wide variety of industries and organizations selling both online, offline, and everywhere in between to generate more conversations and create more revenue.
For example, I learned about the up & coming use of ‘bots’ to communicate with your customers through Facebook. Yes, it’s true. You can program your very own robot to communicate with your customers on platforms like Facebook Messenger. To your fans, followers, and customers, it almost feels real. I say ‘almost’ because if the customer eventually finds out they’ve been talking to a robot, the whole thing falls apart.
This was just one of the more interesting tactics I had heard-and big brands like CNN, TechCrunch, and 1-800-Flowers are already jumping on board. I had a little fun with it by creating a robot version of myself and allowed people at the conference to connect with me on Facebook. When they messaged me expecting some automated response, I personally communicated with them to show them I had, in fact, developed the most powerful tool of all.
I saw and witnessed some astonishingly powerful tactics and techniques used to generate more leads, increases in web traffic, and better conversions. But it was the same old story, and the same old song and dance. The conversions, the tactics, and the tools, they’re all fun and offer a glimpse of the sexy, glitzy, glamorous side of marketing. And in many cases, they can help us generate more conversions and more sales, but at what expense?
I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Cialdini last year at Alan Weiss’ fantastic Thought Leadership event. We discussed how his seminal work, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, took almost ten years to go from a totally obscure book to a bestselling cult classic in the world of sales & marketing (and it remains so to this day.)
The problem, as I’ve mentioned in my new book, The Customer Loyalty Loop, is that the laws of persuasion and the top conversion tactics might help you get the first sale, but they might prevent you from getting the third, fourth, or fifth sale. The organizers of the conference understood this and planned the conference to logically take the customer through the entire customer lifecycle. I was one of the final speakers of the event.
The simple lesson I left the attendees with is one you’ve heard me say over and over again. All the bells and whistles will never replace the human touch. What are you doing to create long-lasting relationships with your clients?
On Thursday, I’m hosting the second annual Evergreen Summit where I’ll walk through each step of the Customer Loyalty Loop with pragmatic, actionable, and valuable exercises.
And of course, we will cover the fun, profitable growth tactics and strategies, but we’ll do so as a part of a cohesive strategy – one that allows us to continue to maximize the value of every lead we’ve attracted, and every prospect we’ve engaged, and every customer we’ve converted. From there, we’ll take about how to take them a place of happily ever after and repeat the process over and over again.
We have one VIP seat left at the Summit, and we have ample opportunity for you to tune in virtually and remotely (I’ll show you how you can get a free pass below).
Your Key Challenge: The next time someone from your team comes to you with a new tool, tactic, platform, or neat little widget like a ‘bot,’ make sure they answer this question before allowing them to proceed:
“How does this help us improve our relationship with our existing customers, or enable us to serve our prospective clients better?”
Only proceed if you’re satisfied that they’ve thought this through and aren’t just grasping for the latest shiny thing.
A Secondary Challenge: Sign up for the Evergreen Summit’s virtual viewing experience and don’t miss out on this year’s event. Don’t miss this: http://TheEvergreenSummit.com (depending on the wifi in the room, we’re hoping for a full live stream of the event, but if we run into issues you’ll have streaming access to the recordings within 24 hours)
Here’s how you can kill two birds with one stone. My publisher just informed me that The Customer Loyalty Loop is printing and should be shipping very soon. If you pre-order 30 copies (only $9.80 a copy!) of The Customer Loyalty Loop for your team, and forward me your receipt, I will provide the virtual viewing experience to the Evergreen Summit free of charge.
Now how’s that for a fantastic offer?
Good thing you’re not talking to my robot!
